Motivating the
Demotivated
Checklist 221
Introduction
Some would argue that people are not unmotivated; it’s just that the right motivation triggers have not yet
been found. It’s largely a question of identifying what you have not been getting quite right and working on
what makes the apparently unmotivated tick.
Definition
Motivation is defined as the needs, drives and desires that drive human actions and thoughts. Those needs
range from physical needs (food, shelter) to emotional (need to belong, recognition, love) to cognitive (making
sense of the world), and their intensity and scope influence behaviour and perception of the environment in
every human being.
Action checklist
1.
Find out what does motivate them
The better you know your colleagues/employees the better you can manage them. So get to know them.
This doesn’t necessarily mean sharing evenings out, or endlessly having chats about what happened at the
weekend. But it does involve trying to form an objective view of what matters to them, of what drives each
individual. You may have been trying the wrong things.
Try asking: “What’s important to you in your work”, ‘what annoys you?’ and ‘did things change lately?’
Listen and write down what is said. Typical examples include:
a) Being appreciated for what I do and achieving something Try to find out what kind of appreciation
they mean, e.g. promotion, bonus, public praise and recognition, private recognition, more
responsibility, new tasks, job security.
b) Doing a good job and enjoying myself What does enjoyment mean to them - working with people
they like, completing projects on time, not working too much?
c) Solving problems themselves, e.g. being the expert, developer, or rather motivating others to get
things right, managing and organising, or solving problems as a team. Which stage of problemsolving, e.g. developing new ideas and concepts, implementing things, organising and supervising?
Now what you need to do is to reframe their work in terms of what it is that motivates them. We have to
remember that what is motivating for some may well be de-motivating for others.
2.
Use their own words
Once you have identified what’s important to the other person about their work, take the words they have
used and show how they can be motivated in their work. Let’s look at each example in turn:
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Example a)
Being appreciated for what I do and achieving something.
This is a person who needs you to tell them how much you appreciate what they do. You also need to talk to
them in terms of what they are going to achieve. Not what you want them to do. For example:
“We need to sell five thousand of these by the end of the year. How can we do that? You’ve got to work
harder and sell more of these.”
Example b)
Doing a good job and enjoying myself.
In this case you probably need to ask what they mean by doing a good job. Most people think they know, but
it’s different for different people. Once you know that, you can help them. For example, it might be any of
these:
i.
ii.
iii.
Finishing what I started at the beginning of the day
Having satisfied customers
Doing the job to the best of my ability.
You also need to find out what they enjoy in order to discover how you can help them to enjoy their work.
Example c) Solving problems and making sure things don’t go wrong. Here, you have a person who
likes solving problems so you need to talk about work issues as problems and use that language when you
speak to the person. This is someone who may well not be motivated by goals and targets.
This individual will be delighted if you tell them you have a really difficult problem to solve and no one else
can fix it. Sometimes, one individual’s negativity is another’s positivity. By using reverse psychology and
informing someone of what could go wrong, you can in fact motivate them to do a better job.
3.
Treat all of your team members as individuals
All these things are very personal. It won’t be the same for any two people. So find out exactly what an
individual wants and what you can do to help them. In the first case here:
(i) Finishing what I started at the beginning of the day. Here you can ask the individual how you can help
them to finish what they started at the beginning of the day.
In the next case, (ii), you need to find out who the individual thinks of as their customers and then how they
can be satisfied. It may be that they are already satisfied but the individual is not aware of this.
Case (iii) will require you to find out what the individual means by the ‘best of my ability’ and how that can be
measured.
Think of your employees as a team and what motivates them as a team, as opposed to other teams. Which
incentives can you set on the team level to increase team cohesion and performance? Individual and team
motivation need to go together. Which level you address depends on the analysis of the current situation, on
the tasks at hand and the goals you need to achieve.
Motivating teams is one key strategy for integrating ‘difficult’ individuals. As a rule people do not want to be
left out and stand out too much. So if you manage to find incentives that motivate the whole team but one,
that one employee is likely to make at least some effort.
4.
Have clear goals
Psychologically speaking it is unlikely that whatever goals the demotivated have, they are not helping work
performance. For managers it is always best to work from the position that everyone has goals, but they
might be diametrical to what you need at work. More likely than no goals is that there is not enough goal
clarity, or that there are conflicting goals that are set. E.g. by different supervisors in the organisation, e.g. for
employees who are members of several teams etc., so check for goal incongruence.
This could be because none have been set for them or they are unable to set goals themselves. Finding it
hard to set goals is often a consequence of stress. It can happen because the part of your brain that
performs the function is simply switched off.
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It can also happen because a person sets themselves goals that are just too big and frightening that they
can’t see the steps in between that will help them to achieve the goal.
5.
Offer help with planning
Similarly, once you have got the goal clear then you need to help the individual work out small steps in order
to achieve the goal. Do this by asking them what they need to do. If they come up with large-sounding or
daunting factors, then help them again to break down the larger steps into smaller, approachable and
manageable ones. For some employees however, it can be more motivating to let them do all the planning,
and not to interfere with the way they achieve the goals.
