January 9, 2025 • 30 mins
Unlock the secrets to a motivated workforce and revolutionize your leadership approach with insights that can propel your company to new heights. Imagine a workplace brimming with enthusiasm, dedication, and a proactive attitude—where absenteeism and disengagement are relics of the past. Join us, John Wandolowski and Greg Powell, as we unpack the pivotal role of motivation in boosting employee engagement and productivity, drawing on expert insights from Greg Goodlife and Jennifer Post. We even use a classic moment from "Office Space" to illustrate the consequences of low motivation, making this episode both enlightening and relatable.
Leadership isn't just about setting goals; it's about inspiring your team and aligning them with the company's mission. We explore the art of clear communication, recognizing achievements, and fostering a positive work environment, spotlighting companies like Microsoft, Alphabet Inc., and Salesforce as exemplary models. Dive into the nuances of direct engagement and personalized career counseling, where we share personal anecdotes and strategies from our own leadership journey. Plus, learn from my book, "Building Your Leadership Toolbox," on how these practices can nurture a motivated workforce. If you're eager to transform your leadership style and elevate your team's performance, this episode is your guide.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello everyone and welcome to our podcast, success
Secrets and Stories.
I'm your host, john Wondolowski, and I'm here with my co-host
and friend, greg Powell.
Greg, hey, everybody, yeah, sotoday we're going to be talking
about exploring a concept,working with employees, and
what's really important ismotivation and what does a
(00:38):
motivated staff look like.
So, trying to give you an ideaof things that we think is
helpful in leadership,motivation is sometimes one of
those.
What they consider soft skills,but it's really not, and to
understand that it is yourresponsibility to motivate your
staff, but engage in your staff.
(01:01):
Part of that is really where wesaw the article and what Greg
had highlighted.
This is an article by GregGoodlife and he's the CEO and
founder of Cyber Backer.
Motivation affects behavior inall areas of life.
At work, being motivated drivesemployees to engage in what
(01:25):
they are doing to achieve thebest possible result.
Motivated employees are likelyto be coming to work happy to
tackle challenges and to putforth their best effort,
resulting in higher productivity.
They're engaged, which is thesecret.
Motivation pushes employees toreach their company and their
(01:47):
career goals while making themost of their work opportunities
.
Motivated employees oftenexpand their skill sets.
They want to make themselvesbetter.
They want to connect with theircolleagues.
This, in turn, can help theteam to be better with their
customers and can help thecompany to succeed and grow.
It's like the buzzword here isengagement.
(02:10):
Other terms that describemotivation.
Employee engagement is thelevel of enthusiasm and
dedication that employees puttowards their work in their
workplace.
It measures how they arecommitted to investing in their
employees, in their work and inthe organizational success.
Employee drive is the internalfeeling that pushes employees to
(02:32):
do things and is oftendescribed as a basic force that
compels people to act.
It's different from differentpeople.
There's different things thatare motivating, which is the
reason why people do what theydo.
I remember I started off andmotivation for me was being a
mechanic and being the bestmechanic possible, and the
(02:54):
people that I knew were greatmechanics.
That piece of understandingwhat drives the employee is
engaging that employee to askthose kind of questions.
Another term is employeeenthusiasm.
That comes across when someonewants to be at work, who's
willing to take on that harderjob to get something done.
There is another key withinmotivation.
(03:18):
Employee motivation is moraleand high morale in terms of
employees feel supported orcared for and are invested in
their jobs.
They have positiverelationships with their
coworkers and managers.
Low morale, which we've allexperienced too, is where
employees feel unsupported anddisconnected from work and from
their peers, maybe even isolated.
(03:40):
They may experience conflicts,burnout or poor performance.
And then there's eageremployees that are willing to
acquire new skills and knowledgeto excel in their fields.
They also have a growth mindsetand view challenges as
opportunity for personal andprofessional development.
(04:01):
Now all that kind of sets thestage for the next level, greg.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Thanks, john.
There are some signs thatemployees are not motivated.
I've got a picture here thatI'll just describe to you, as it
looks like a teacher in theclassroom and the kids have gone
amok.
Imagine that kind of a scene inthe workplace.
Yeah, so let's talk about whatthose signs are, that employees
are just simply not motivated.
How can you tell if motivationis running low around the office
(04:28):
?
Your team might not tell youthey're feeling unmotivated, but
they'll likely show you.
And here's some things to lookfor as far as signs.
Easy one higher rates ofemployee absenteeism.
Sometimes we used to call itblue flu, blue Monday, whatever.
Where's everybody at Mondayhere?
Why aren't they at work?
Tardiness, and that's as simpleas.
Are you supposed to be at workat eight o'clock, should
(04:50):
probably be there at 7.55, butyou better be there at eight
o'clock and people say, well,8.05, it's close.
No, tardy is tardy.
You're not very motivated ifyou're not getting there on time
.
Sometimes you'll see a lack ofeffort.
They'll maybe go 80% versus100% or even 110%.
They're just not putting it allin.
Lack of engagement in projectsor team meetings.
(05:11):
They seem aloof, they're notpaying attention, they're trying
to make themselves small in theconference room right.
It also can be seen withwithdrawal from their coworkers
and their peers, that they'rejust kind of checking out Mood
or attitude changes.
Maybe someone's really abrupt.
When they're answeringquestions or engaged in making a
(05:32):
presentation, you notice thattheir mood is a little sour.
John likes to talk about thisand I agree with him.
Employee productivity how manywidgets did you get done?
How many did we think you coulddo at the time allotted?
If you see the numbers go down,oftentimes that means they're
not motivated or just basicboredom they just look like
they're bored or apathy aboutwork.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Now you sent a wonderful reference for this,
for the movie Office Space, andthey had a magical moment
talking to the HR departmentheads.
I had a magical moment talkingto the HR department heads.
I don't know if people haveseen this movie, but capsulize
that magic moment of unmotivatedemployees.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Thank, you, john.
That's an old, classic moviebut it still holds up really,
really well.
It's called Office Space from1999.
