Managers as motivation facilitators

As companies depend increasingly on the involvement of every member of the organization to continuously improve their products and services, to innovate ceaselessly and find original solutions to new problems, individual motivation has become more critical than ever before. Motivation is not just a “plus,” but also an essential ingredient of success.

However, the general level of employee motivation is a concern. Particularly lacking is an important corollary of motivation—engagement, that is, the psychological state in which people are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace. According to Gallup, which regularly measures engagement worldwide, less than one employee in six feels truly engaged! And this phenomenon is even worse for the newest generations. Tough economic times have eroded employee attachment to and trust in employers. The current employer will probably represent just one episode in the career trajectory of an individual. As such, people don’t see their employer as a community to which they will likely be attached for life. So they are rebalancing their investment in favor of the private sphere, where they can more easily find—on the Internet in particular—what they no longer derive sufficiently from the workplace, e.g. communities of interest, discussions, recognition, etc.

That being said, disengagement need not be a fatality. Businesses that give themselves the means find that they can increase their employees’ engagement. Studies also show that the behavior of hierarchical superiors has a direct influence on the level of engagement of their teams. From there, it takes only one step to conclude that a manager’s role is to motivate his or her team—a trap into which it’s easy to fall! Enthusiasm and the desire to engage can only come from within, and fluctuate for many reasons, some of which are beyond the reach of managers and companies. It is by understanding this that you can have the most impact. The wisest and most effective approach is for managers to consider themselves “motivation facilitators,” careful to create an environment conducive to helping individuals motivate themselves while remaining lucid on the limits of their power to do so.

In this synopsis:
- Help people identify what drives them
- Four behaviors that kill motivation
- Conduct effective motivation interviews