6.
Take time to explain
It may also be a question not so much of being unmotivated as being uninformed. Some leaders may
operate under the illusion that because they are so familiar with the organisations goals and targets, they
assume that all their team members know them as well. Usually, this is not the case. Having clear goals is
one thing; making sure that they are effectively communicated and understood may be quite another.
Take time to explain the what and why of goals and make sure that everyone has understood and
assimilated their role and contribution towards achieving the goal(s). Knowing the reason(s) why often helps
in daily routines when you have to make choices.
Identifying personal drivers and incentives means that you can allocate responsibilities in that person’s area
of interest. Linking personal goals and contribution to the organisation’s objectives is a double success.
7.
Involve the unmotivated in coming up with solutions
You may well ask an unmotivated person what it is they want or need; they may well tell you what it is they
don’t want. The negativity may come from a number of origins but try to follow up negative remarks by
finding out what they do want.
Answer: “I do not want to work on this project.”
Question: “What sort of project do you want to work on?”
Answer: “One that’s not like this.”
Question: “Would you like more responsibility / independence / resources / scope / people etc?”
Answer: “More independence….”
8.
Try to get buy-in
If people personally decide to attempt something, then generally they are far more likely to be motivated to
achieve than if a task is imposed upon them or if they are instructed to do a task. Involvement generates
buy-in and ownership. Conversely, if people’s views and ideas are not reflected in the way forward, they will
either feel that no one is listening, or that solutions are being generated that do not make use of everybody’s
contribution and experience. Either way de-motivation can set in.
9.
Make sure the rules are clear
Have you ever embarked on a project only to find that the goal posts have shifted? Weeks into the project
you are told that you need to change what you are doing because of some ground rule, or constraint, or
working method was not made clear. Clear briefing on the rules of procedure is as important as the
communication on goals.
10.
Be negative yourself…!
People who appear de-motivated can often be motivated more by problems or things that might go wrong
than by goals. If you happen to be the kind of person who talks about goals and targets, this may be of little
consequence to them. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s more that it just doesn’t press their buttons. One of the
most strange but effective techniques with people like this is to tell them that things are really difficult or
impossible. It may seem odd to you, but to them, this is really motivating.
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Very important: people with high self-esteem and high perceived self-efficacy are motivated by problems and
negative feedback. Because they are resourceful, they see it not as criticism, but as a challenge, and it will
increase their motivation to succeed.
But, people with low self esteem and low self-efficacy will be even further demotivated by negative feedback.
They absolutely need positive goals to look forward to. So differential treatment is needed for individual
employees.
So, if you have one of those people to work with tell them what will go wrong if they don’t do something or
describe the problems you need to solve rather than talking about targets.
11.
Consider alternative action
Having tried the above and quite probably some other strategies too, it may be that you have someone who
is negative by nature, who is awkward for the sake of it. Such people might not respond to any triggers
therefore having a demoralising and detrimental impact on the whole team. Apparently negative by nature,
such a person may well find an alternative working environment is more suited to them. So it may be
appropriate to suggest that they “move on” for their own benefit as well as for that of the team.
National Occupational Standards for Management and Leadership
This checklist has relevance for the following standards:
B: Providing direction, units 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12
C: Facilitating change, units 1, 2, 3, 4
D: Working with people, units 5, 6, 7
F: Achieving results, units 1, 2, 10, 11
Additional resources
Books
Hot spots: why some companies buzz with energy and innovation and others don’t, Lynda Gratton
Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2007
Motivation ability and confidence building in people, Adrian MacKay
Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007
The motivated mind, Raj Persaud
London: Bantam Press, 2005
Motivation handbook, Sarah Hollyforde and Steve Whiddett
London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2002
The stimulus factor: the new dimension in motivation, David Freemantle
London: Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2001
Instant motivation, Brian Clegg
London: Kogan Page, 2000
Peak performance: aligning the hearts and minds of your employees, Jon R Katzenach
Boston, Mass: Harvard business school press, 2000
This is a selection of books available for loan to members from CMI’s library. More information at:
www.managers.org.uk/library
Related checklist
Motivating your staff in a time of change (068)
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any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the publisher.
Related thinkers
Chris Agyris: the manager’s academic (19)
Frederick Herzberg: the hygiene motivation theory (01)
Elton Mayo: the Hawthorne experiments (05)
Abraham Maslow: the hierarchy of needs (09)
Douglas McGregor: theory X and Theory Y (26)
Victor H Vroom: motivation and leadership decision making (44)
Internet resources
Accel team: advancing employee productivity: www.accel-team.com/motivation/index.html
Includes information on motivation theorists and their ideas.
This is one of many checklists available to all CMI members. For more information please contact
t: 01536 204222
e: [email protected]
w: www.managers.org.uk
Chartered Management Institute
Management House, Cottingham Road, Corby NN17 1TT.
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any errors or omissions. You should make appropriate inquiries and seek appropriate advice before
making any business, legal or other decisions. Where legal or regulatory frameworks or references are
mentioned these relate to the UK only.
.
Revised March 2011
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