There's a gentleman by the nameof Peter Gibbons, software
programmer, and these two HRfolks were talking to him about
hey, how's your day go?
What do you do?
Let's talk about productivity.
And he simply said I'm not alazy guy, I just don't care.
(06:33):
He said where's the motivation?
Now, my only motivation is notto be hassled because I got
eight bosses and also not to befired.
And this was an interestingsituation because he was being
very practical and the HR guyswere eating it up.
But it is a sad commentaryabout motivation.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, and he was being honest.
He was telling them all thethings that he did to avoid work
and I think the mostinteresting comment from that
comedy was I have eight bosses.
I think the most interestingcomment from that comedy was I
have eight bosses and just themicromanagement piece of it.
We've run into the examples inour careers, not so much eight
(07:12):
bosses, but four or fivedifferent people asking the same
question.
It's like y'all should talktogether.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
It can be very demotivating trying to play so
many masters?
Yes, yes, and so we've got achart here that you just you can
see it, I think, in your ownmind's eye.
Where does motivation come from?
It could come from yourcompany's vision.
You're being inspired bysomebody or something noble that
your company's doing to besuccessful potential.
A quick story my last company.
(07:40):
It was interesting how manypeople wanted to do what we were
doing offer low-cost, reliableenergy to rate payers Like well,
how can I not get around that?
That's a pretty good theme.
That gets me excited.
I'm motivated because I want tohelp make that happen.
All right, john.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
So the burning question from our concept for
this podcast is on leadershipand whose responsibility is it
to motivate employees?
I'll give you a hint it's you,you're responsible for the
motivated employee to understand.
Those concepts are somethingthat is relevant to your work
(08:20):
group.
Dimensional thinking suggeststhat the primary responsibility
for motivated employees lie withtheir direct supervisors or
managers, who should create apositive working environment,
provide opportunities for growth, recognize achievements, ensure
employees feel value and have aclear understanding of their
role and at the and the impactto their organization.
(08:43):
Clarity, clarity of goals.
I think when I think aboutmotivated employees and where
I've sometimes have had adisconnect, it's because my
instructions were erratic.
There weren't complete thoughts, there were more like concepts,
and you're really not trying toget people motivated if you're
throwing out concepts.
(09:04):
There has to be a completemessage, a plan that they can
actually understand.
Another element of it is tounderstand that it is the
employee, and the employee has aresponsibility, too, to be
self-motivated and to takeownership of their career.
So then there was anotherarticle written by Jennifer Post
(09:28):
back in November 6th of 2023.
And she wrote some interestingtouch points on how to motivate
employees.
One ask employees to do onlythe things that you're willing
to do yourself.
It's not that you're competingwith them.
Okay, it's to understand.
(09:49):
From my perspective, it was asafety perspective and you're
not going to put persons inharm's way.
If you feel that there's aquestion, don't even think about
putting your employee in thesame spot.
Her response is if you want agood employee, you should show
them the moral principles of whoyou are and what you are and
(10:12):
your company is.
Same thing is through thatfocus.
It's not enough to tell themthat you expect X, y and Z and
then you don't live by thosevalues yourself.
Item two is ask employees whatthey want from their workplace.
(10:32):
Your first inclination as aleader may not be to check with
the employees, but it's whatthey want from their company and
their company culture.
According to research conductedby Quantum Workplace, highly
engaged employees feel morepositive about the workplace
(10:52):
culture Kind of goes hand inhand.
Assign tasks that let employeescomplete them with little
intervention.
If you want them to beproductive, understand that
they're intelligent and they'rehardworking you have to treat
them as skilled and capableprofessionals.
There's a magic word in betweenhere trust.
(11:14):
You have to trust that theyhave the skill sets.
You have to trust that theyhave the skill sets.
Too many employees micromanagetheir staff, looking over their
(11:35):
shoulders, not trusting them andbeing overwhelmed by deadlines
and talking about their ownabilities.
Delegating is an important task, but it's an important task to
leave them alone.
How to motivate employees?
And here's, I think, one of theinteresting points that she
brings up Active listening toemployees concerns by asking
(11:58):
open-ended questions andengaging in a two-way
conversation.
Now, my kids and my wife willtell you that I do this all the
time and it drives them nuts.
But if you're a leader, it'simportant that the employee
expresses their concerns andtheir ideas and what you're
doing is you're empowering themand you're giving them
actionable steps, and it'ssometimes giving them a way to
(12:19):
understand the situation, toimprove the situation.
It's the engagement and thetwo-way conversation that's the
key and that really is if you'regoing to motivate an employee.
If they I don't know how manytimes I've heard it, but they
would stop me and say you'reasking me what I think, yes, and
(12:40):
you would have that look intheir eye of like nobody's ever
done it.
I've had people verbalize it.
No one's ever asked me what Ithink we should do.
It's like, well, today's yourfirst day.
What should we do?
It's an engagement that youreally find that employees are
looking for.
If they've been doing it, givethem a chance to show how they
(13:01):
can do it better.
The next one kind of falls intothe same conversation and it
usually should happen at the end.
But tell your employees justhow valuable they are.
So whenever something like theengagement conversation and they
get something completed, givethem the recognition and the
(13:25):
positive reinforcement that isassociated with them taking that
risk, sticking their neck out,making suggestions that were
successful and, even if theyfailed, the opportunity that
they took the risk, they madethat decision and they owned.
It is something that you canbuild on.
There's no negative part ofthat.
So what are the companies thatdo a pretty good job of
motivating employees?
(13:46):
All right, greg, you might haveto help me with this name.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Maria Postanyanik.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Thank you, greg.
From October 6th of 2021 in anarticle of Employee Engagement,
and Maria has identifiedcompanies like Microsoft.
They do building of a communitythrough communication,
professional development, pulsesurveys, team building
(14:20):
activities.
Alphabet Inc.
Google, unique compensationsand benefits, staff empowerment
and autonomy, work environment,salesforce Inc.
Their ways of trying tomotivate employees is paid
volunteer time, diversity andinclusion.
