5 Laws For Effective Motivation
When we approach motivation as a leader, we should have several different ideas in mind in order to be successful longterm. Often times new leaders will use a single approach, and you will find you are getting a “hit and miss” results. Your top performers continue to be at the top, and the bottom stays at the bottom. Let’s take a look at 5 Laws For Successful Motivation that will even the playing field for all.
The Law of Face-the vast majority of leaders use money or other tangible items as their primary method to motivate their team. But our number one law for effective motivation is that “Nothing will be more effective or mean more to your team members than to get in front of them and say thank you”!! Period. Far too many leaders feel that as long as they “pay for performance” and provide rewards for good behavior, that’s all they need to do. Get in front of your people when they deserve positive reinforcement and say thank you.
The Law of One-simply put, every person on your team values different things. Leaders need to get personal with their people, getting to know just who they are and what they value. One size does not fit all when it comes to motivation. We should be using several different approaches to our motivation to maximize performance for all team members.
The Law of Repeat-at the core of motivation is the fact that we want to reward the behavior and performance that produces the results we desire and that is aligned with organization goals and objectives. Many leaders “assume” that every team member clearly understands what is expected of them. In reality, many leaders only interact with team members when they do something wrong. This “leave alone Zap” approach only defines the behavior we do not want. Our motivation needs to clearly show our people the performance and behavior we DO WANT.
The Law of Time-if you want to receive the biggest bang for your buck, place your reward as close to the behavior as you can. The longer you wait, the less people will relate the reward with the behavior you are looking for. The sooner you can reward, the more “followers” you will see begin to behave in a similar fashion.
The Law of Clarity-and finally, we need to make sure that our rewards and recognition clearly define why we are providing this reward. All team members must understand what they can do to join in on this recognition. If you have multiple job functions on your team, make sure the recognition adds clarity across each job function.
As the leader of a team, if you can apply each and every one of these laws to your approach to motivation, you will find new “top performers” over time because it takes everyone into consideration and clearly defines the performance you desire and reward.
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