Success Secrets and Stories
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Success Secrets and Stories
Transforming Leadership to Boost Team Morale
Unlock the secrets to a motivated workforce and revolutionize your leadership approach with insights that can propel your company to new heights. Imagine a workplace brimming with enthusiasm, dedication, and a proactive attitude—where absenteeism and disengagement are relics of the past. Join us, John Wandolowski and Greg Powell, as we unpack the pivotal role of motivation in boosting employee engagement and productivity, drawing on expert insights from Greg Goodlife and Jennifer Post. We even use a classic moment from "Office Space" to illustrate the consequences of low motivation, making this episode both enlightening and relatable.
Leadership isn't just about setting goals; it's about inspiring your team and aligning them with the company's mission. We explore the art of clear communication, recognizing achievements, and fostering a positive work environment, spotlighting companies like Microsoft, Alphabet Inc., and Salesforce as exemplary models. Dive into the nuances of direct engagement and personalized career counseling, where we share personal anecdotes and strategies from our own leadership journey. Plus, learn from my book, "Building Your Leadership Toolbox," on how these practices can nurture a motivated workforce. If you're eager to transform your leadership style and elevate your team's performance, this episode is your guide.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Hello everyone and welcome to our podcast, success Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, john Wondolowski, and I'm here with my co-host and friend, greg Powell. Greg, hey, everybody, yeah, so today we're going to be talking about exploring a concept, working with employees, and what's really important is motivation and what does a motivated staff look like. So, trying to give you an idea of things that we think is helpful in leadership, motivation is sometimes one of those. What they consider soft skills, but it's really not, and to understand that it is your responsibility to motivate your staff, but engage in your staff. Part of that is really where we saw the article and what Greg had highlighted. This is an article by Greg Goodlife and he's the CEO and founder of Cyber Backer.
Speaker 2:Motivation affects behavior in all areas of life. At work, being motivated drives employees to engage in what they are doing to achieve the best possible result. Motivated employees are likely to be coming to work happy to tackle challenges and to put forth their best effort, resulting in higher productivity. They're engaged, which is the secret. Motivation pushes employees to reach their company and their career goals while making the most of their work opportunities. Motivated employees often expand their skill sets. They want to make themselves better. They want to connect with their colleagues. This, in turn, can help the team to be better with their customers and can help the company to succeed and grow. It's like the buzzword here is engagement.
Speaker 2:Other terms that describe motivation. Employee engagement is the level of enthusiasm and dedication that employees put towards their work in their workplace. It measures how they are committed to investing in their employees, in their work and in the organizational success. Employee drive is the internal feeling that pushes employees to do things and is often described as a basic force that compels people to act. It's different from different people. There's different things that are motivating, which is the reason why people do what they do. I remember I started off and motivation for me was being a mechanic and being the best mechanic possible, and the people that I knew were great mechanics. That piece of understanding what drives the employee is engaging that employee to ask those kind of questions.
Speaker 2:Another term is employee enthusiasm. That comes across when someone wants to be at work, who's willing to take on that harder job to get something done. There is another key within motivation. Employee motivation is morale and high morale in terms of employees feel supported or cared for and are invested in their jobs. They have positive relationships with their coworkers and managers. Low morale, which we've all experienced too, is where employees feel unsupported and disconnected from work and from their peers, maybe even isolated. They may experience conflicts, burnout or poor performance. And then there's eager employees that are willing to acquire new skills and knowledge to excel in their fields. They also have a growth mindset and view challenges as opportunity for personal and professional development. Now all that kind of sets the stage for the next level, greg.
Speaker 1:Thanks, john. There are some signs that employees are not motivated. I've got a picture here that I'll just describe to you, as it looks like a teacher in the classroom and the kids have gone amok. Imagine that kind of a scene in the workplace. Yeah, so let's talk about what those signs are, that employees are just simply not motivated. How can you tell if motivation is running low around the office? Your team might not tell you they're feeling unmotivated, but they'll likely show you. And here's some things to look for as far as signs.
Speaker 1:Easy one higher rates of employee absenteeism. Sometimes we used to call it blue flu, blue Monday, whatever. Where's everybody at Monday here? Why aren't they at work?