(14:41):
Groups focus on wellness andwork-life balance.
You see, a theme here is I'mwilling to bet that this list is
generated from the employees,not from leadership Employees.
If it's a good organization'slistening to what their
employees want, it's different.
There's different motivations,but that, I think, is the subset
(15:09):
of what really Maria is talkingabout.
Mastercard is diversity andinclusion, continuous feedback,
flexible work.
Apple is a culture ofcollaboration, competitive
benefits and compensation,wellness in the workplace.
There's a little theme here too.
These are successful companies.
These are companies that otherpeople want to work for, and
(15:33):
it's like a self-fulfillingprophecy.
If you understand whatmotivates people and you give
them those motivations, all of asudden it isn't a chore to find
new people.
Anyway, cisco systems,communication of brand vision,
clear workplace standards,employee recognition, employee
(15:55):
feedback.
Pepsico has the communication,brand values, strong company
culture, diversity and inclusion, inclusion, employee feedback
and recognition.
Then there's Travel CounselorsLTD.
Not an organization I know, butthey have personalized internal
communication.
They have continuous employeefeedback and email analytics,
(16:18):
which is interesting.
Intuit, diversity, inclusion,training, pay, equity, nivea,
team-centric attitudes,team-building activities,
promotions from innovation Allthose things from a company's
perspective is reallyinteresting in terms of probably
(16:43):
a subset of what thoseemployees look like and what
kind of resumes you're going tosee.
There's going to be somecommonality of what they're
going to be looking for.
Sometimes they write it intheir resumes, sometimes they
don't, but that whole thingabout the company being
established and having peoplelooking for those kind of traits
(17:04):
go hand in hand.
Greg, I think you can talkabout that at a different
perspective.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Thanks, john.
So yeah, as John said, there'scommon denominators and there's
some differentiators for thesetraits, and it is about what
makes employees happy, whatmakes employees want to come in
and work, and so, when you thinkabout things like diversity and
inclusion, training you don'tsee that on all of the 10
companies, but at Intuit it'sreally, really important, as is
pay equity.
(17:30):
When you think about PepsiCoand everybody's heard of PepsiCo
strong company culture to gowith their strong company brand,
and they want to communicatethose brand values and employees
have gotten into that.
These are motivating thesepeople, are proud to work for
these companies.
Apple a culture ofcollaboration Again, employees
want that.
Apple has found that they needthat.
(17:52):
Competitive benefits andcompensation.
Wellness in the workplace Again, you don't see that on every
list, but for differentcompanies and maybe for your
company, that's really, reallyimportant.
And so these are the companiesthat seem to be doing it well.
This is a 2021 survey.
I would suggest that some ofthese same companies are still
in the top 10.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And what was interesting is, I actually
worked for one of thesecompanies, and it was a company
that's a Fortune 500 company.
They must be doing somethingright, and people look at those
kinds of parameters too, but Ithink you have another way of
looking at motivated employees.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I do.
Thanks, John.
So think about the military.
And a lot of times people referto the military as being very
structured and highly organizedand controlling, but guess what?
They've got employees too thatneed to be motivated.
So I found some informationfrom William Treseder.
He's a founder and CEO of acompany that works with
ex-military.
(18:50):
He's a former Marine reservist,and a couple of things that he
brought to our attention I thinkwas interesting.
So some of the tips.
The military, on the other hand,versus the normal corporate
america, takes people from allover the world with absolutely
nothing in common.
Right, and, depending on theservice, they might have maybe
(19:12):
six, maybe 13 weeks to mold theminto a functioning unit that's
capable of executing complextasks with relative precision.
The magnitude of this task isso difficult to grasp.
It's hard enough to get oneteenage male to do something.
Ask any parent.
You know what I'm talking about.
That's so true.
Let alone dozens of themcrammed together, sleep deprived
(19:34):
with weapons.
Right.
Throw those in there.
That process requires aneffective approach that actually
will get results, and effectiveapproach that actually will get
results.
And so think about young menand young women.
They're sweating, they'refreezing, they're out there,
right Out there in the wild forless than minimum wage.
They're not getting rich offthis right.
(19:54):
What is their motivation?
So the incentive used in juniorenlisted ranks are condensed as
wisdom from millennia of doingthe same thing over and over
again.
Armies, navies, air forces areall good at motivating people.
Because they have to be,Because military life is hard.
It's as simple as that.
It's hard.
You can't pay people much.
(20:15):
You may ask them to die.
You have to know if they canaccomplish the mission anyway.
So you've got some pretty highstandards, pretty high
expectations.
How are you going to motivatethose employees who are soldiers
to make it happen?
Ranks, traditions, physicaltasks, high standards,
challenges there's a commonthread there.
Whether you look at the Spartanexistence back in the day
(20:36):
Japanese samurai, Turkish folks,American soldiers there are
some common denominators here.
You remember a guy about myheight, Napoleon right.
He understood true motivationbetter than anyone.
Others scoffed at what he hadcalled the Legion of Honor.
That was like a medal awardedsolely on the basis of merit
rather than on the basis ofposition or ancestry.
(20:59):
And you can call these kind ofmedals baubles that men are
collecting.
But do you think they would beable to make men fight by
reasoning with them.
Never.
That is good only for thescholar in his study.
The soldier needs glory,distinction and rewards John.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I think you motivation think of 9-11 and the
citizens of this country thatsaid that they had to do
something to protect the countrythe motivation of our military
and the things that they feelthat they want to try to support
, I think is also an elementthat he didn't talk about, but
(21:45):
it's something that, if youbelieve in the core goals of
your nation, of the country, ofthe mission that's where it has
to start To become a goodsoldier is not having a
theoretical discussion about thepositives and negatives of some
kind of regulation or some kindof law.
(22:06):
It's goal-oriented and that'sthe other element of motivating
the staff in the military.
But I think the patriotismthat's associated with the
people that are in our militaryis really the part that is
admirable and to understandwhere that motivation I think is
(22:28):
at its core.
