What’s the secret to motivation and engagement?
One of the challenges many organisations face when working towards Operational Excellence is getting everyone motivated to engage in continuous improvement activities.
Yet, without it, improvement activity remains in the hands of a few dedicated individuals. This small band subsequently has limited impact and can soon get frustrated and demotivated themselves.
It can be tempting to think that others in the organisation just don’t care and can’t be bothered to get involved, but the reality can be a lot more subtle and complex than that.
There can be many and varied reasons for lack of engagement and poor motivation, so it’s time to get into some basic problem solving. Without being clear about the cause, any corrective action we take may be trying to solve the wrong problem.
Firstly, consider roughly where the difficulties lie. Are they lacking:
Knowledge – people don’t know WHAT to do. They lack clarity on the task, the process to be followed, the standards to apply and so on.
Skill – they are clear on the task but don’t really know HOW to do it. They may even have the theory, yet can’t put it into practice.
Attitude – they just don’t seem “fired up” to do it. Maybe they lack a reason WHY to encourage them, or maybe something else is putting them off.
Opportunity – it is unclear to them WHEN they are able to get involved.
It’s important to get to the root cause too, so make sure you take the time to dig beneath the surface of your initial responses.
A great method to do this is to use the 5 Whys technique. For every answer you give above, ask yourself “and why is that?” until it becomes clear you’ve got to something significant.
In many cases, you’ll end up with the same root cause from several starting points, so you can be pretty clear what to work on. If not, then you may have multiple causes requiring different actions to resolve.
At this stage it’s really important to approach the task with some humility and recognise that there may be things that you as a leader may be doing (or not doing) that are part of the problem. These may require you to change. Are you creating the right conditions to get the results that you are looking for?
Once you’re clear on where the issue lies, it’s time to plan some corrective actions. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Lack of Knowledge – WHAT to do
This is perhaps the easiest to deal with. In simple terms, everyone needs to know:
What is required. This doesn’t even need lots of detail. Avoid over-specifying and trust that your teams can work things out for themselves. Focus on outcomes and any ‘boundaries’ on action. The latter may be procedures, standards to apply or limits on freedom of individual action.
How success will be determined. This may be by numerical measures or some other criteria. What’s important is that everyone knows the answer to “how do I know I’ve done a good job?”
This is a challenge of communication. We can often think we’ve been clear, yet don’t check. A great learning I had was “communication is what you get back”, so make sure to build in feedback.
Lack of Skill – HOW to do
Again, not so hard. We can be clear about the skills needed and assess the team member’s ability in each area. Any gaps can be filled by a combination of training and practice. It’s important to include appropriate feedback and coaching to ensure that the necessary standards are achieved.
Lack of Motivation – WHY to do
A lot of the time the issue can be simply that people don’t know why the task matters or has to be carried out in a certain way. Explaining this clearly can make the difference between giving your team a list of things to do and engaging them in the mission in a way that really fires them up.
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders.
Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY - WRITER, POET AND PIONEERING AVIATOR
Another motivational issue is that team members may have experienced a bad reaction in the past when they’ve taken the bold step to ‘have a go’. Perhaps they’ve been criticised for what they’ve done or how they’ve gone about it, either by their peers or their managers. We need to look out for these – in ourselves as well as others – and change what is said and done.
Finally, it’s important to recognise and reinforce efforts to engage and get involved. Positive reinforcement and encouragement works wonders for motivation.
Lack of Opportunity – WHEN to do
Often it is assumed that, once everyone is clear about WHAT, HOW and WHY, improvements will just happen. However, there are other conditions to be satisfied before team members can put their skills and enthusiasm to work.
Time – often it is assumed that improvement activity will become part of the day-to-day work, but this is rarely the case, even in very mature teams. To encourage improvement activity, specific time and resource is needed:
Time set aside to work specifically on improvement ideas.
Time for feedback and coaching on how the daily work is carried out.
Freedom to fail – an overlooked aspect is that any improvement is an experiment and that success is not guaranteed. Of course, it’s important to take time to anticipate any difficulties to minimise risk, but lack of subsequent success should be seen as a learning opportunity and a building block for further experiments rather than failure. Removing the fear is an essential component for greater engagement.
Time for action?
I wonder which of the above struck home for you? Probably more than one, so there are a few more next steps to take that can make a huge difference to motivation and engagement.
If you’re still not sure, consider who else might eb able to offer some valuable insight into what’s going on with your teams.
In my experience, give the right environment, most team members will respond positively to opportunities to make improvements. The leader’s job can often be to just get out of the way and let them get on with it. The benefits will soon start to flow in.