Speaker 1:Tardiness, and that's as simple as. Are you supposed to be at work at eight o'clock, should probably be there at 7.55, but you better be there at eight o'clock and people say, well, 8.05, it's close. No, tardy is tardy. You're not very motivated if you're not getting there on time. Sometimes you'll see a lack of effort. They'll maybe go 80% versus 100% or even 110%. They're just not putting it all in.
Speaker 1:Lack of engagement in projects or team meetings. They seem aloof, they're not paying attention, they're trying to make themselves small in the conference room right. It also can be seen with withdrawal from their coworkers and their peers, that they're just kind of checking out Mood or attitude changes. Maybe someone's really abrupt. When they're answering questions or engaged in making a presentation, you notice that their mood is a little sour. John likes to talk about this and I agree with him. Employee productivity how many widgets did you get done? How many did we think you could do at the time allotted? If you see the numbers go down, oftentimes that means they're not motivated or just basic boredom they just look like they're bored or apathy about work.
Speaker 2:Now you sent a wonderful reference for this, for the movie Office Space, and they had a magical moment talking to the HR department heads. I had a magical moment talking to the HR department heads. I don't know if people have seen this movie, but capsulize that magic moment of unmotivated employees.
Speaker 1:Thank, you, john. That's an old, classic movie but it still holds up really, really well. It's called Office Space from 1999. There's a gentleman by the name of Peter Gibbons, software programmer, and these two HR folks were talking to him about hey, how's your day go? What do you do? Let's talk about productivity. And he simply said I'm not a lazy guy, I just don't care. He said where's the motivation? Now, my only motivation is not to be hassled because I got eight bosses and also not to be fired. And this was an interesting situation because he was being very practical and the HR guys were eating it up. But it is a sad commentary about motivation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he was being honest. He was telling them all the things that he did to avoid work and I think the most interesting comment from that comedy was I have eight bosses. I think the most interesting comment from that comedy was I have eight bosses and just the micromanagement piece of it. We've run into the examples in our careers, not so much eight bosses, but four or five different people asking the same question. It's like y'all should talk together.
Speaker 1:It can be very demotivating trying to play so many masters?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and so we've got a chart here that you just you can see it, I think, in your own mind's eye. Where does motivation come from? It could come from your company's vision. You're being inspired by somebody or something noble that your company's doing to be successful potential. A quick story my last company. It was interesting how many people wanted to do what we were doing offer low-cost, reliable energy to rate payers Like well, how can I not get around that? That's a pretty good theme. That gets me excited. I'm motivated because I want to help make that happen. All right, john.
Speaker 2:So the burning question from our concept for this podcast is on leadership and whose responsibility is it to motivate employees? I'll give you a hint it's you, you're responsible for the motivated employee to understand. Those concepts are something that is relevant to your work group. Dimensional thinking suggests that the primary responsibility for motivated employees lie with their direct supervisors or managers, who should create a positive working environment, provide opportunities for growth, recognize achievements, ensure employees feel value and have a clear understanding of their role and at the and the impact to their organization. Clarity, clarity of goals. I think when I think about motivated employees and where I've sometimes have had a disconnect, it's because my instructions were erratic. There weren't complete thoughts, there were more like concepts, and you're really not trying to get people motivated if you're throwing out concepts. There has to be a complete message, a plan that they can actually understand. Another element of it is to understand that it is the employee, and the employee has a responsibility, too, to be self-motivated and to take ownership of their career. So then there was another article written by Jennifer Post back in November 6th of 2023. And she wrote some interesting touch points on how to motivate employees. One ask employees to do only the things that you're willing to do yourself. It's not that you're competing with them. Okay, it's to understand. From my perspective, it was a safety perspective and you're not going to put persons in harm's way. If you feel that there's a question, don't even think about putting your employee in the same spot. Her response is if you want a good employee, you should show them the moral principles of who you are and what you are and your company is. Same thing is through that focus. It's not enough to tell them that you expect X, y and Z and then you don't live by those values yourself. Item two is ask employees what they want from their workplace. Your first inclination as a leader may not be to check with the employees, but it's what they want from their company and their company culture. According to research conducted by Quantum Workplace, highly engaged employees feel more positive about the workplace culture Kind of goes hand in hand.
Speaker 2:Assign tasks that let employees complete them with little intervention. If you want them to be productive, understand that they're intelligent and they're hardworking you have to treat them as skilled and capable professionals. There's a magic word in between here trust. You have to trust that they have the skill sets. You have to trust that they have the skill sets. Too many employees micromanage their staff, looking over their shoulders, not trusting them and being overwhelmed by deadlines and talking about their own abilities. Delegating is an important task, but it's an important task to leave them alone.