But when I think aboutmotivating people and it's
understanding their motivations,the things that they dream
about, the things that they wantto accomplish, the things that
they felt held back by and needhelp in want to accomplish, the
things that they felt held backby and need help in order to
overcome it all comes fromcounseling.
(22:48):
Career counseling is usuallythe element that I'd work with
and I feel it is an importantelement of anyone who's
reporting to you Now when I saythat I had a staff of 100 plus
employees and I didn't have aconnection with every employee.
I had a direct connection withevery leader.
(23:08):
So as an executive, I knew whatmy leaders were talking about,
what their challenges were, andthen I did engage with their
staff.
But it was also to try toencourage that leadership to do
career counseling like I woulddo for them.
So I led by example.
That's probably the fastest wayto understand what is right and
(23:33):
what is wrong about theorganization.
I learned more from those kindof counseling discussions and I
really wanted to make a pointthat it was not done once a year
.
It isn't at the employee reviewthat you're having real
personalized conversations.
I made it a goal it's apersonal goal that I would do it
(23:54):
once a month, no less than oncea quarter, to have a career
counseling conversation.
What is in their goals, what istheir limitations?
What is it that I can get outof their way so that it can be
successful?
What is it that nobody has toldthem that they have done?
Very well?
And sometimes, when I knowthere was a real disconnect from
(24:18):
what I recognized as theiraccomplishments and what they
told me.
I would do things like askingfor a monthly report so I don't
get disconnected again.
Those are the kind of thingsthat, from a counseling
perspective, you really grow asa leader and that is something
that they call coaching, theycall career counseling, you call
(24:38):
it anything you want, but it'sengagement and it's personal and
it should be sometimes out ofthe environment so that you can
take them out to lunch or youcan go for a break.
But you want to have thatmoment in time, whether it's two
minutes or five minutes.
And Greg and I had the sameexperience of the person who
worked in HR, who, Harold, wouldtake us out and he would buy us
(25:01):
a cup of coffee, sit us downand ask how we're doing.
An amazing leader had nothingto do with the leadership of the
organization that we weretechnically working for, but he
knew and he was trying to helpthat leadership, to listen to
the employees and help themmodify their approaches.
Different organization, but itdoesn't mean it's a bad idea,
(25:23):
However it happens.
That's the key in my mind tohelp the engagement of the
employee, to motivate theemployee, engage them in a
conversation just on thatsubject itself, Greg.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Thanks, john.
Got a couple of stories hereand there's a point to the
unsuccessful story, so I'llstart off with that.
An example where employees werenot motivated.
So I was on a leadership teamin an organization and the most
senior person, coo, came up witha very unrealistic company
sales goal.
It was just a swag, serious,wild.
You know what?
(25:58):
Guess right, there was no waythat was going to happen.
The sad part was his staff, hissenior leaders.
They thought it wasunachievable and it caused a
negative reaction throughout theleadership team and it cascaded
down through the ranks Because,well, my boss doesn't believe
it, and then why should Ibelieve it?
I remember talking to one of mypeers saying Greg, I'm going to
go through the motions here,but there's no way in heck we're
(26:20):
going to get this goal thatcould motivate a team right.
And here's an example where itworked out really, really well
Sorry, john.
A significant new memberacquisition occurred in this
company we're trying to get anew member on board and we
(26:41):
needed all hands on deck,everybody engaged, everybody
pulling, everybody making this apriority, and that was a
motivation.
Also, we were motivated bybeing aligned with our mission
statement and with communicationthat was occurred throughout
the organization and we actuallyhad a whole team company
incentive award.
So it wasn't just the seniorteam, it wasn't just middle
(27:03):
managers.
Every employee that worked forthe company received some
special incentive if we wereable to bring this member on.
And I got to tell you,company-wide celebration
occurred because we didn't justmeet the goal, we exceeded the
goal.
It did it in fine fashion, butyou could tell everyone was
galvanized, everybody wasmotivated, everybody was into
the concept and said I'm all in,let's make this happen.
(27:24):
It was a wonderful situation tobe in and I still get chills
from it today when I think aboutpeople of different locations
all working on the same goaltogether, because they were
motivated, they were driven.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
And how much of that is really an organization that
is capable of communication Notan unrealistic goal, but a
realistic goal and showing byexample the leadership was
engaged in setting that example,that everybody was working
together in order to achieve theend result.
(27:57):
Yes, yeah.
So let's try to cap it for thesake of talking about what
motivates employees, regardlessof whether you work for the
company with an excellentemployee motivation practices,
with deep resources.
There are many things that youcan do in order to motivate an
employee.
Start with the company'smission statement, vision and
(28:20):
values.
Sometimes you might want tobreak that down and make it as
simple as possible.
The idea of a mission statementshould be clear and concise,
and I've seen mission statementsthat are about a half a
paragraph long to two pages of amission statement.
Make it clear.
That's the secret.
(28:48):
Motivation also can start withpressure from your stakeholders
because the business has gotshortfalls or poor performance.
There's nothing like thepotential of the company failing
.
Poor performance there'snothing like the potential of
the company failing.
And if you aren't clear andtelling people that there's a
risk and there's the need fortheir support, the inevitability
of failure is there.
Try not to make it dire, butunderstand that the risk is
(29:14):
there and there is anexpectation of participation in
order to try to avoid thatfailure.
And it also starts as you, asthe manager, you have to take
responsibility for motivatingyour employees.
That's responsibility 101.
If you have no clue how toanswer that question of whether
your staff is motivated or thatthey have clear set goals that
they're trying to achieve, nowlet me race to the end here.
(29:35):
You need to do something aboutthat.
That's your responsibility.
So, hopefully, this element ofresponsibility and motivation
makes sense and if you like whatyou've heard, yeah.
I have a book on leadershipcalled Building your Leadership
Toolbox.
It's available on Amazon andother websites Success Secrets
(30:00):
and Stories.
Our podcast is available onwhat you're listening to, thank
you.
It's also available on otherpopular formats like Apple,
google and Spotify.
Greg and I are big fans of DrDurst and Dr Durst's MBR program
.
