Motivation – Snowfly

You Can’t Motivate People…So Stop Trying

February 22, 2017 by Snowfly

“Motivation” isn’t achieved via tired clichés written on posters or through fiery speeches to an amped up crowd at a political rally. Instead, real motivation comes from a place within each individual person that leads you or me to perform behaviors which will either produce some kind of positive effect or remove a negative effect from our lives. (See Human Motivation Series Part I)

Anne Bruce, a successful professional speaker, executive mentor, and the author of many books, has a quote in the very front of one of her books: How to Motivate Every Employee: 24 Proven Tactics to Spark Productivity in the Workplace. The quote says “In thinking about motivation from a management perspective, it’s very important to appreciate this point: You can’t motivate people, you can only influence what they’re motivated to do.” (emphasis added)

In other words, it is not a manager’s job, the responsibility of the employer, or even the purpose of the company mission statement to motivate an individual to take action in the right direction. Sure, those things may help, but the reality is, each person still makes an individual choice to do those things which are good for the profitability of the company. In fact, quite often, the ways a manager believes are best to motivate his/her team could actually be major demotivating influences for many of their employees.

Published rules make sure everyone agrees on what are acceptable behaviors.

What I believe Anne Bruce is really trying to tell us is that the best way to truly motivate individuals is to create an environment in which others can thrive. Because my brain thinks in terms of analogies to which I can make mental connections, and because I am a big sports fan, prepare yourself for a sports-to-business analogy. Allow me to paint a mental picture for you of what I envisioned when I read Anne’s statement: every sport/game has rules so that those who are playing understand and agree before the contest begins what is and is not allowed, know how to score points, and know how a winner will be decided within the parameters of the contest. By establishing those standards beforehand, individual participants are then free to explore the limits of those requirements so long as they stay within the rules.

In football, there are rules against holding another player and preventing him from having a clear path to another player. In soccer, you are not allowed to use your hands. In volleyball, your team can only touch it three times on your side before putting it back over the net. In golf…well, the rules for golf are seemingly endless (the official USGA rulebook is 121 pages long!) so, just make sure you hit the ball from wherever it last came to rest and you’ll be fine. The point is that each sport/game has clear guidelines and then sports fans like me become giddy when an athlete playing the game within the rules, does something extraordinary.

Serena Williams at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, Queens, NY. (Photo courtesy of www.tennisviewmag.com)

Serena Williams acing a serve at the U.S. Open is breathtaking. Klay Thompson hitting nothing but nylon on a step-back 3-pointer is sublime. Clayton Kershaw freezing a batter on a wicked slider for a called strike three…nasty. Aaron Rodgers spinning and scrambling to his left, then throwing a 40-yard dart to the sideline where Jared Cook makes one of the best catches you will ever see to get the Packers into range for the game winning field goal…on the road…in the playoffs…unbelievable!! (Also totally heartbreaking if you are a Dallas Cowboys fan.) In business, we can apply these same principles, and as managers, employers, and business owners, we can be (and should be) just as excited to watch our employees amaze us as they achieve equally impressive feats in life.

One of the hallmarks of Snowfly’s proven system is helping our clients learn to effectively influence the behaviors their employees are motivated to perform. The point is, create the environment you want your employees to operate within, set some written, attainable and measurable goals for their performance, articulate the rewards/benefits for achieving the goals…and then stop trying to motivate them. If you have created the correct environment for success, you will have influenced the things that your employees are motivated to do. At that point, you have played your role and your job is to be their biggest fan and cheer the amazing accomplishments, the extraordinary creativity, and eventually, the huge wins that will follow. Every professional baseball player is motivated by the same goal, they don’t need to be told what should motivate them. The 2016 Chicago Cubs didn’t begin Spring Training last year with everyone in the organization sitting down for a pep-talk to properly motivate them to want to win the World Series…they already had 108 years’ worth (1908-2016) of motivational reasons behind them. Likewise, your employees know what motivates them as individuals too, so give them some rules to play by and then get out of their way!

Amen Corner at The Masters in Augusta, GA. (Photo courtesy of www.lifezette.com)

In our years of helping other companies learn how to maximize their incentive program budgets and ultimately motivate their employees to levels of performance not seen before, we here at Snowfly have learned a few things. If you want to score a six points all at once in football, the requirement is clear…carry the ball across the goal line to score a touchdown. Similarly, if you want to see your employees excel, set clearly defined measurements of success and then reward them for reaching those targets. Outline exactly what will result from performing a specific behavior, i.e. show up for your scheduled shifts on-time, every day for a week and you will earn a $5 bonus. Or, complete this training regimen and pass this examination to receive an extra $1/hour pay raise. Set 15 new customer appointments this week and…you get the idea. In sports terms, your job is to design the golf hole, cut the grass, identify the target by putting the flag in the cup and then watch how every single person who plays that course attacks that hole in thousands of different ways; some in ways you never envisioned.

