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Motivation Magic

By James A Baker
Chairman
Baker Communications
January 2008

Anyone charged with managing people – and this applies to parents, teachers, and coaches, as well as business managers and supervisors – will tell agree that the biggest task they face is motivating their people to apply themselves and strive for higher and better results. Very often, I hear people exclaim in disgust that, “This guy just has no motivation!”

Well, that is not exactly true. Have you ever stood out in the parking lot and watched people headed home on a Friday afternoon? Usually, there is a spring in their step and a smile on their face as they race off in miserable rush hour traffic towards whatever weekend rewards await them. Oh, they are motivated all right. So don’t say, “This guy has no motivation.” Instead, say, “I still haven’t figured out what this guy’s motivation IS.” That is the real problem.

The biggest mistake managers make when it comes to motivation is to assume that everyone is motivated by the same thing. Usually, we assume that it is money. We believe that all we have to do is dangle bonuses, incentives, rewards and raises out there and people will jump higher and run faster for the sheer joy of making more money. Surprisingly, this is not always true. As a matter of fact, a large number of employees will list something other than money as the thing that supplies motivation for them in their job.

Now, before you go whacking the payroll in half, let me hasten to point out that employees prefer to be paid more rather than less, and if you consistently underpay good employees, you will eventually lose them. Still, money is a condition for getting employees to come to work; it is not always a condition for inspiring them to work hard once they arrive.

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