Speaker 2:How to motivate employees? And here's, I think, one of the interesting points that she brings up Active listening to employees concerns by asking open-ended questions and engaging in a two-way conversation. Now, my kids and my wife will tell you that I do this all the time and it drives them nuts. But if you're a leader, it's important that the employee expresses their concerns and their ideas and what you're doing is you're empowering them and you're giving them actionable steps, and it's sometimes giving them a way to understand the situation, to improve the situation.
Speaker 2:It's the engagement and the two-way conversation that's the key and that really is if you're going to motivate an employee. If they I don't know how many times I've heard it, but they would stop me and say you're asking me what I think, yes, and you would have that look in their eye of like nobody's ever done it. I've had people verbalize it. No one's ever asked me what I think we should do. It's like, well, today's your first day. What should we do?
Speaker 2:It's an engagement that you really find that employees are looking for. If they've been doing it, give them a chance to show how they can do it better. The next one kind of falls into the same conversation and it usually should happen at the end. But tell your employees just how valuable they are. So whenever something like the engagement conversation and they get something completed, give them the recognition and the positive reinforcement that is associated with them taking that risk, sticking their neck out, making suggestions that were successful and, even if they failed, the opportunity that they took the risk, they made that decision and they owned. It is something that you can build on. There's no negative part of that. So what are the companies that do a pretty good job of motivating employees? All right, greg, you might have to help me with this name.
Speaker 1:Maria Postanyanik.
Speaker 2:Thank you, greg. From October 6th of 2021 in an article of Employee Engagement, and Maria has identified companies like Microsoft. They do building of a community through communication, professional development, pulse surveys, team building activities. Alphabet Inc. Google, unique compensations and benefits, staff empowerment and autonomy, work environment, salesforce Inc. Their ways of trying to motivate employees is paid volunteer time, diversity and inclusion. Groups focus on wellness and work-life balance.
Speaker 2:You see, a theme here is I'm willing to bet that this list is generated from the employees, not from leadership Employees. If it's a good organization's listening to what their employees want, it's different. There's different motivations, but that, I think, is the subset of what really Maria is talking about. Mastercard is diversity and inclusion, continuous feedback, flexible work. Apple is a culture of collaboration, competitive benefits and compensation, wellness in the workplace.
Speaker 2:There's a little theme here too. These are successful companies. These are companies that other people want to work for, and it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you understand what motivates people and you give them those motivations, all of a sudden it isn't a chore to find new people. Anyway, cisco systems, communication of brand vision, clear workplace standards, employee recognition, employee feedback. Pepsico has the communication, brand values, strong company culture, diversity and inclusion, inclusion, employee feedback and recognition. Then there's Travel Counselors LTD.
Speaker 2:Not an organization I know, but they have personalized internal communication. They have continuous employee feedback and email analytics, which is interesting. Intuit, diversity, inclusion, training, pay, equity, nivea, team-centric attitudes, team-building activities, promotions from innovation All those things from a company's perspective is really interesting in terms of probably a subset of what those employees look like and what kind of resumes you're going to see. There's going to be some commonality of what they're going to be looking for. Sometimes they write it in their resumes, sometimes they don't, but that whole thing about the company being established and having people looking for those kind of traits go hand in hand. Greg, I think you can talk about that at a different perspective.
Speaker 1:Thanks, john. So yeah, as John said, there's common denominators and there's some differentiators for these traits, and it is about what makes employees happy, what makes employees want to come in and work, and so, when you think about things like diversity and inclusion, training you don't see that on all of the 10 companies, but at Intuit it's really, really important, as is pay equity. When you think about PepsiCo and everybody's heard of PepsiCo strong company culture to go with their strong company brand, and they want to communicate those brand values and employees have gotten into that. These are motivating these people, are proud to work for these companies. Apple a culture of collaboration Again, employees want that. Apple has found that they need that. Competitive benefits and compensation. Wellness in the workplace Again, you don't see that on every list, but for different companies and maybe for your company, that's really, really important. And so these are the companies that seem to be doing it well. This is a 2021 survey. I would suggest that some of these same companies are still in the top 10.