Team vs. Individual Rewards: The 75/25 Rule

February 13, 2017 by Snowfly

Here at Snowfly, we are often asked by our clients whether they should focus on individual recognition or team recognition. Having graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, where I was trained by both Navy and Marine Corps personnel on various occasions, I am no stranger to the power of motivation using mutual team success/failure. I never wanted to be the one who was responsible for letting my team down or causing others to have to do extra push-ups. I also was taught that team success was always more important that individual success, and lived that way throughout my college experience. On several occasions, I witnessed classmates and fellow midshipmen sacrifice their time, often at the expense of their own grades and personal success, to help tutor or lighten the load of another midshipman. That was just the way it was done.

In the workplace, while the same level of selflessness may exist, it is just not sustainable over the long-term. Promotions, raises, additional earned benefits and incentives all mean different things to each person. Despite having common team goals, like a military unit tasked with a specific objective, most of us go to work and then go home to a different team than the one we just spent our entire workday with. When you live, eat, sleep and breathe the same mission with the same team all day every day, mutual goals, shared successes, and getting everyone home alive are all factors of what makes team incentives work in the military and exactly what is missing from incentive programs in the workplace where all rewards are team-based.

This concept is backed-up by the world of sports as well. For example, every member of an NFL Super Bowl winning team receives a championship ring and a bonus for winning the game. But, typically the player who received the most “individual recognition & rewards” for his contributions to the team, is also the highest paid player on that team. The superstar athletes are paid more because they earn it through their performance and yet, even they know that without the other 52 players on their team, there would be no championship. In other words, teams absolutely win championship games together, but it is the superstars who get their teams to the championship game to begin with.

Snowfly’s founder, Dr. Brooks Mitchell, shares some interesting insight into Individual vs. Team Rewards in the White Paper linked here. He provides compelling evidence as to why team rewards, while effective, are not as effective as individual rewards in the workplace. In his “75/25 Rule” explanation, Dr. Mitchell outlines how to include Team Rewards in an incentive program while still maximizing the ROI of every incentive dollar you spend by ensuring that your top performers, those whose efforts improve the performance of the rest of their team, should be compensated the most for their individual contributions. If more than 25% of your incentive budget is earmarked for “team” performance, take a few minutes to read the White Paper and learn what you can do to balance out your team vs. individual reward structure.

Read the White Paper here: 75/25 Rule

Human Motivation Series: Part 2 – Powerful Motivation: Beyond Rewards & Punishments

May 8, 2025December 9, 2016 by Snowfly

This article is Part 2 of a series on human motivation written by Dr. Vern A. Cox, Ph.D., an expert in Human Behavioral Theory.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Human Motivation — *Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Categories & Explanations.*

Human motivation is affected by both rewards and punishment.

What is more important for leaders to know is that there are various human needs which drive human motivation. In the mid-1900s a psychologist, Abraham Maslow, proposed a hierarchy of needs. He suggested that we must first fill our physiological needs (food, water, clothing, shelter) before we can focus on higher needs. Maslow’s next level of needs is safety (war, natural disaster, violence, job security, financial).

When physiological and safety needs are met we can then focus on belonging, esteem (competence, mastery, self-confidence) and self-actualization (continual growth, purpose, contribution). Maslow later amended his hierarchy in regards to self-actualization, saying that the self only finds its actualization in giving itself to some higher goal outside oneself, in altruism and spirituality.

What Maslow’s theory opens up is all kinds of ways to look at human motivation and apply rewards. We are not just limited to money as a motivator on the job. Maslow’s hierarchy also suggests that managers consider the various needs of their workers when contemplating why one person is producing more or less than other team members. Production levels can be seriously reduced by unmet needs or significantly increased in an employee whose needs are satisfied. If an employee’s needs are being met at work, either in all or in part, that employee is more likely to stick around longer.

Let’s look at some examples. Suppose one of your employees, because of extenuating circumstances, is not able to meet obligations at home for food and housing costs at their current wage level. That person’s on-the-job focus and performance will suffer greatly. A mutually beneficial solution, if possible, could be to temporarily move this employee to a different position which requires less focused attention on the job.

Discussing the reason for the move with the employee prior to taking action will result in a more positive experience for everyone involved. Simply moving that person without having their understanding or buy-in, which may cause further animosity and even less job satisfaction, or having to ultimately terminate the person for lack of performance, are both outcomes where neither side benefits.

Stronger interpersonal relationships at work = happier & more productive employees. Human motivation — *Stronger interpersonal relationships at work = happier & more productive employees.*

For the person who is able to meet physiological needs but has no connections outside of work, belonging to a team at work that works well together may fill that person’s need for connection. Company parties, office breaks where people mingle, or other activities where there is time to develop friendships all help to create a sense of belonging.

