How To Motivate People

Imagine, if you will, that your district manager called you up tonight and told you that there had been an emergency. There was a rock slide that had buried the parking lot of one of our stores, and they needed you to come out tommorrow morning at four in the morning and move rocks so all the rocks would be out of the way in time for the store to open at nine.

How would you feel as you set your alarm for the next morning? How would you feel as you lay down, knowing you would have to get up in just a few hours? How would you feel when that alarm went off, and you knew you had to get up?

Now imagine this: You get the same late-night call from your district manager. They still want you to meet them at four in the morning, but the reason is different. They've had to go out of town at the last minute, so they had to cancel a visit they were going to make with their family to Disneyland. Their flight leaves early, but if you can meet them at four in the morning, you can have the passes for you and your family for free.

Now how would you feel as you set your alarm? Now how would you feel as you lay down? And how would you feel when the alarm went off?

Probably a completely different feeling. In fact, you might set the alarm for an even earlier time now, just in case. You'd pop out of bed and dash off to go get those tickets.

Notice that even though the events were the same--you were having to get up early--your attitude about it, your eagerness to do it, was entirely based on your perception of what was going to happen, not on the act itself. It was still the same time of morning both times, but the action got easier based on how you felt about it.

Now I'm not going to pretend that your job is anything like a visit to Disneyland--if it were, your could probably charge you to work there instead of paying you. But I will say that playing up the fun and entertaining aspects of your job will make your job easier, as well as the people you manage.

As managers, it is your responisbility to keep your people motivated. That means motivating yourselves, as well as motivating your staff. In order to do this, you're going to have to put some effort in to figuring out what motivates yourself, and what motivates them. You're probably motivated by very different things! You might find the thought of a big bonus drives you to working hard, but your CSR might not care about their bonus, so much as they want recognition.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to try to figure out what motivates you:

1. What do I feel is the biggest accomplishment I've made outside the home?

2. When have I felt the most valued and appreciated?

3. What event I was involved with, outside of my home, brings a smile to my face when I think about it?

4. What job that I've had brought me the most satisfaction?

5. If you remember a day when you were excited to come into work, what was special about that day?

By thinking about the answers to these questions, you can find what area of the job means the most to you. Here are some possible motivators:

Competition. Did you think about times where you knew you had stood out from the crowd, and made a difference? Did you think about times where you had "won" or "beat" another? Then competition may be your biggest motivator.

To make work more fun, you may want to find a store that's about the same size and with the same types of customers as yours and start trying to beat them. You may want to ask your district managers if you can have a competition with that store, where the losing store pays for lunch for the winning store out of their expenses.

Maybe pick a store that's doing a little better than you and start trying to pass them up.

By giving yourself something to shoot for, you can exploit that competitive spirit in yourself.

Warning: It is not a good idea to put your staff in competition against each other. This can make them start working against each other, which will hurt your store overall (eg, if you have a contest for which CSR can get the most contacts, a CSR might withold infomation from the notes that might help other CSRs reach that customer). Instead, have your CSRs compete as a team against some other team, or for a common goal. This builds the spirit of cooperation and commeradery. When people are working together for a common goal, it gives them less reason to work against each other.

Recognition. Did you think about times when you received special awards or honors? Did you think about a special phone call that you got from a supervisor or co-worker aknowledging an effort you had made? You're probably motivated by recognition.

This one's tough, because in a lot of ways, you can't control how other people recognize your accomplishements. You might get a pat on the back one month, but the next month do even better and have it go unrecognized.

However, look for those spots where the company regularly recognizes performance, such as top performers or biggest movement.

If your employees are motivated by recognition, it is important to create means whereby they can be recognized. These can be informal, such as daily aknowledgement of efforts like making phone calls or obtaining promises, or more formal, such as with certificates or awards of Days off or other forms of recognition.

Money. Some people are motivated by the cold, hard cash. If this is the case with you, track those areas of your performance that are tied to your company's incentive bonuses. Create a way to know, at any given moment, how you stand in terms of that bonus.

If your employees are motivated by money, share these same forms with them. Help them see where they are, and how the way they perform their work duties affects that bonus.

Service. Maybe the times you thought of involved helping other people, and you feel the best about yourself when you're doing good things for other people.

There are lots of opportunities to serve in any job. Everyone is paying for a good or a service that they need, and the way you help with that can, at the very least, brighten their day, and, depending on the product or service, make a difference in their lives. By focusing on how your job helps others, you may find the sense of satisfaction you need.

Fun. The things you thought of may have been things you really didn't think of as "work." Maybe for you, you want play, plain and simple.

Well, that's great! What ways can you bring fun into the office? What appropriate music can you play? What games can you involve the store in?

One large store rotates lunch each week--each day, someone prepares lunch for the entire store. The next day, someone else does. They take turns helping customers during the lunch hour, and they get to sample a lot of different foods from a lot of different people.

One store made a daily checklist on a big board with magnets. When they finish an item on the checklist, they "cross it off" with a magnet, and intial the clipboard, which hangs from the board.

Finding ways to make the workday more fun makes your store more pleasant for you and your customers.

There are lots of other possible ways you can motivate yourself and your employees. All of them may not work for you, but no one item may be complete either. If you have several CSRs, you'll probably need to use a variety of techniques to motivate all of them. Getting to know your CSRs will help you do this.

Remember--as tough as any job can be, as intense as you want to be, that doesn't mean it always has to be unpleasant or rough. The more effort you put in to making work pleasant, the more free your employees (and you!) will feel about giving their all to their work effort. Just like trying to get out of bed in the morning, the less you can find to be excited about, the harder any job becomes.

But the more you have something to look forward to, the more likely you'll be to leave that snooze button alone.