Speaker 2:And what was interesting is, I actually worked for one of these companies, and it was a company that's a Fortune 500 company. They must be doing something right, and people look at those kinds of parameters too, but I think you have another way of looking at motivated employees.
Speaker 1:I do. Thanks, John. So think about the military. And a lot of times people refer to the military as being very structured and highly organized and controlling, but guess what? They've got employees too that need to be motivated. So I found some information from William Treseder. He's a founder and CEO of a company that works with ex-military. He's a former Marine reservist, and a couple of things that he brought to our attention I think was interesting. So some of the tips.
Speaker 1:The military, on the other hand, versus the normal corporate america, takes people from all over the world with absolutely nothing in common. Right, and, depending on the service, they might have maybe six, maybe 13 weeks to mold them into a functioning unit that's capable of executing complex tasks with relative precision. The magnitude of this task is so difficult to grasp. It's hard enough to get one teenage male to do something. Ask any parent. You know what I'm talking about. That's so true. Let alone dozens of them crammed together, sleep deprived with weapons. Right. Throw those in there. That process requires an effective approach that actually will get results, and effective approach that actually will get results. And so think about young men and young women. They're sweating, they're freezing, they're out there, right Out there in the wild for less than minimum wage. They're not getting rich off this right. What is their motivation? So the incentive used in junior enlisted ranks are condensed as wisdom from millennia of doing the same thing over and over again.
Speaker 1:Armies, navies, air forces are all good at motivating people. Because they have to be, Because military life is hard. It's as simple as that. It's hard. You can't pay people much. You may ask them to die. You have to know if they can accomplish the mission anyway. So you've got some pretty high standards, pretty high expectations. How are you going to motivate those employees who are soldiers to make it happen?
Speaker 1:Ranks, traditions, physical tasks, high standards, challenges there's a common thread there. Whether you look at the Spartan existence back in the day Japanese samurai, Turkish folks, American soldiers there are some common denominators here. You remember a guy about my height, Napoleon right. He understood true motivation better than anyone. Others scoffed at what he had called the Legion of Honor. That was like a medal awarded solely on the basis of merit rather than on the basis of position or ancestry. And you can call these kind of medals baubles that men are collecting. But do you think they would be able to make men fight by reasoning with them. Never. That is good only for the scholar in his study. The soldier needs glory, distinction and rewards John.
Speaker 2:I think you motivation think of 9-11 and the citizens of this country that said that they had to do something to protect the country the motivation of our military and the things that they feel that they want to try to support, I think is also an element that he didn't talk about, but it's something that, if you believe in the core goals of your nation, of the country, of the mission that's where it has to start To become a good soldier is not having a theoretical discussion about the positives and negatives of some kind of regulation or some kind of law. It's goal-oriented and that's the other element of motivating the staff in the military. But I think the patriotism that's associated with the people that are in our military is really the part that is admirable and to understand where that motivation I think is at its core. But when I think about motivating people and it's understanding their motivations, the things that they dream about, the things that they want to accomplish, the things that they felt held back by and need help in want to accomplish, the things that they felt held back by and need help in order to overcome it all comes from counseling. Career counseling is usually the element that I'd work with and I feel it is an important element of anyone who's reporting to you Now when I say that I had a staff of 100 plus employees and I didn't have a connection with every employee.
Speaker 2:I had a direct connection with every leader. So as an executive, I knew what my leaders were talking about, what their challenges were, and then I did engage with their staff. But it was also to try to encourage that leadership to do career counseling like I would do for them. So I led by example. That's probably the fastest way to understand what is right and what is wrong about the organization. I learned more from those kind of counseling discussions and I really wanted to make a point that it was not done once a year. It isn't at the employee review that you're having real personalized conversations. I made it a goal it's a personal goal that I would do it once a month, no less than once a quarter, to have a career counseling conversation.
Speaker 2:What is in their goals, what is their limitations? What is it that I can get out of their way so that it can be successful? What is it that nobody has told them that they have done? Very well? And sometimes, when I know there was a real disconnect from what I recognized as their accomplishments and what they told me. I would do things like asking for a monthly report so I don't get disconnected again.
