The Secret of Motivating a Team

Once upon a time, many years ago, the cave men (our ancestors) strived for their Nirvana.  Their ultimate life achievement was to stay alive as long as possible and to pro create. In order to do this they needed to have an available source of food and water and their biggest want was for varying degrees of shelter and protection.  Their basic physiology worked with them, instincts were highly sharpened and the body on the ready to react to any potential threat.  The driving motivational force was to stay alive. So how has determining motivation factors become so complicated?  What do employees want, what motivates them?  It’s not just about the money we are told.  Is it what they plan to do with that money?  Reward comes in many forms, staying alive included - gaining a better result, getting a thank you from significant stakeholders, having a day off, clear role definition, respect, a thank you lunch, or straight up good manners and etiquette.

Nirvana is bigger, broader, and much more individualised these days.  What motivates a team is extremely important in the work place, because happy people equates to better health and energy for the individual, better outcomes for the business and it's also contagious.  It is the key cog in a never ending cycle of happy – productive - profit-reward - ... repeat again. What is the secret motivational factor that is going to get your team over the line?  Unfortunately it's not as easy as sprinkling pixie dust around, it takes lots of insight, buckets of understanding and gargantuan amounts of work.  

Richard Branson does it well and has again simplified his advice into 7 steps for managing people in this week’s BRW (December 7^th 2011, p.13). Keep your team informed, define the rules for business, focus on priorities, provide clear roles, champion employees’ ideas, learn from mistakes and move on, and finally, celebrate successes every day.  I’m not embarrassed to say that I’ve missed the mark on all of these things at some time (and maybe some of them all of the time). If you think you are doing all these things perfectly all year around it might be time for a bit of a sense check.  A thorough 360 degree review can help point you in the right direction. 

I think what is missing in the search for the best motivational strategy for a team, and indeed in the search for happiness, is put beautifully by a writer and art critic who died in 1900, John Ruskin.  The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it. 

So live in the moment and enjoy the journey you are on right now.