If you want to know more aboutthe MBR program Management by
Responsibility you can get it onsuccessgrowthacademycom.
(30:23):
And if you want to contact us,we actually have a website
called authorjawcom and you canleave a message for Greg or I.
The music has been brought toyou by my grandson, so we want
to hear from you.
Send us a line, tell us whatyou think is interesting.
I think this is where we werejust talking about.
(30:45):
We want the motivation on whatyou would like, so motivate us
and we want to motivate you.
Well thanks, greg.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Thanks, John.
As always, Next time yeah.
Hello everyone and welcome to our podcast, success
Secrets and Stories.
I'm your host, john Wondolowski, and I'm here with my co-host
and friend, greg Powell.
Greg, hey, everybody, yeah, sotoday we're going to be talking
about exploring a concept,working with employees, and
what's really important ismotivation and what does a
(00:38):
motivated staff look like.
So, trying to give you an ideaof things that we think is
helpful in leadership,motivation is sometimes one of
those.
What they consider soft skills,but it's really not, and to
understand that it is yourresponsibility to motivate your
staff, but engage in your staff.
(01:01):
Part of that is really where wesaw the article and what Greg
had highlighted.
This is an article by GregGoodlife and he's the CEO and
founder of Cyber Backer.
Motivation affects behavior inall areas of life.
At work, being motivated drivesemployees to engage in what
(01:25):
they are doing to achieve thebest possible result.
Motivated employees are likelyto be coming to work happy to
tackle challenges and to putforth their best effort,
resulting in higher productivity.
They're engaged, which is thesecret.
Motivation pushes employees toreach their company and their
(01:47):
career goals while making themost of their work opportunities
.
Motivated employees oftenexpand their skill sets.
They want to make themselvesbetter.
They want to connect with theircolleagues.
This, in turn, can help theteam to be better with their
customers and can help thecompany to succeed and grow.
It's like the buzzword here isengagement.
(02:10):
Other terms that describemotivation.
Employee engagement is thelevel of enthusiasm and
dedication that employees puttowards their work in their
workplace.
It measures how they arecommitted to investing in their
employees, in their work and inthe organizational success.
Employee drive is the internalfeeling that pushes employees to
(02:32):
do things and is oftendescribed as a basic force that
compels people to act.
It's different from differentpeople.
There's different things thatare motivating, which is the
reason why people do what theydo.
I remember I started off andmotivation for me was being a
mechanic and being the bestmechanic possible, and the
(02:54):
people that I knew were greatmechanics.
That piece of understandingwhat drives the employee is
engaging that employee to askthose kind of questions.
Another term is employeeenthusiasm.
That comes across when someonewants to be at work, who's
willing to take on that harderjob to get something done.
There is another key withinmotivation.
(03:18):
Employee motivation is moraleand high morale in terms of
employees feel supported orcared for and are invested in
their jobs.
They have positiverelationships with their
coworkers and managers.
Low morale, which we've allexperienced too, is where
employees feel unsupported anddisconnected from work and from
their peers, maybe even isolated.
(03:40):
They may experience conflicts,burnout or poor performance.
And then there's eageremployees that are willing to
acquire new skills and knowledgeto excel in their fields.
They also have a growth mindsetand view challenges as
opportunity for personal andprofessional development.
(04:01):
Now all that kind of sets thestage for the next level, greg.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Thanks, john.
There are some signs thatemployees are not motivated.
I've got a picture here thatI'll just describe to you, as it
looks like a teacher in theclassroom and the kids have gone
amok.
Imagine that kind of a scene inthe workplace.
Yeah, so let's talk about whatthose signs are, that employees
are just simply not motivated.
How can you tell if motivationis running low around the office
(04:28):
?
Your team might not tell youthey're feeling unmotivated, but
they'll likely show you.
And here's some things to lookfor as far as signs.
Easy one higher rates ofemployee absenteeism.
Sometimes we used to call itblue flu, blue Monday, whatever.
Where's everybody at Mondayhere?
Why aren't they at work?
Tardiness, and that's as simpleas.
Are you supposed to be at workat eight o'clock, should
(04:50):
probably be there at 7.55, butyou better be there at eight
o'clock and people say, well,8.05, it's close.
No, tardy is tardy.
You're not very motivated ifyou're not getting there on time
.
Sometimes you'll see a lack ofeffort.
They'll maybe go 80% versus100% or even 110%.
They're just not putting it allin.
Lack of engagement in projectsor team meetings.
(05:11):
They seem aloof, they're notpaying attention, they're trying
to make themselves small in theconference room right.
It also can be seen withwithdrawal from their coworkers
and their peers, that they'rejust kind of checking out Mood
or attitude changes.
Maybe someone's really abrupt.
When they're answeringquestions or engaged in making a
(05:32):
presentation, you notice thattheir mood is a little sour.
John likes to talk about thisand I agree with him.
Employee productivity how manywidgets did you get done?
How many did we think you coulddo at the time allotted?
If you see the numbers go down,oftentimes that means they're
not motivated or just basicboredom they just look like
they're bored or apathy aboutwork.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Now you sent a wonderful reference for this,
for the movie Office Space, andthey had a magical moment
talking to the HR departmentheads.
I had a magical moment talkingto the HR department heads.
I don't know if people haveseen this movie, but capsulize
that magic moment of unmotivatedemployees.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Thank, you, john.
That's an old, classic moviebut it still holds up really,
really well.
It's called Office Space from1999.
There's a gentleman by the nameof Peter Gibbons, software
programmer, and these two HRfolks were talking to him about
hey, how's your day go?
What do you do?
Let's talk about productivity.
And he simply said I'm not alazy guy, I just don't care.
(06:33):
He said where's the motivation?
Now, my only motivation is notto be hassled because I got
eight bosses and also not to befired.
And this was an interestingsituation because he was being
very practical and the HR guyswere eating it up.
But it is a sad commentaryabout motivation.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, and he was being honest.
He was telling them all thethings that he did to avoid work
and I think the mostinteresting comment from that
comedy was I have eight bosses.