Speaker 2:Those are the kind of things that, from a counseling perspective, you really grow as a leader and that is something that they call coaching, they call career counseling, you call it anything you want, but it's engagement and it's personal and it should be sometimes out of the environment so that you can take them out to lunch or you can go for a break. But you want to have that moment in time, whether it's two minutes or five minutes. And Greg and I had the same experience of the person who worked in HR, who, Harold, would take us out and he would buy us a cup of coffee, sit us down and ask how we're doing. An amazing leader had nothing to do with the leadership of the organization that we were technically working for, but he knew and he was trying to help that leadership, to listen to the employees and help them modify their approaches.
Speaker 2:Different organization, but it doesn't mean it's a bad idea, However it happens. That's the key in my mind to help the engagement of the employee, to motivate the employee, engage them in a conversation just on that subject itself, Greg.
Speaker 1:Thanks, john. Got a couple of stories here and there's a point to the unsuccessful story, so I'll start off with that. An example where employees were not motivated. So I was on a leadership team in an organization and the most senior person, coo, came up with a very unrealistic company sales goal. It was just a swag, serious, wild. You know what? Guess right, there was no way that was going to happen. The sad part was his staff, his senior leaders. They thought it was unachievable and it caused a negative reaction throughout the leadership team and it cascaded down through the ranks Because, well, my boss doesn't believe it, and then why should I believe it? I remember talking to one of my peers saying Greg, I'm going to go through the motions here, but there's no way in heck we're going to get this goal that could motivate a team right.
Speaker 1:And here's an example where it worked out really, really well Sorry, john. A significant new member acquisition occurred in this company we're trying to get a new member on board and we needed all hands on deck, everybody engaged, everybody pulling, everybody making this a priority, and that was a motivation. Also, we were motivated by being aligned with our mission statement and with communication that was occurred throughout the organization and we actually had a whole team company incentive award. So it wasn't just the senior team, it wasn't just middle managers. Every employee that worked for the company received some special incentive if we were able to bring this member on.
Speaker 1:And I got to tell you, company-wide celebration occurred because we didn't just meet the goal, we exceeded the goal. It did it in fine fashion, but you could tell everyone was galvanized, everybody was motivated, everybody was into the concept and said I'm all in, let's make this happen. It was a wonderful situation to be in and I still get chills from it today when I think about people of different locations all working on the same goal together, because they were motivated, they were driven.
Speaker 2:And how much of that is really an organization that is capable of communication Not an unrealistic goal, but a realistic goal and showing by example the leadership was engaged in setting that example, that everybody was working together in order to achieve the end result. Yes, yeah. So let's try to cap it for the sake of talking about what motivates employees, regardless of whether you work for the company with an excellent employee motivation practices, with deep resources. There are many things that you can do in order to motivate an employee. Start with the company's mission statement, vision and values. Sometimes you might want to break that down and make it as simple as possible. The idea of a mission statement should be clear and concise, and I've seen mission statements that are about a half a paragraph long to two pages of a mission statement. Make it clear. That's the secret.
Speaker 2:Motivation also can start with pressure from your stakeholders because the business has got shortfalls or poor performance. There's nothing like the potential of the company failing. Poor performance there's nothing like the potential of the company failing. And if you aren't clear and telling people that there's a risk and there's the need for their support, the inevitability of failure is there. Try not to make it dire, but understand that the risk is there and there is an expectation of participation in order to try to avoid that failure. And it also starts as you, as the manager, you have to take responsibility for motivating your employees. That's responsibility 101. If you have no clue how to answer that question of whether your staff is motivated or that they have clear set goals that they're trying to achieve, now let me race to the end here. You need to do something about that. That's your responsibility. So, hopefully, this element of responsibility and motivation makes sense and if you like what you've heard, yeah.
Speaker 2:I have a book on leadership called Building your Leadership Toolbox. It's available on Amazon and other websites Success Secrets and Stories. Our podcast is available on what you're listening to, thank you. It's also available on other popular formats like Apple, google and Spotify. Greg and I are big fans of Dr Durst and Dr Durst's MBR program. If you want to know more about the MBR program Management by Responsibility you can get it on successgrowthacademycom. And if you want to contact us, we actually have a website called authorjawcom and you can leave a message for Greg or I. The music has been brought to you by my grandson, so we want to hear from you. Send us a line, tell us what you think is interesting. I think this is where we were just talking about. We want the motivation on what you would like, so motivate us and we want to motivate you. Well thanks, greg.
Speaker 1:Thanks, John. As always, Next time yeah.