Motivation

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Maintaining the Self-Motivation of Associates in Daily Operations

The only motivation that gets results for the long-term is self-motivation. It is not effective when forced and must come from the hearts and minds of associates. Talent is maximized by motivation and motivation helps determine attitude which is a big factor in quality.

One of the principle ways to keep people self-motivated is by leading the engagement of associates, customers, and partners of the enterprise. A number of studies indicate what Gallup found--that approximately one out of three associates are currently engaged. We define engagement as people involved with their hearts and minds.

A group leader can practice activities to move associate's engagement towards full engagement they will build a cycle of engagement where associates engage customers who in turn reengage associates and partners alike. This is the entrepreneurial ethic for self-motivation through keeping the voice of the customer (VOC) on the frontlines of daily operations.

This practice helps frontline leaders create and maintain self-motivation in the following ways. Using activities to lead the people-part of the enterprise and compliment existing managerial activities.

Creates an environment for continuous learning through participation in the asking/inquiry process for daily operations. Learning is critical to keep associate's interest, challenge, skills, and opportunities for self-motivation.
Lead recognition for customers, associates, and partners through involvement in a thanking process. Mostly non-verbal, actions for thanking demonstrate intentions, cooperation, accountability, and attention.
Build ownership by leading beliefs through awareness and understanding as associates learn to get a critical feedback--that from their own daily activities.
Through a secondary asking process the questions on "How are we doing?" orientate everyone as to priorities for daily operations.
Sharing feedback and making assessments promotes an ongoing dialog to maintain attention and interest.
Lead activities for participation and enjoyment for customers, associates, and partners.
Continuous peer review creates trust and accountability.

Our research indicates that understanding along with awareness and ownership are the three conditions which are critical to maintain beliefs. These are all important to self-motivation and cannot be achieved long-term without asking/inquiry (mostly non-verbal). With understanding in the workplace, for example, hearing and seeing would represent feedback while the doing would represent asking/inquiry from daily experiences and relationships. The importance of asking/inquiry to long-term awareness and ownership is even more obvious--i.e. when you ask the question you then own the answer.

As far as manageable factors for human motivation, Frederick Herzberg's Two Factor theory has become a beneficial structure for the self-motivation of individuals.

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