Workers who feel they belong will be more productive and if the belonging happens at the work place, they will be more connected to that work place. Giving employees the opportunity to feel that they are an essential part of a team or the company as a whole and that they are valued by others within the company will also increase the sense of belonging and hence improve motivation.

People are often demotivated by a lack of self-confidence. Self-confidence results from a sense of competency and mastery of a specific task at hand. At work, an employee’s self-confidence must reside in the employee’s ability to competently perform his/her specific job responsibilities.

Adequate training, job modeling and performance reviews (including constructive feedback) all go a long way toward increasing job-satisfaction & productivity and therefore human motivation & employee longevity.

Human motivation Break barriers at work by helping employees develop a sense of purpose. — *Break barriers at work by helping employees develop a sense of purpose.*

The feeling that a worker is a part of something greater than him/herself is also powerfully motivating. When employees have a sense of purpose at work that is in-line with their own personal values they are for more motivated to perform at a higher level than when their own values are at odds with those of their employer.

When a person’s basic needs are met, he or she will be free to focus on higher goals such as furthering the growth of the company that employs them. The more their basic needs are being met at or by their employer, the stronger the motivation will be for that employee to be loyal to their company.

The most successful managers understand that it is in their best interest to fulfill as many of these basic needs of their employees as they possibly can because doing so almost always produces a significant return on investment. In fact, it is typically far more cost-effective to better fulfill the needs of current employee’s than it is to hire new ones.

Dr. Vern A. Cox, Ph.D.

Note: While research has not substantiated the order of Maslow’s needs, the existence of the needs has been shown in various studies. The names or specific hierarchy of the needs may change according to differing studies, but the general categories remain basically the same.

For more information on this article or any others in this series, Dr. Cox can be reached directly at:
vernc@my-healthyliving.net

Measure. Reward. Repeat.

November 7, 2016 by Snowfly

Where other technology vendors apply a limited interpretation to their definition of “gamification” in their tools, Snowfly continues to innovate and prove that our original application of gamification principles is the most effective at producing long-term financial benefits & results.

Human Motivation Series: Part 1 – Basic Motivation

October 13, 2016 by Snowfly

This article is the first in a series written by Dr. Vern A. Cox, Ph.D., an expert in Human Behavioral Theory.

As a manager, in order to motivate my team/employees I would want to know some basics about human behavior. It may sound very simplistic, but employees work for things that benefit them. When a job is no longer perceived as beneficial, employees either change jobs (longevity issue) or their performance suffers (efficiency/productivity issue).

Motivation can be broadly described as an influence which determines an employee’s choice when one or more behaviors will accomplish a particular task. Motivation also includes the persistence and speed with which the work is pursued. On a basic level, the determining factors of work behavior are the employee receiving something beneficial and avoiding things they don’t like. The behavioral motivation concept can be illustrated by the following diagram:

When an employee anticipates that their behavior will result in receiving positive reinforcement, we say they are motivated by a reward. A person is generally motivated to act with increased persistence and energy when achieving a reward. When an employee perceives that some course of action will result in relief from an undesirable state, we say they are motivated to achieve relief.

On the other hand, when that same employee is acting to avoid or escape a painful state or to avoid incurring a penalty (having something they like taken away) we say they are motivated to avoid punishment. Let’s expand the diagram to further illustrate:

People are motivated to obtain reinforcement, whether positive reinforcement (reward) or negative reinforcement (relief). That means employees stay at work and work harder if they perceive that the work is rewarding. The psychological term, negative reinforcement, is often confused with punishment. Just because it has the word ‘negative’ is used in the definition, does not mean it is punishment or that it the results are negative. It is called negative reinforcement because it tends to increase behavior by removing something negative. When striving to maintain longevity of employees or their efficiency, do not neglect the possibility of relief. Relief may come in the form of a different supervisor, training to relive a sense of incompetence or the removal of some negatively perceived working condition. Employees are also motivated by punishment, that is, they act to avoid it. A word of caution; there are very different long term consequences when using reinforcement than when motivating by punishment.

At our core, we as people (and as employees) are motivated to receive benefits or to avoid pain. That statement, while basic and true, is very simplistic because there are many mitigating factors that modify the employee’s choice (i.e. the direction of their behavior), as well as the persistence and the vigor of their goal directed behavior. Some of the mitigating factors are the intensity of the desire (drive), the frequency of reinforcement, the perceived value of the goal (payoff), as well as the person’s expectancy that he or she has capability of achieving the goal.

The bottom line?? Rewards and relief tend to make happy, productive workers. Punishment tends to make compliant, but unwilling, anxious, and sometimes rebellious ones.

Dr. Vern A. Cox, Ph.D.

For more information on this article or any others in this series, Dr. Cox can be reached directly at:
vernc@my-healthyliving.net