Not Every Frog Is A Prince: Can You Recognize The Princes (And Princesses) And Lead Them To Success? – Part 3

In Part 2 of our 5-Part Series on Leading and Motivating Staff, we talked more about Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and we introduced two Powerful Motivators – Affiliation and Achievement – and the combination of the two – Affiliative Achievers - which we described as the most powerful motivator of all and the one we are familiar with from the world of sports teams. We also showed how Affiliation and Achievements are closely related to the need level people are at on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

To make it more practical and relevant to your job, we also included a case study and asked you to test your understanding of these important theories by answering a few questions at the end.

So, are you ready to compare your answers to ours? As we said earlier, with a few exceptions, there are no incorrect answers and you might want to debate some of our suggestions. However, it’s important for you look at things from a perspective other than yours and also always remember that whatever you decide that the best course of action should be, you have a valid reason for it, best of all if it is based on what you learned from Maslow’s views on people’s behaviors.

Case Study Answers

Q: What need level are your employees functioning on?
Employee Need Level
John Doe Safety & Security moving to Belongingness & Love
Ralph Sprat Self-Esteem
Sue Spring Belongingness & Love
Barb Barker Belongingness & Love
Jack Rambling Self-Esteem

Q: Knowing this, how would you handle the situation? Would you go out for drinks with them?
A: You could have answered “yes” or “no”. Either answer can be justified depending on the rationale given. If you said “no” and decided to replace the group outing at the bar with a series of individual evenings at the bar/pub, then you would need to figure out how you are going to meet John, Sue and Barb’s need for group interaction. If you said “yes” that you would go to the pub with the group, then you must have a solution to addressing John and Jack’s concerns.

Q: What insight does their need level give you into a solution?
A: It gives an insight into how to handle the situation, i.e., whether to address group (Belongingness and Love) or individual (Safety and Security, Self Esteem) concerns.

Q: What is your solution? What will you tell your employees and what is your reasoning?
A: There are many valid answers to this case. However, to be valid you must be able to demonstrate that the solution is appropriate to the need level of the individual involved. Here is one possible solution.

You go for drinks with the group, but first you have a conversation with Jack and tell him that he is always welcome to join the group at the bar/pub but that he should never feel that he has to. And you understand his desire to stay longer to get the store ready for the next day and appreciate this devotion to the store (this reinforces his Self-Esteem).
Then you stop by and see John and tell him that he is welcome to join you for drinks at the bar but that you fully understand his concerns about his job and reassure him that going or not going to the bar will never affect any performance reviews (you are reassuring his Safety and Security need and inviting him to move up to Belongingness and Love).

Go for drinks with Sue, Barb and Ralph (and John and Jack if they join you). Tell them over drinks that you appreciate the time to get to know everyone. Say that you want to make the “group outings” a once-every-two-week tradition (keeps Belongingness and Love intact) and that you also want to have individual time with each of them (gives you the opportunity to maintain Ralph and Jack at the Self-Esteem level).

So, how did you do? Remember, any solution that identifies the needs of the individuals and the group is perfectly acceptable.

Motivation Strategies

We are going to continue our journey to the discovery of what motivates people and our staff by reviewing some of the most common and effective Motivation Strategies. Here are some of them:

