Motivation is the will to do something. It comes from inside us, and herein lies the challenge for management: how do you motivate your people to achieve the organization’s goals? Motivation is more than enthusiasm—it is about directing people’s efforts. If you are a manager, your performance will depend on the efforts of your employees. Set clear goals for them and keep thinking about how you can support and motivate them. This is essential for the organization’s and your own success.

A motivated person or group also requires the opportunity and ability to boost their performance. Opportunity covers two aspects—ensuring that your people have the tools and resources needed to do the job, and allowing them the space to do the job well without restrictions. A person’s ability is a crucial factor that is often overlooked. It is created by combining an individual’s innate skill or talent with experience.

American psychologist Abraham Maslow, one of the founding fathers of motivation theory, suggested that people have a hierarchy of needs. The basic needs should be satisfied first, and once these are met, you must appeal to the higher level of needs if you are to continue to motivate someone. Maslow’s work suggests that people have different needs at different times. Some of these needs will be satisfied at work, and others through life outside work. But if you want to motivate your staff you need to get to know them, their interests, and their aspirations so you can adapt the organization’s as well as your own approach to their changing situation.

Expectancy theory was developed by Professor Victor Vroom in the 1960s. It proposes that people are motivated by being involved in setting their own goals, by receiving feedback along the way, and by recognition for what they achieve. Feedback is important, since it is very motivating to know how well you are progressing toward the target.

The psychologist Frederick Herzberg divided sources of motivation into “motivators” and “hygiene factors.” Hygiene factors don’t motivate, but if they are not dealt with, they can turn people off. Having a dirty office is irritating, but having the cleanest office in the world isn’t motivational. Herzberg believed salary is often a hygiene factor. If people are paid fairly, they are satisfied, but paying above the norm doesn’t motivate people.

Herzberg’s motivators and hygiene factors

Your beliefs about human nature affect how you manage people. Douglas McGregor, author of The Human Side of Enterprise, created two extreme management approaches which he called theory X and theory Y. Theory X is based on the structuring of work precisely and at a detailed level, directing and controlling what people do, and motivating them through rewards and punishment. Theory Y suggests appealing to people’s higher-level needs through communicating and negotiating goals and outcomes. If managers in your organization act as if they believe in theory X, employees are likely to be demotivated. You can set rules to protect the organization from lazy and uncommitted employees.

Although it may seem odd, working in smart surroundings is not the greatest motivator. It is very pleasant and can signal a certain status, but it’s not essential. The majority of people want to do a good job. They want to work to the best of their ability. It will almost certainly take them longer to do something if they don’t have the proper tools to do it. Basic work needs in an average office to include:

Intangible motivators are more difficult to identify and usually vary from person to person, although there are some that are common to most people. These fall across a spectrum ranging from those that are fairly easily defined, such as job security, flexible working, recognition, and career development, to those that are very personal, such as achievement—the feeling of having done a job well, belonging to a worthwhile organization, or being part of a well-respected team. These motivators are often highly prized and many people would rather work for an organization of which they are proud, or that takes account of their work-life balance, than for one that simply pays well.

Culture is defined by an organization’s values and behavior. It is about the way things are done. Supportive cultures create a trusting environment that facilitates motivation. On the other hand, a blame culture^* creates a climate of fear. Rather than promoting an environment in which mistakes are not made, it leads to one in which no one will take any risks and where people are more concerned about checking their own work than moving forward and achieving objectives.

A culture of openness motivates the whole team to perform. It is created by leaders communicating a clear vision of what they want the values of their organization to be. Many organizations publish their values and display them on their websites and intranet. The organization setting is important, but you should also create your own local team culture. To encourage a culture of openness you will need to respond positively when people present their mistakes or problems. You must use the opportunity to help people learn from their mistakes, rather than to pass judgement or criticize their actions. Believing that most people want to do a good job will help you do this. Over time, your action will create trust, and people will respond to your approach and confide in you. As you resolve their issues, you will motivate the whole team to perform.

Long-established teams usually build good working relationships and have a strong sense of loyalty to the team and the organization, but they can also develop a reluctance to change and make improvements. Individuals may have become bored, and be demotivated as a result. Bringing in a person with new ideas can re-motivate a team. However, if you bring in the wrong person or handle their integration into the team ineptly, you may damage the team spirit. So it is important to consider a new recruit carefully.

There are two key questions to ask when recruiting. The first is: “Does this person have the right experience, knowledge, and skill to do the job?” The second relates to attitude and approach: “How will this person contribute to the team and the organization?” The answers to the first question should be apparent from the individual’s résumé, and can be checked at the interview. The answers to the second can be sought during the interview process. Spotting self-motivated personnel is a challenging task. You can judge whether the individual is self-motivated by finding out whether they progressed in their previous organization, have learned from mistakes, and if they have interests outside work.

Recruitment is an expensive process, so when you bring in a new person you want to make sure they stay and are successful in improving team performance. Your role as manager is to ensure that the new recruit has the best possible start. Consider how you will introduce them and integrate them into your existing team. Make sure team members are aware of the person’s background and what they will be doing. Brief the individual on their personal objectives and the overall team objectives. If you work in a large organization you may want to appoint a mentor to work closely with the person through the early stages in their new role.

It is generally accepted that motivated employees perform better, so it is important to establish how your employees are feeling as objectively as you can. The best way to get reliable and anonymous feedback about the mood of the workforce is through a regular staff opinion survey. Markus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, management consultants at the Gallup organization, developed a set of 12 questions to measure the motivation of a workforce. Does your staff:

  They also suggest you should ask how satisfied your employees are with your organization as an employer. Their research showed that responses to the questions can be positively linked to productivity, profitability, customer satisfaction, and staff turnover. Conducting the survey each year will allow you to compare the results over time, and reveal where improvements are being made and where you need to take action.

If you conduct a survey, it is always important to give feedback. Ideally you should communicate this at team level, but when teams have returned fewer than seven completed surveys, you should not give the results, as anonymity will be undermined. Present and discuss the results openly, focusing on issues raised by the survey and actions that could be taken to avoid problems and improve things in the future. Be careful not to over-promise to avoid creating unrealistic expectations among your employees.