Skip to content
Tiatra, LLCTiatra, LLC
Tiatra, LLC
Information Technology Solutions for Washington, DC Government Agencies
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services
    • IT Engineering and Support
    • Software Development
    • Information Assurance and Testing
    • Project and Program Management
  • Clients & Partners
  • Careers
  • News
  • Contact
 
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services
    • IT Engineering and Support
    • Software Development
    • Information Assurance and Testing
    • Project and Program Management
  • Clients & Partners
  • Careers
  • News
  • Contact

Mastering the art of motivation

Good CIOs don’t get things done. They build an IT organization that gets things done.

This starts with the dreaded organizational chart, but only because the org chart is the manager’s tool for documenting what responsibilities have been delegated and to whom. In an effective organization, it should go without saying, everyone knows who’s responsible for what.

But employees knowing what they’re responsible for isn’t the same thing as their caring a whole bunch about their responsibilities. That takes motivation.

Demotivating employees: What not to do

Before a leader tries to motivate those who report to them, they can first pursue the easier goal of not demotivating them. All that takes is decreasing your level of arrogance, disrespect, and unfairness. If you aren’t an arrogant, disrespectful, unfair dink you can proceed to the motivational starting gate.

How do you know? Ask someone you trust. If you aren’t sure whom you can trust you can engage a consultant to interview the employees in your organization, promising them complete confidentiality in exchange for their candor.

Motivating employees: What doesn’t work

There are those whose worldviews are built around the movies and television shows they watch. According to this Hollywood perspective, motivation is a matter of charisma and inspiring speeches.

Good luck with that. Charisma, like physics’ account of the electromagnetic force, follows a sort of inverse square law. Even for those who have it, its effect diminishes with distance.

Speaking of physical laws and their applicability, inspiring speeches resemble radioactivity — they have a half-life. Following your delivery of even the most inspiring speech, figure employees’ level of inspiration will diminish by half every day that follows.

What else doesn’t work? Financial rewards. Money, in the form of “Great job! Here’s your reward for it!” doesn’t work. Give someone a bonus as a reward for putting forth extra effort and all you’ve done is raise the baseline. A bonus becomes what’s expected, so the next bonus will need to be bigger. Otherwise, the absence of a bonus turns into a demotivator.

And that’s for the employee who received the bonus. For everyone else, who in their own eyes also went above and beyond, not getting a bonus when bonuses are a possibility isn’t merely demotivating. It will tick them right off.

And that’s before you take into account an effect described in Alfie Kohn’s groundbreaking Punished by Rewards: In a deep and fundamental way, financial incentives are insults, because what they communicate is that you think you have to bribe employees to get them to perform well.

To be clear, money does have its place, but only in that it’s used as an expression of gratitude, not as an incentive. Money, that is, is a business’s loudest voice. Saying “thank you” is motivating. Delivering a bonus and explaining that it’s the company’s way of expressing its appreciation?

That can work — but be judicious about it. It can still foster resentment on the part of everyone else.

Most often, thanking the team, not an individual, works better and with fewer unintended consequences.

What works

Want motivated employees? The first step on the road to what HR now likes to call “engagement” is to connect the dots — to make sure every single member of your organization understands, and can explain when asked, with pride, how what they do creates value for the company’s Real Paying Customers.

Not how they made a fellow employee in a different spot on the org chart happy, not that there’s anything wrong with that. But an employee who doesn’t know how their efforts create important results are unlikely to care very much about what they’re paid to do.

What works best

Once you’ve helped employees connect their dots, the best way to further motivate them is also the cheapest, easiest, and has the fewest unintended consequences.

Compliment them on a job well done, whenever they’ve done a job well enough to be worth noting.

Sure, there are wrong ways to use compliments as motivators. First and foremost the employee you’re complimenting must value your opinion. If they don’t they’ll write off your compliment as just so much noise.

Second, a compliment from you should not be an easy compliment to earn. “I really like your belt,” isn’t going to inspire someone to work inventively and late.

Third, with few exceptions compliments should be public. There’s little reason for you to be embarrassed about being pleased with someone’s efforts.

With one caveat: Usually you’ll have one or two in your organization who routinely perform exceptionally well, but also one or two who are plodders — good enough and steady enough to keep around; not good enough or steady enough to earn your praise.

Find a way to compliment them in public anyway — perhaps because you prize their reliability and lack of temperament.

There must be something that qualifies. Because if there isn’t … why are you keeping them around at all?

IT Leadership, Staff Management
Read More from This Article: Mastering the art of motivation
Source: News

Category: NewsJanuary 16, 2024
Tags: art

Post navigation

PreviousPrevious post:CIOs confront generative AI’s workplace X factorNextNext post:Cloud e costi: quali strumenti usano i CIO per evitare la bolletta-shock

Related posts

휴먼컨설팅그룹, HR 솔루션 ‘휴넬’ 업그레이드 발표
May 9, 2025
Epicor expands AI offerings, launches new green initiative
May 9, 2025
MS도 합류··· 구글의 A2A 프로토콜, AI 에이전트 분야의 공용어 될까?
May 9, 2025
오픈AI, 아시아 4국에 데이터 레지던시 도입··· 한국 기업 데이터는 한국 서버에 저장
May 9, 2025
SAS supercharges Viya platform with AI agents, copilots, and synthetic data tools
May 8, 2025
IBM aims to set industry standard for enterprise AI with ITBench SaaS launch
May 8, 2025
Recent Posts
  • 휴먼컨설팅그룹, HR 솔루션 ‘휴넬’ 업그레이드 발표
  • Epicor expands AI offerings, launches new green initiative
  • MS도 합류··· 구글의 A2A 프로토콜, AI 에이전트 분야의 공용어 될까?
  • 오픈AI, 아시아 4국에 데이터 레지던시 도입··· 한국 기업 데이터는 한국 서버에 저장
  • SAS supercharges Viya platform with AI agents, copilots, and synthetic data tools
Recent Comments
    Archives
    • May 2025
    • April 2025
    • March 2025
    • February 2025
    • January 2025
    • December 2024
    • November 2024
    • October 2024
    • September 2024
    • August 2024
    • July 2024
    • June 2024
    • May 2024
    • April 2024
    • March 2024
    • February 2024
    • January 2024
    • December 2023
    • November 2023
    • October 2023
    • September 2023
    • August 2023
    • July 2023
    • June 2023
    • May 2023
    • April 2023
    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    Categories
    • News
    Meta
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org
    Tiatra LLC.

    Tiatra, LLC, based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, proudly serves federal government agencies, organizations that work with the government and other commercial businesses and organizations. Tiatra specializes in a broad range of information technology (IT) development and management services incorporating solid engineering, attention to client needs, and meeting or exceeding any security parameters required. Our small yet innovative company is structured with a full complement of the necessary technical experts, working with hands-on management, to provide a high level of service and competitive pricing for your systems and engineering requirements.

    Find us on:

    FacebookTwitterLinkedin

    Submitclear

    Tiatra, LLC
    Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.