I think the most interestingcomment from that comedy was I
have eight bosses and just themicromanagement piece of it.
We've run into the examples inour careers, not so much eight
(07:12):
bosses, but four or fivedifferent people asking the same
question.
It's like y'all should talktogether.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
It can be very demotivating trying to play so
many masters?
Yes, yes, and so we've got achart here that you just you can
see it, I think, in your ownmind's eye.
Where does motivation come from?
It could come from yourcompany's vision.
You're being inspired bysomebody or something noble that
your company's doing to besuccessful potential.
A quick story my last company.
(07:40):
It was interesting how manypeople wanted to do what we were
doing offer low-cost, reliableenergy to rate payers Like well,
how can I not get around that?
That's a pretty good theme.
That gets me excited.
I'm motivated because I want tohelp make that happen.
All right, john.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
So the burning question from our concept for
this podcast is on leadershipand whose responsibility is it
to motivate employees?
I'll give you a hint it's you,you're responsible for the
motivated employee to understand.
Those concepts are somethingthat is relevant to your work
(08:20):
group.
Dimensional thinking suggeststhat the primary responsibility
for motivated employees lie withtheir direct supervisors or
managers, who should create apositive working environment,
provide opportunities for growth, recognize achievements, ensure
employees feel value and have aclear understanding of their
role and at the and the impactto their organization.
(08:43):
Clarity, clarity of goals.
I think when I think aboutmotivated employees and where
I've sometimes have had adisconnect, it's because my
instructions were erratic.
There weren't complete thoughts, there were more like concepts,
and you're really not trying toget people motivated if you're
throwing out concepts.
(09:04):
There has to be a completemessage, a plan that they can
actually understand.
Another element of it is tounderstand that it is the
employee, and the employee has aresponsibility, too, to be
self-motivated and to takeownership of their career.
So then there was anotherarticle written by Jennifer Post
(09:28):
back in November 6th of 2023.
And she wrote some interestingtouch points on how to motivate
employees.
One ask employees to do onlythe things that you're willing
to do yourself.
It's not that you're competingwith them.
Okay, it's to understand.
(09:49):
From my perspective, it was asafety perspective and you're
not going to put persons inharm's way.
If you feel that there's aquestion, don't even think about
putting your employee in thesame spot.
Her response is if you want agood employee, you should show
them the moral principles of whoyou are and what you are and
(10:12):
your company is.
Same thing is through thatfocus.
It's not enough to tell themthat you expect X, y and Z and
then you don't live by thosevalues yourself.
Item two is ask employees whatthey want from their workplace.
(10:32):
Your first inclination as aleader may not be to check with
the employees, but it's whatthey want from their company and
their company culture.
According to research conductedby Quantum Workplace, highly
engaged employees feel morepositive about the workplace
(10:52):
culture Kind of goes hand inhand.
Assign tasks that let employeescomplete them with little
intervention.
If you want them to beproductive, understand that
they're intelligent and they'rehardworking you have to treat
them as skilled and capableprofessionals.
There's a magic word in betweenhere trust.
(11:14):
You have to trust that theyhave the skill sets.
You have to trust that theyhave the skill sets.
Too many employees micromanagetheir staff, looking over their
(11:35):
shoulders, not trusting them andbeing overwhelmed by deadlines
and talking about their ownabilities.
Delegating is an important task, but it's an important task to
leave them alone.
How to motivate employees?
And here's, I think, one of theinteresting points that she
brings up Active listening toemployees concerns by asking
(11:58):
open-ended questions andengaging in a two-way
conversation.
Now, my kids and my wife willtell you that I do this all the
time and it drives them nuts.
But if you're a leader, it'simportant that the employee
expresses their concerns andtheir ideas and what you're
doing is you're empowering themand you're giving them
actionable steps, and it'ssometimes giving them a way to
(12:19):
understand the situation, toimprove the situation.
It's the engagement and thetwo-way conversation that's the
key and that really is if you'regoing to motivate an employee.
If they I don't know how manytimes I've heard it, but they
would stop me and say you'reasking me what I think, yes, and
(12:40):
you would have that look intheir eye of like nobody's ever
done it.
I've had people verbalize it.
No one's ever asked me what Ithink we should do.
It's like, well, today's yourfirst day.
What should we do?
It's an engagement that youreally find that employees are
looking for.
If they've been doing it, givethem a chance to show how they
(13:01):
can do it better.
The next one kind of falls intothe same conversation and it
usually should happen at the end.
But tell your employees justhow valuable they are.
So whenever something like theengagement conversation and they
get something completed, givethem the recognition and the
(13:25):
positive reinforcement that isassociated with them taking that
risk, sticking their neck out,making suggestions that were
successful and, even if theyfailed, the opportunity that
they took the risk, they madethat decision and they owned.
It is something that you canbuild on.
There's no negative part ofthat.
So what are the companies thatdo a pretty good job of
motivating employees?
(13:46):
All right, greg, you might haveto help me with this name.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Maria Postanyanik.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Thank you, greg.
From October 6th of 2021 in anarticle of Employee Engagement,
and Maria has identifiedcompanies like Microsoft.
They do building of a communitythrough communication,
professional development, pulsesurveys, team building
(14:20):
activities.
Alphabet Inc.
Google, unique compensationsand benefits, staff empowerment
and autonomy, work environment,salesforce Inc.
Their ways of trying tomotivate employees is paid
volunteer time, diversity andinclusion.
(14:41):
Groups focus on wellness andwork-life balance.
You see, a theme here is I'mwilling to bet that this list is
generated from the employees,not from leadership Employees.
If it's a good organization'slistening to what their
employees want, it's different.
There's different motivations,but that, I think, is the subset
(15:09):
of what really Maria is talkingabout.
Mastercard is diversity andinclusion, continuous feedback,
flexible work.
Apple is a culture ofcollaboration, competitive
benefits and compensation,wellness in the workplace.
There's a little theme here too.
These are successful companies.
