Motivation Theory – Focus on Skills, not on Numbers
Posted on | July 6, 2009 | 1 Comment
What the title means…
Imagine you are new to a basketball team and you have never played basketball. Your coach tells you that the game involves shooting the basketball into the hoop. The coach shows you where the hoop is, tells you to practice, then leaves. Now let’s imagine 3 days later you are in a game, and you haven’t seen the coach during that time, but you show up excited and ready to play.
The game begins, and you can’t wait to get going. You’re excited, motivated, ready for action and the coach puts you in. You take the ball is passed to you, so you throw it at the basket as hard as you can from center court, and miss. Your coach then yells at you and says to get closer to the hoop. The next time the ball is passed, you start running and the whistle blows because you didn’t dribble. The coach then yells at you again for the foul.
The next time you decide you will stand ready under the basket, so you wait patiently by the basket while your team plays on the other end of the court with your four team mates playing against the five team members on the other end. Now the team runs back down and tells you to run up and help them next time and that you better start playing right or you’ll be kicked off the team.
A few minutes later the ball is passed to you and with the ball in your hands you try to throw it to the basket with both hands but it’s blocked because you were to close to the opposing team. The coach then yells at you because you’ve been playing now for 5 minutes and haven’t made a basket yet. Now imagine for the next 20 minutes your team mates are yelling at you your coach is yelling at you, and you realize you HATE this game. Why?
Pretty obvious, no one took the time to teach you the skills you need to play and win.
The same thing happens to often at work. There are certain numbers you are required to obtain, goals the company has etc. If you don’t take the time to teach your team members how to do the job better, don’t expect consequences, positive or negative, to do much.
My number one rule in managing is: Never tell anyone they need to do a better job or that they are doing a good job without telling them exactly what it is they need to improve on or what they are doing well.
This can be challenging. How often do you tell an employee, “you’re doing a great job”. If you are trying to be a good manager, you are probably doing it quite a bit. However, if you tell them each time you complement them why exactly you think they are doing a great job, the complement means so much more. Conversely, if you tell an employee they need to do better and don’t tell them exactly what they need to work on the comment usually has little affect other than to demoralize.
When you are trying to motivate employees, be exact in your complements and in your coaching and focus on the skills they need and the numbers will take care of themselves.
Tags: motivating employees > motivating staff > what motivates employees
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April 11th, 2010 @ 2:23 pm
Hi Rob,
I was just reviewing your site, and really like what you have going on here! I will definitely be contacting you in the next day or so to set up a meeting!
Well done, my friend!
Kisha