Performance Management:

Effective Motivation

Attitude Motivation

Setting up an approach that promotes personal growth and purpose

"An ounce of appreciation is worth a pound of money."  

– Sir Ian Bancroft 

Attitude Motivation Defined

Attitude motivation is about how people think and feel. "It is their self-confidence, their belief in themselves, their attitude to life – be it positive or negative. It is how they feel about the future and how they react to the past."⁴

The Power of Emotions

Financial rewards, such as performance bonuses and an equity stake in the financial results, do encourage people to conserve resources and produce results. But the kind of ownership that really generates energy is not economic. It is emotional. It gives people a sense of responsibility and makes them feel that their actions make a difference. Great leaders generate a spirit of teamwork and create a mutual learning and coaching environment that gives people a sense that they are a valuable member of the team and create a feeling that "we are all in this together, and we will succeed of fail, based on the actions of each person."¹⁰

Inspiring Culture

Do you want to encourage extraordinary performance from your people?  Do you want them to do great things?

If yes, then you must create an inspiring corporate culture to inspire and energize them... More

Energizing Employees

"What energizes people is the broader horizon, the excitement of new challenges and big opportunities. When their leaders offer this excitement, people come alive."⁵

The one-on-one relationships that individual workers have with their managers, and the trust, respect, and consideration that their managers show toward them on a daily basis are also at the core of an energized workforce. "Getting the best out of workers is above all a product of the "softer" side of management – how individuals are treated, inspired, and challenged to do their best work - and the support, resources, and guidance that is provided by managers to help make exceptional employee performance a reality."⁶... More

Providing the Strategic Direction

The logic, uniqueness and discovery that make your strategic intent come to life are vitally important for employees.  They have to understand, believe and live according to it.

Strategy should be a stretch exercise, not a fit exercise. Expression of strategic intent is to help individuals and organizations share the common intention to survive and continue or extend themselves through time and space.

 Case in Point  Wall-Mart

In his 10 Rules for Building a Business Success, Sam Walton, the Founder of Wall-Mart writes: "Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free – and worth a fortune."... More

 Case in Point  25 Lessons from Jack Welch

Though many at GE have been good at their jobs, and have been able to motivate and explain, but no one has Jack Welch's ardor. He was GE's number one cheerleader and called himself "the advertising manager of our company." He had the zeal and the optimism and a lexicon of a winning football coach: "exciting", "remarkable", "staggering", "incredible". These are the words Welch employed to describe one of the powerful enterprises in the world.⁹

As W. James McNerney Jr., head of GE Aircraft Engines, noted: "The excitement comes from within him and is extremely contagious. He's a tremendous motivator. He's excited and he gets you excited and you're always moving forward. He keeps it simple. The differentiator between GE and many other companies is that there are more people moving in the same direction and with the same enthusiasm. Jack might like this on his tombstone. 'I wasn't smarter that anyone else, but I helped 270,000 people make me look smarter than most.' "

Lead: The genuine leader is someone who can express a vision and then get people to carry it out, says Jack Welch. Create a vision and then ignite your organization to make this vision a reality.

Get people so passionate about what they are doing that they cannot wait to execute this plan. Have great energy, competitive spirit and the ability to spark excitement and achieve results.

References:

1. The Centerless Corporation, by Bruce A.Pasternack and Albert. J. Viscio

2. Companies Don't Succeed – People Do", Graham Roberts-Phelps

3. The Tao of Coaching, Max Landsberg

4. Motivate to Win, Richard Denny

5. Every Business is a Growth Business, Ram Charan and Noel. M. Tichy

6. 1001 Ways To Energize Employees, Bob Nelson

7. One Thing You Can't Hide, Brian Tracy

8. Motivation123, Jason Gracia

9. Jack Welch and the GE Way, Robert Slater

10. The Cycle of Leadership, Noel M. Trichi