How To Motivate Employees (Hint: You Can't)

Motivating Employees

I get it. You want a dream team, a devoted group of employees who would move mountains, face their fears, and work tirelessly to help you meet your entrepreneurial goals. I hate to break it to you bucko, but they ain’t you. They may love you and their job, but nobody will ever be as determined as you to make your business a success. And if you think money will make the difference, you are fatally wrong.

Money does NOT motivate. In fact, money is the world’s greatest anti-motivator. If you pay people too little, they will right that wrong by under performing, coming in late, or even engaging in a little sabotage. If you pay people too much, they will work hard, but they will not work harder. No one can put in more than 100% effort, even if they try.

Pay people enough so that they feel good about coming to work, so that they don’t feel cheated. You want your employees to feel secure, comfortable, and valued.

Another common motivator misstep is scaring the shit out of your employees. Fear works, but only for about ten minutes. They may speed up while you’re in earshot, but they’ll be making voodoo dolls of you by lunchtime. And once they hate you, they will always behave that way. Resentment toward meanie employers never dies.

You can’t motivate people. They motivate themselves. They have it in their blood, or they don't.  Some people will kick it up a notch to earn a promotion, or a reward, or for recognition. But ultimately, it’s up them. The surest way to improve performance is to create a secure, calm environment where your employees know they are important members of your team.

Just remember that your team is not on The Amazing Race. They’ll do their job, but don’t expect them to leap over canyons or eat a bowl of live spiders. Only you would be crazy enough to do that for your business.

 

By Mike Michalowicz, Author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur


Category: Hiring & Firing, The Right Actions
Tags: , , , , .
  • http://www.moniquepowell.net Monique Powell

    This is what you call “cold, hard truth”. Your employees will NEVER be as motivated to make your business succeed as as you will. Find a way to help them meet their own goals and needs through helping you meet yours. That’s the only way to have a shot at getting the best out of them.

  • Mike Michalowicz

    @Monique – Yup! You are spot on.

    - Mike

  • http://www.plantescompany.com/blog/ kay Plantes

    At a family funeral this weekend, an elderly Irish relative told me he motivated his team of sales people by asking, “Tell me one thing that you want in life–and I don’t care if it is work related or not.” Then, whatever the response, he identified one thing that he could do as the employee’s boss to help that individual achieve his goal. (E.G., you can come in 15 minutes late every day if that helps you get closer to your daughter). Over time, as individuals understood he was on their side and they saw they could achieve goals that they had, they turned to workplace performance goals and broke all kinds of records.

  • http://www.winningworkplaces.org Mark

    Hi Mike,

    I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you. I think there’s the extreme that you wrote about, that motivation is not worth the time because the passion will not match up to that of the boss. But then there’s the other side that says that even if that is true, there are business benefits to be gained by putting effort into it. I wrote about these in a counterpoint blog post here: http://bit.ly/ec9DQ

    I’ve been fascinated to see where the debate on both employee motivation and general engagement has gone recently. There seem to be some very different opinions out there — which I think is great because at least it’s being talked about. Thanks.

  • Manas

    Hi Mike,

    Can agree with you more on the money and motivation part.
    Nice Post.

    • http://www.ToiletPaperEntrepreneur.com Mike Michalowicz

      Well thank you Manas!

  • http://blog.teamly.com/about Scott Allison

    I read somewhere that while you can’t motivate employees you can demotivate them, and I find that’s true. So many businesses demotivate their employees, often over silly, small things that could be easily fixed. So make sure you listen and react and communicate with your people, to keep them happy.