Leading a Cluster of Equals 2: Understanding Motivation

Continued from Part 1.

Before we get into the specifics of how to motivate your team members, let’s talk about the subject of motivation itself.  Here is an opportunity for you to use your analytical skills to apply general research to your specific situation.

Frederick Herzberg was a professor in the School of Business at the University of Utah who developed the Dual Structure theory of motivation.  Herzberg defined motivation in a special way.  His research demonstrated that a true motivator is a factor that comes from an internal motor within the employee.  That motor runs under its own power.  The proverbial Kick-In-The-Pants (KITP) can influence employee behavior but it is not a motivator because it requires an external influence and its effect is short term. 

The KITP motivator has to be administered continuously or it loses its effectiveness.  It requires a constant expenditure of resources as well.  You get awfully tired if you always have beat on somebody to get results out of them.

If you entice your dog to roll over with a dog biscuit, Herzberg says, while the dog may move, you are the one who is motivated.  And you need to have a big supply of dog biscuits if you want to keep that dog rolling.

Here are the factors that motivate employees as researched by Frederick Herzberg² in order of effectiveness.

1. achievement
2. recognition
3. work itself
4. responsibility
5. advancement
6. growth

What factor here is conspicuously missing?  Salary, believe it or not, is not on the list of motivators.  This does not mean that salary is unimportant.  Herzberg divides up the factors that influence behavior into two categories, motivators and de-motivators. 

Motivators can instill an internal motor within employees that continues to run with no external effort.  De-motivators can kill that internal motor. 

Herzberg’s research uncovered a very surprising fact.  Factors that fall into the de-motivator category cannot be moved into the motivator category by changing their magnitude.  In fact, salary is extremely important, but not as a motivator.  It is a de-motivator if it’s not perceived by the employee to be big enough. 

If the employee’s salary is increased to an equitable level, it ceases to be a de-motivator, but more money does not make it a motivator.  In other words, once the employee is paid what is perceived to be an equitable salary, more money doesn’t really motivate increased performance.

What is the importance of Herzberg’s list?  Well, one reality that you, as a project-leader-of-a-cluster-of-equals, have to deal with is that you have very little influence over the pay rates of the people on your cluster.  But that’s not a problem because Herzberg says that as long as the people are getting paid enough, that pay is not a motivator.

Remember, Herzberg is not saying that more pay will not influence behavior.  Rather he says that it is a KITP influencer.  If you want continuous results from an employee, you have to continuously ante up more money.  Even if you did have power over your cluster’s pay, the company would go broke if you tried to use it as a motivator.

Well, if more money won’t motivate better performance, what will?   Please remember items 1 and 2 on this list, Achievement and Recognition.  They are the two most effective motivators.  That’s good news because these are factors that you have control over.  So, how can you use them to motivate your cluster?

Achievement is quite simply the result of accomplishing something that is worthwhile.  You, as the project manager, can measure and feed back results to the team.  Herzberg’s research showed that achievement is a powerful motivator.  It’s your job as the manager to ensure that the team knows about the progress they are making.  Most importantly they need to know that you recognize that progress.

Dividing the project into milestones is a good way to mark the progress of the project.  A long project can stretch to eternity if it’s not broken up.  When you reach a milestone, make sure that everyone knows about it, internally and externally. 

As important as it is to remind the cluster as a whole of the progress they have made, it’s even more important to recognize the accomplishments of individuals.  The way you do that, however, can dramatically change the effectiveness of the recognition.  People are different, and they respond differently to recognition.

One last point on motivation.  If you want your cluster to step up and take responsibility for getting things done, show them how to do it.  When something goes wrong, take the hit yourself; even if you know it was Moe’s fault.  It will raise your credibility.

²One More Time:  How Do You Motivate Employees?  Frederick Herzberg, Harvard Business Review, September 1987.

Next time:  Recognition