These are companies that otherpeople want to work for, and
(15:33):
it's like a self-fulfillingprophecy.
If you understand whatmotivates people and you give
them those motivations, all of asudden it isn't a chore to find
new people.
Anyway, cisco systems,communication of brand vision,
clear workplace standards,employee recognition, employee
(15:55):
feedback.
Pepsico has the communication,brand values, strong company
culture, diversity and inclusion, inclusion, employee feedback
and recognition.
Then there's Travel CounselorsLTD.
Not an organization I know, butthey have personalized internal
communication.
They have continuous employeefeedback and email analytics,
(16:18):
which is interesting.
Intuit, diversity, inclusion,training, pay, equity, nivea,
team-centric attitudes,team-building activities,
promotions from innovation Allthose things from a company's
perspective is reallyinteresting in terms of probably
(16:43):
a subset of what thoseemployees look like and what
kind of resumes you're going tosee.
There's going to be somecommonality of what they're
going to be looking for.
Sometimes they write it intheir resumes, sometimes they
don't, but that whole thingabout the company being
established and having peoplelooking for those kind of traits
(17:04):
go hand in hand.
Greg, I think you can talkabout that at a different
perspective.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Thanks, john.
So yeah, as John said, there'scommon denominators and there's
some differentiators for thesetraits, and it is about what
makes employees happy, whatmakes employees want to come in
and work, and so, when you thinkabout things like diversity and
inclusion, training you don'tsee that on all of the 10
companies, but at Intuit it'sreally, really important, as is
pay equity.
(17:30):
When you think about PepsiCoand everybody's heard of PepsiCo
strong company culture to gowith their strong company brand,
and they want to communicatethose brand values and employees
have gotten into that.
These are motivating thesepeople, are proud to work for
these companies.
Apple a culture ofcollaboration Again, employees
want that.
Apple has found that they needthat.
(17:52):
Competitive benefits andcompensation.
Wellness in the workplace Again, you don't see that on every
list, but for differentcompanies and maybe for your
company, that's really, reallyimportant.
And so these are the companiesthat seem to be doing it well.
This is a 2021 survey.
I would suggest that some ofthese same companies are still
in the top 10.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And what was interesting is, I actually
worked for one of thesecompanies, and it was a company
that's a Fortune 500 company.
They must be doing somethingright, and people look at those
kinds of parameters too, but Ithink you have another way of
looking at motivated employees.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I do.
Thanks, John.
So think about the military.
And a lot of times people referto the military as being very
structured and highly organizedand controlling, but guess what?
They've got employees too thatneed to be motivated.
So I found some informationfrom William Treseder.
He's a founder and CEO of acompany that works with
ex-military.
(18:50):
He's a former Marine reservist,and a couple of things that he
brought to our attention I thinkwas interesting.
So some of the tips.
The military, on the other hand,versus the normal corporate
america, takes people from allover the world with absolutely
nothing in common.
Right, and, depending on theservice, they might have maybe
(19:12):
six, maybe 13 weeks to mold theminto a functioning unit that's
capable of executing complextasks with relative precision.
The magnitude of this task isso difficult to grasp.
It's hard enough to get oneteenage male to do something.
Ask any parent.
You know what I'm talking about.
That's so true.
Let alone dozens of themcrammed together, sleep deprived
(19:34):
with weapons.
Right.
Throw those in there.
That process requires aneffective approach that actually
will get results, and effectiveapproach that actually will get
results.
And so think about young menand young women.
They're sweating, they'refreezing, they're out there,
right Out there in the wild forless than minimum wage.
They're not getting rich offthis right.
(19:54):
What is their motivation?
So the incentive used in juniorenlisted ranks are condensed as
wisdom from millennia of doingthe same thing over and over
again.
Armies, navies, air forces areall good at motivating people.
Because they have to be,Because military life is hard.
It's as simple as that.
It's hard.
You can't pay people much.
(20:15):
You may ask them to die.
You have to know if they canaccomplish the mission anyway.
So you've got some pretty highstandards, pretty high
expectations.
How are you going to motivatethose employees who are soldiers
to make it happen?
Ranks, traditions, physicaltasks, high standards,
challenges there's a commonthread there.
Whether you look at the Spartanexistence back in the day
(20:36):
Japanese samurai, Turkish folks,American soldiers there are
some common denominators here.
You remember a guy about myheight, Napoleon right.
He understood true motivationbetter than anyone.
Others scoffed at what he hadcalled the Legion of Honor.
That was like a medal awardedsolely on the basis of merit
rather than on the basis ofposition or ancestry.
(20:59):
And you can call these kind ofmedals baubles that men are
collecting.
But do you think they would beable to make men fight by
reasoning with them.
Never.
That is good only for thescholar in his study.
The soldier needs glory,distinction and rewards John.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I think you motivation think of 9-11 and the
citizens of this country thatsaid that they had to do
something to protect the countrythe motivation of our military
and the things that they feelthat they want to try to support
, I think is also an elementthat he didn't talk about, but
(21:45):
it's something that, if youbelieve in the core goals of
your nation, of the country, ofthe mission that's where it has
to start To become a goodsoldier is not having a
theoretical discussion about thepositives and negatives of some
kind of regulation or some kindof law.
(22:06):
It's goal-oriented and that'sthe other element of motivating
the staff in the military.
But I think the patriotismthat's associated with the
people that are in our militaryis really the part that is
admirable and to understandwhere that motivation I think is
(22:28):
at its core.
But when I think aboutmotivating people and it's
understanding their motivations,the things that they dream
about, the things that they wantto accomplish, the things that
they felt held back by and needhelp in want to accomplish, the
things that they felt held backby and need help in order to
overcome it all comes fromcounseling.
(22:48):
Career counseling is usuallythe element that I'd work with
and I feel it is an importantelement of anyone who's
reporting to you Now when I saythat I had a staff of 100 plus
employees and I didn't have aconnection with every employee.
I had a direct connection withevery leader.
(23:08):
So as an executive, I knew whatmy leaders were talking about,
what their challenges were, andthen I did engage with their
staff.
