For most of us, running a business is about a lot more than
just making the numbers. If that alone was
the sole reason for turning up at work then I’d wager most of us would find it
hard to get out of bed in the morning.
We spend a lot of time doing it so work should be enjoyable
– it should be a creative pursuit, it should be personally fulfilling and it
should keep us growing. Such aspirations
are not just altruism they are the key to productivity for most of us in the workplace
- entrepreneurs but also for the people we employ.
The problem, of course, is that it’s easy to lose sight of
these aims in the daily grind as we negotiate the endless tension between doing
rewarding work and just getting things done. It’s therefore worthwhile taking
time to gauge your company’s culture and assess your own ability to help both yourself
and your people stay intrinsically motivated at work.
Do not throw money at
the problem
Do you and your team stay on top form and keep productive when
the work just piles up? How do you all remain inspired by your working
environment when the tyranny of bottom line is ever present?
If you feel you might be wanting in either respect the last thing
you need to do is throw money at the problem.
Extrinsic rewards like more pay or bonuses are unlikely to resolve
motivation problems or increase individual enjoyment of labour. In fact, a recent study by the UK Association
of Accounting Technicians (AAT) found that eight in ten people would turn down
a big salary increase if it meant working with people they loathed or an
environment they didn't like.
In contrast, the top reasons reported in the survey for
wanting a job were responsibility and recognition whilst the top two reasons
for staying with a company were having a good relationship with colleagues and
enjoying the job role. Experience tells me that these aspirations are in no way
unique to Accounting Technicians, existing in pretty much all of us.
The implicit bargain
It’s always struck me too that the implicit bargain that is
struck in any employer/employee relationship is that a company's ultimate commitment
to an employee is to grow their personal market worth in exchange for the
employee’s work in increasing the firm's market value. So how does your company
grow its employees, not just I terms of their capabilities but as individuals?
There are, of course, good and bad ways to achieve this. Career
paths dictated by specific benchmarks or pre-determined timelines smack of the
industrial age `nose to the grindstone` attitudes that certainly won’t attract
and develop the best teams these days.
The reality is most significant people development happens
not on periodic training courses, in seminar rooms or in response to targets but
as the product of day-to-day experience and challenge.
So it’s important to assess how you balance risk and reward
in your team. Do you allow or even enable people to take risks? Do you push people
outside of their comfort zone into leadership positions? Do you give people projects
for which they don’t appear wholly qualified? Do you trust people with big
decisions, even if they are initially intimidated by the task?
Stretching without
fear
This is important because for everyone the opportunity to
deepen and add to skills is the key to staying stimulated. That means ensuring the mentoring needed to
develop skills in leading projects, managing team dynamics, and constructively giving
or receiving feedback exists in spades throughout the company. And that means
you as well, entrepreneur. Consider
hiring non-executive directors, get a personal business coach and make sure you
learn from your people.
Personal development apart, as an entrepreneur few things
are more motivating than enabling personal and professional growth in others. The
freedom to stretch themselves without fear and seek original and creative
solutions will ensure their day-to-day work is replete with exciting and
challenging opportunities for learning and ownership.
Conflict minimisation
The aim is always to minimise the conflict between the work that
people want to be doing and the work that must be done so it doesn’t turn into
a stultifying unfulfilling downward spiral. Try also removing the quotidian goals
and tasks from yourself and your team, at least for a few hours, so that you
can re-connect with the principles and work that inspired you originally.
By participating in activities or tasks that are outside of
delivering the bottom line or involve different behaviours than the day-to-day,
such as a non-profit work, academic teaching or a `blue sky` thinking projects,
people of all sorts can become dramatically
re-energised and refocused.
Of course, as any entrepreneur battling to keep their business
afloat will attest, the ability to self-motivate in this respect is critical
and essential to identify in people selection.
But the impact of self-motivation alone can be limited if company
culture, structure, and growth potential don't support it.