I moved this post to my new blog
http://www.hanoulle.be/2008/01/intrinsic-motivation-what-motivates-you-in-your-project/
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Intrinsic Motivation: What motivates you in your project?
Posted on January 18, 2008 by Yves Hanoulle (@YvesHanoulle)
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The key to effective intrinsic motivation is balance.
You cannot care too much, but as a manager you can over do the whole intrinsic motivational piece. What I am talking about is being seen as Mr. Nice Guy or Ms. Pushover. This is the antithesis of what the intrinsic motivator is working towards. The whole point of building intrinsic motivation is to build respect for you and your goals. If a manager does not address behavior or production deficiencies properly all the intrinsic motivation building will be for nothing. Where managers go wrong is the proper application of negative (for lack of a better word) extrinsic motivation.
When you catch someone doing something right you praise them quickly and publicly. When you catch them doing something wrong, you must reprimand them quickly and privately. This is the piece that so many managers I have trained struggle with. It is difficult to catch someone doing something right when you have your eyes focused only on the goal and you have blinders on to the little everyday things that are going on around you. On the flip side, a little pebble in the road causes you to look down for a moment, taking your eye off the goal. It is not the little pebble that has you disheveled but the fact that you momentarily lost your focus. This causes many managers to lash out at the pebble offender in front of others. This lashing, even if it is only a couple of seconds will destroy the intrinsic motivation house of cards.
So, you may ask, “How do I fix this?”
It is really quite easy.
1. Never, never, never, never, never, never, express a negative opinion about anything publicly. Not even a bad comment about the weather or a sports team should pass your lips. This does a couple of things. It gets you in the habit of talking positively. If you never make a negative comment about anything, you don’t have to worry about something coming out when it is inappropriate.
2. When someone has not been trained you cannot reprimand them, period. This person must be trained not beat-up. You should take this person aside and gently tell them what needs to be done. You express no disappointment whatsoever.
3. When someone should know better due to training and they do something wrong, you take them to your office. Close the door. Sit down. Very calmly tell them the circumstances that led to this meeting. Tell them that you are disappointed that this thing happened. Direct your feelings toward the pebble in the road not toward them personally. Tell them that this cannot happen again. Tell them that you have complete confidence in their ability based on the great work they have done in the past; stand up, shake hands, and end the meeting. This meeting should not last more than 2 minutes. Don’t let it drag on. Never mention this meeting outside of your private office.
If you have done this right, intrinsic motivation will not be damaged. At the same time, you have addressed negatives and kept an employee motivated.
Paris Street
Paris Street is a Senior Management Professional with nearly 3 decades of practical experience in a diverse range of sales and marketing management principles including Total Quality Management in selection, training, and retention of quality employees producing exemplary rated customer service teams. Skilled communicator at all levels, with a talent for coaching and developing, creating a culture of success, attaining buy-in and empowering individuals and teams to meet and exceed organizational goals.
I don’t understand. You are talking about building intrinsic motivation.
For me intrinsic motivation, means you can not build it.
eveything else you write I understand and mostly agree with.
I don’t agree with the never talk negatively point.
I don’t want to be mister perfect for a team. That will put too much presure on them. On top of that that gives the message that they could never say negative things. While in most teams bringing a negative message to a supperior is hard to do.
I do agree that saying something negative about a person should be done in private. (I see myself breaking that rule more then I wish)
Dear Paircoaching,
Intrinsic motivation is the stuffing that makes people do a job well. People do not come to you pre-stuffed. Your job as a manger is to fill them up. To be successful you must learn that building intrinsic motivation is the #1 job of any manager. Building people up, encouraging them when you find them doing something right, being sensitive to their emotions when you must point out something wrong and issue discipline, these are the areas where you build intrinsic motivation.
I am sorry that you misunderstand the distinction between negative conversation and private discipline talks. Negative conversation is poison to intrinsic motivation. Negative conversation has no place whatsoever in even the smallest degree coming from the mouth of a manager who is developing a team. I am not talking about constructive descent as negative conversation. You seem to be confusing “pointing out challenges that need to be overcome” with “negative conversation”. That is not what I am talking about. I send regular emails to my teams asking this question, “What is wrong with this idea or that program, etc,.” I have made it clear to my teams that the door is always open for respectful constructive criticism.
You are right about one thing. Being positive all the time puts pressure on the team. This is positive pressure. It builds and lifts everybody up. The focus is always on the great things of the day and what tomorrow will bring. This is not to say that you should be Pollyanna about things, just positive about the outcome.
Paris V. Street
Paris Street is a Senior Management Professional with nearly 3 decades of practical experience in a diverse range of sales and marketing management principles including Total Quality Management in selection, training, and retention of quality employees producing exemplary rated customer service teams. Skilled communicator at all levels, with a talent for coaching and developing, creating a culture of success, attaining buy-in and empowering individuals and teams to meet and exceed organizational goals.
CLICK ON MY NAME AT THE TOP OF THE POST TO GO TO THE WEBSITE
Whereas the reward-and-punishment system has been popular for eliciting or underlying human behavior, intrinsic motivation, that is, that innate drive to do something for it’s own sake also plays a pivotal role in the workings of the human mind and human behavior.
Let me share this with you:
http://www.selfmademiracle.com/motivationmodel/how-do-you-nail-intrinsic-motivation/
intrinsic motivation—it’s what you need to make the learning experience fun-filled and pleasurable instead of something short of a penitentiary.
[…] Update: you might also be interested in my post about intrinsic motivation. […]