➢ Catch everyone doing something right and praise, praise, praise. Praise is the breakfast of champions. The concept of catching someone doing something right and praising them originally introduced in “The One Minute Manager” by Ken Blanchard, is as true today as it was over 25 years ago when the book was first published. When praising you should always focus on a specific behavior. So, instead of just telling your associates that they are great, you should praise them for a specific behavior (cleaning a shelf, catching a mistake on an invoice, inviting a customer back, etc.). They will not only believe the praise; they will be motivated by it and they will continue to use and further refine the exact behavior that earned them your praise.
➢ Reward good behaviors - what gets rewarded gets done. Again, this should be one of the ten commandments of management. If you want to change someone’s behavior, or to get people to do anything, you have to understand the power of rewards. Most people respond to rewards (money, days off, prizes, discounted product, etc.) and will work harder to earn them.
➢ Run team contests. You should create contests for your team. They do not have to be big prizes, but everyone on the team should be able to win. You should reward the team for exceeding goals that were set, but you should be careful to not set goals too high. The objective is to create winners not losers!
➢ Always use positives / be positive. When you speak with people, you should always try to see the good in situations. You should use positive words like great, outstanding, wonderful, fantastic, or really good.
➢ Use titles. What people have as a title in their job can help motivate them. Sometimes involving your staff in creating their own titles can be very motivating.
➢ Empower every associate - people will support what they helped to create. Empowerment is about giving your staff the power and responsibility to make decisions by themselves. None of us like to be told what to do. When we feel that we are consulted or are part of the decision, we are more likely to support it and we feel that we are trusted.
➢ Introduce the suggestion box. Many companies have suggestion boxes where associates are encouraged to make suggestions in writing about how to improve the company. If the suggestions lead to increased sales or lower expenses you should reward the associate. If your staff is small, you may simply want to have a suggestion day or a day when your associates are encouraged to share verbally with you and the group their ideas for improvement. If you notice some reticence at first, be the one to introduce some ideas and get their feedback on them and build from there.
➢ Give regular reviews (feedback). It is a good idea to tell your staff on a regular basis how they are doing. At most companies, it is required to give associates a formal performance review annually. Regular reviews also take place throughout the year to make sure associates are on track and corrective actions are taken and/or motivational factors are explored on a timely basis. Always make sure to conduct reviews in private and a in a quiet place, free from interruptions. They also must include a two-way communication where your feedback is as important as the feedback you receive from the associate on his/her performance, potential, aspirations and of course on your store and your management, as well.
➢ Spend one lunch per month listening. Once a month, you should take a staff member to lunch. This is not performance review time. It is just time that you spend listening to them, on what they think about the store, the work, and themselves. You should make sure not to monopolize the conversation, and let them do the talking.
➢ Do it yourself first. A good leader would never ask anyone to do anything that they have not done themselves. Modeling is the best way to teach and motivate people. You should never ask anyone to do any job that they have not seen you do first. This is what we call “leading by example.” This way the staff knows that every job is worth doing.
➢ Don’t direct people; lead them. Great supervisors and managers lead. They never direct. One of the first lessons of management is that people will always follow a leader, whereas they will try to “just get by” with a manager with a directive style.
➢ Remove “but” from your speech. When we use “but” in a sentence it means: ”Ignore everything that I just said, because now I will really tell you what I mean.” For example, if you said: “John, you did a good job with that transaction, but you really should have caught the incorrect price on that product.” What John hears is that he did not catch the incorrect price. If you said: “John, you did a good job with that transaction. You were able to catch a number of different mistakes and address them properly. I am sure next time you will be able to also correct the price mistake.” The content of the message is the same, but John will react much better if there is not a “but” in your sentence.

Some Reasons Why Motivation Strategies Do Not Always Work

Not Every Frog Is A Prince
Not everyone is cut out to be a sales associate, a secretary, a store manager or for any job, and no amount of effort will change that fact. You must recognize that as managers you will sometimes have failures and that some of those failures are simply not your fault. They are caused by people who cannot or will not do the job and therefore cannot be motivated to do it (just like a “round peg in a square hole”). This is another reason why it is so important to hire the right person. If you manage to select right you will have a much easier time creating a team of motivated people.

Personality Cannot Be Learned; It Is
An individual’s personality is locked in by age 8 or 9. There is absolutely nothing you can do as managers if you have an associate with a bad or unhealthy personality. You cannot change them nor can anyone else. Personality is almost impossible to change, don’t get caught in the trap of believing that you can change someone. It is not going to happen.

Trust Takes Years To Build, Seconds To Shatter
Your associates will not trust you in a day or a month or sometimes even a year. Trust takes quite some time to establish. But, it only takes seconds to shatter and lose forever. You must be very careful of your reputation for truth, honesty and integrity in every contact with your people. Be very wary of an employee who asks you if they can tell you something in confidence. Always reply, “Of course I will keep what you tell me in confidence as long as it does not violate any laws, hurt the store or hurt anyone who works or shops at the store.” This simple statement will keep you out of some very difficult situations where you could be asked to keep something confidential that you later find that you cannot.

Stay tuned for Part 4 of our 5-Part Series. Next time, we are going to talk about some of the work of two of the greatest leadership theory minds of our time, American Psychologists Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard who developed a leadership theory known as Situational Leadership. After introducing their thinking you will have a chance to test your understanding and application of their thinking by solving a series of small case studies and see how it applies and how it works.

Jim Dion, founder and president of Chicago-based Dionco Inc., is an internationally known consultant, keynote speaker, trainer, and author of the best-sellers Retail Selling Ain’t Brain Surgery, It’s Twice As Hard, and Start and Run a Retail Business. His newest book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting and Running a Retail Store, is available at http://www.amazon.com or http://www.dionco.com

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