Two Is Better than One. Or, Is It? Three Surprising Ways to Motivate Your Team
As the calendar turns to January, many leaders feel a gush of optimism and euphoria in their work place. THIS year will be the year I follow my career passion. THIS year will be the year I challenge the status quo. THIS year will be the year I… It’s not surprising that with each new year many of us spend at least a few minutes imaging a brighter spot in our brighter future as we raise a glass with our friends and family. But how many leaders have imagined a better way to motivate their teams?
What an easy New Year’s resolution, you might say. That is, if we had the budget to pay our people the salary they deserved. Or the resources to give them better offices, fancier titles and access to more corporate perks.
Motivation, as it turns out, is a nuanced and tricky thing. Money, prestige and job security are all examples of what psychologists call instrumental motivation. We can think of instrumental motivation as the by-products of a successful professional pursuit. Instrumental motivation also has a first cousin. Its name is internal motivation, which refers to the inherent interests involved in a professional pursuit. For example, a data scientist might be deeply interested in working with numbers and understanding the overall patterns behind them, keeping her engaged and excited about her job.
So, it would seem logical then for smart leaders to cultivate both instrumental AND internal motivation in their teams. After all, two is always better than one? Or, is it?
Two psychologists, Amy Wrzesniewski and Barry Schwartz, conducted a study with over ten thousand military service men and women at West Point. Their study revealed two major findings:
1. Strong internal motivation leads to strong long-term career performance (no surprise here).
2. Strong internal motivation COUPLED WITH strong instrumental motivation actually leads to poor long-term career performance!
Leaders, here is the key insight. “Helping people focus on the meaning and impact of their work, rather than on, say, the financial returns it will bring, may be the best way to improve not only the quality of their work but also — counterintuitive though it may seem — their financial success,” says the study authors in their New York Times article: The Secret of Effective Motivation
The bad news here is focusing on instrumental motivations can actually backfire. The good news, however, is that by cultivating internal motivation, you, your team and your organization can benefit in the long run.
I like the way best selling author, Daniel Pink, distills meaning and impact in our work lives. In his book, “Drive. The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” he lays out three primary motivational categories:
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Over the course of the last year, we at Leadership Story Lab were fortunate to work with individuals who came up with great stories that demonstrate the importance of internal motivation. And they have given us permission to share them with you.
See how Matt Duffy, Director of Marketing at Nonni’s Food Company, helped his employees become more autonomous.
Background
“Someone working for me just wasn’t taking ownership of his role and tasks…either opting for the easiest way to complete a job with poor results or not completing the job because of some unforeseen obstacle.”
Pineapple Upside Down Cake, developed with Leadership Story Lab
“On my dad’s birthday when I was four years old my mom wanted to bake him his favorite cake, pineapple upside down cake. But she was missing one of the key ingredients: maraschino cherries. Since my one-year-old sister and I were home sick with fevers, my mom’s only option to get that last ingredient was my six-year-old brother. We only lived two blocks from a grocery store, and this was a different time. So my mom wrote out “MARASCHINO CHERRIES” on a piece of paper, handed it to my brother and sent him on his way.
My mom stood out on the sidewalk in front of our house and watched him walk the two blocks and then turn to go toward the store on the adjacent block. After a few minutes she came back in to check on me and my sister. After a few more minutes she went outside to check on my brother. She looked down the sidewalk, but saw no sign of him. After another few minutes she looked down the sidewalk again and still no sign of him. At this point, she realized it was more than thirty minutes since she saw him make the turn. She started to get really nervous.
Just as she was about to go in and call the store she saw my brother walking down the street carrying a medium sized, brown paper, grocery store bag. He seemed to be taking his time. When he finally got to our house my mom hugged him and went in the house. When she opened the bag, there was a can of pineapples. So she turned and asked my brother why he didn’t buy the maraschino cherries. He looked up at her with sad eyes, pointed in the air and said, “The cherries were way up there, and the pineapples were right here.”
I have often thought of that story and what my brother must have been thinking about in the store. He must have walked up and down that aisle a few times trying to think of a way to get those cherries. He probably thought about asking someone for help but remembered that he wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. So after much internal debate he remembered my mom was making pineapple cake so he should buy some pineapples.
What is the point of this story you might ask? Well at times in your career you will be faced with similar situations. You will,
Be given a task
Be challenged to complete the task
Have people around to ask for help, or sometimes not
Need to think through options and make decisions
Either come back with nothing, which will leave me with the impression that you don’t care or aren’t smart enough
Or bring back an alternative that you know will add some value, demonstrate care, and that you are smart enough to recognize needs
So wherever you are in your career, remember that bringing back pineapples is always better than not bringing back anything at all.”
[End of Matt’s Story]
On the surface, Matt’s story simply describes for his team the way he likes to work. So one might ask, “How does this story get to autonomy?” If anything, it seems as though Matt is doling out management edicts. Quite the contrary! Matt’s story describes his expectations of his team by using a childhood incidence as an analogy for how he expects them to “play” in the present moment. However, he doesn’t prescribe his expectations point by point. Rather, he shares a leadership principal that matters to him in a way that is hard to forget. Knowing our boss’ expectation, I’d argue, gives us autonomy and frees us up to perform and excel.
What happened after telling his “Pineapple Upside Down Cake” story? Matt shared with us that “the person working for me devised several new systems that successfully improved sales and ROI on our company’s promotional investments.”
So, how do you craft a motivating story of your own to empower your team’s sense of autonomy? Follow the following three-steps.
1. Consider what autonomy means for your team. For some, autonomy might be about having ownership over a project’s progression. For others, it could mean the freedom to experiment with ideas. Knowing what autonomy looks like will help you source a story that truly inspires.
2. Mine stories from your personal experiences; situations that seem far from your work and team environment can be best to capture your team’s attention and imagination.
3. Be 100% clear on the take-aways of your story and how they relate to the present work situation. Elaborate on your expectations and how you want your team to perform.
Next week, we will tackle the second of the three true motivations: Mastery.