But it was also to try toencourage that leadership to do
career counseling like I woulddo for them.
So I led by example.
That's probably the fastest wayto understand what is right and
(23:33):
what is wrong about theorganization.
I learned more from those kindof counseling discussions and I
really wanted to make a pointthat it was not done once a year
.
It isn't at the employee reviewthat you're having real
personalized conversations.
I made it a goal it's apersonal goal that I would do it
(23:54):
once a month, no less than oncea quarter, to have a career
counseling conversation.
What is in their goals, what istheir limitations?
What is it that I can get outof their way so that it can be
successful?
What is it that nobody has toldthem that they have done?
Very well?
And sometimes, when I knowthere was a real disconnect from
(24:18):
what I recognized as theiraccomplishments and what they
told me.
I would do things like askingfor a monthly report so I don't
get disconnected again.
Those are the kind of thingsthat, from a counseling
perspective, you really grow asa leader and that is something
that they call coaching, theycall career counseling, you call
(24:38):
it anything you want, but it'sengagement and it's personal and
it should be sometimes out ofthe environment so that you can
take them out to lunch or youcan go for a break.
But you want to have thatmoment in time, whether it's two
minutes or five minutes.
And Greg and I had the sameexperience of the person who
worked in HR, who, Harold, wouldtake us out and he would buy us
(25:01):
a cup of coffee, sit us downand ask how we're doing.
An amazing leader had nothingto do with the leadership of the
organization that we weretechnically working for, but he
knew and he was trying to helpthat leadership, to listen to
the employees and help themmodify their approaches.
Different organization, but itdoesn't mean it's a bad idea,
(25:23):
However it happens.
That's the key in my mind tohelp the engagement of the
employee, to motivate theemployee, engage them in a
conversation just on thatsubject itself, Greg.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Thanks, john.
Got a couple of stories hereand there's a point to the
unsuccessful story, so I'llstart off with that.
An example where employees werenot motivated.
So I was on a leadership teamin an organization and the most
senior person, coo, came up witha very unrealistic company
sales goal.
It was just a swag, serious,wild.
You know what?
(25:58):
Guess right, there was no waythat was going to happen.
The sad part was his staff, hissenior leaders.
They thought it wasunachievable and it caused a
negative reaction throughout theleadership team and it cascaded
down through the ranks Because,well, my boss doesn't believe
it, and then why should Ibelieve it?
I remember talking to one of mypeers saying Greg, I'm going to
go through the motions here,but there's no way in heck we're
(26:20):
going to get this goal thatcould motivate a team right.
And here's an example where itworked out really, really well
Sorry, john.
A significant new memberacquisition occurred in this
company we're trying to get anew member on board and we
(26:41):
needed all hands on deck,everybody engaged, everybody
pulling, everybody making this apriority, and that was a
motivation.
Also, we were motivated bybeing aligned with our mission
statement and with communicationthat was occurred throughout
the organization and we actuallyhad a whole team company
incentive award.
So it wasn't just the seniorteam, it wasn't just middle
(27:03):
managers.
Every employee that worked forthe company received some
special incentive if we wereable to bring this member on.
And I got to tell you,company-wide celebration
occurred because we didn't justmeet the goal, we exceeded the
goal.
It did it in fine fashion, butyou could tell everyone was
galvanized, everybody wasmotivated, everybody was into
the concept and said I'm all in,let's make this happen.
(27:24):
It was a wonderful situation tobe in and I still get chills
from it today when I think aboutpeople of different locations
all working on the same goaltogether, because they were
motivated, they were driven.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
And how much of that is really an organization that
is capable of communication Notan unrealistic goal, but a
realistic goal and showing byexample the leadership was
engaged in setting that example,that everybody was working
together in order to achieve theend result.
(27:57):
Yes, yeah.
So let's try to cap it for thesake of talking about what
motivates employees, regardlessof whether you work for the
company with an excellentemployee motivation practices,
with deep resources.
There are many things that youcan do in order to motivate an
employee.
Start with the company'smission statement, vision and
(28:20):
values.
Sometimes you might want tobreak that down and make it as
simple as possible.
The idea of a mission statementshould be clear and concise,
and I've seen mission statementsthat are about a half a
paragraph long to two pages of amission statement.
Make it clear.
That's the secret.
(28:48):
Motivation also can start withpressure from your stakeholders
because the business has gotshortfalls or poor performance.
There's nothing like thepotential of the company failing
.
Poor performance there'snothing like the potential of
the company failing.
And if you aren't clear andtelling people that there's a
risk and there's the need fortheir support, the inevitability
of failure is there.
Try not to make it dire, butunderstand that the risk is
(29:14):
there and there is anexpectation of participation in
order to try to avoid thatfailure.
And it also starts as you, asthe manager, you have to take
responsibility for motivatingyour employees.
That's responsibility 101.
If you have no clue how toanswer that question of whether
your staff is motivated or thatthey have clear set goals that
they're trying to achieve, nowlet me race to the end here.
(29:35):
You need to do something aboutthat.
That's your responsibility.
So, hopefully, this element ofresponsibility and motivation
makes sense and if you like whatyou've heard, yeah.
I have a book on leadershipcalled Building your Leadership
Toolbox.
It's available on Amazon andother websites Success Secrets
(30:00):
and Stories.
Our podcast is available onwhat you're listening to, thank
you.
It's also available on otherpopular formats like Apple,
google and Spotify.
Greg and I are big fans of DrDurst and Dr Durst's MBR program
.
If you want to know more aboutthe MBR program Management by
Responsibility you can get it onsuccessgrowthacademycom.
(30:23):
And if you want to contact us,we actually have a website
called authorjawcom and you canleave a message for Greg or I.
The music has been brought toyou by my grandson, so we want
to hear from you.
Send us a line, tell us whatyou think is interesting.
I think this is where we werejust talking about.
(30:45):
We want the motivation on whatyou would like, so motivate us
and we want to motivate you.
Well thanks, greg.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Thanks, John.
As always, Next time yeah.
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