Pay attention to the AMP flow!
How do you motivate the members of your team to do great work? Unfortunately, it is not uncommon that new leaders, in their quest to meet the targets and have excellent results, unintentionally demotivate their teams.
How do you react when they present a new idea to you? Perhaps trying to avoid mistakes, your brain immediately starts looking for reasons why the idea would not work.
Do you give them positive feedback when they go the extra mile? Do you “catch” them doing the right thing and praise them in a timely manner? Or you only provide feedback when an error is made. In most organizations, feedback is synonym of “you did something wrong and I am going to tell you about it”.
Do you empower your team members to be independent and make decisions within their responsibility level? Or do you make them report to you every step of the way?
All of these behaviors contribute to the level of motivation of your team.
In his book “Drive”, Daniel H. Pink proposes that the new approach to motivation has three essential elements:
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Autonomy—the desire to direct our own lives
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Mastery—the urge to get better and better at something that matters
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Purpose—the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.
I like to remember them as AMP. I find it very fitting, since AMP is short for Ampere, a unit to measure electric current. This AMP is useful to measure the motivation of your team.
Think about these three elements in your own case. When your boss gives you autonomy you feel important. You will do whatever necessary to honor the trust that was put on you. Obviously, autonomy levels depend on the level of experience, but within reason, we can provide some room to maneuver to all our employees, without looking over their shoulders constantly. I cannot think of many things more demotivating that micromanaging.
In the case of mastery, most of us want to have a career and not a job. We would like to have the opportunity of growing and aspire to new and better positions in the organizations. When we work hard and become experts in a particular area, the level of mastery itself is a motivating factor. Having a job that allows the individual to improve and grow is fundamental for their motivation.
In terms of purpose, each member of the team should be able to clearly see the connection between their goals and the overall targets of the organization. In that way, when results are reported, everybody will see where the have contributed and feel proud of themselves.
I encourage you to pay attention to the climate in your team to sense the level of motivation, to measure the AMPs.
Often we think that monetary rewards are the only way to motivate a team. Most companies have incentive programs to motivate their employees. They are platform for recognizing stellar employees, thanking them for their hard work and motivate them to do even better. However, not all incentive programs work equally, and sometimes might not work or even backfire and create hostility in the work environment.
I was very surprised to learn that there are numerous studies that show that monetary incentives have discouraging effects on some behaviors, like blood donation. Paying for donating blood reduces the number donors in the long term. The reason is probably that the number one reason blood donors say they give is because they “want to help others”. This is aligned with the “Purpose” element proposed by Pink.
Researchers have found that monetary rewards can be effective for tasks that depend on following an existing formula to its logical conclusion, that is, mechanical activities, like those of a production line, or customer service. But for activities that require flexible problem-solving, inventiveness, or conceptual understanding, monetary regards can be ineffective or detrimental to the team spirit. That is common when monetary rewards are offered to a team that is developing a project. When good results are attained, if all team members are rewarded equally, those that contributed the most feel cheated. If they are compensated according to their participation, those who receive very little or nothing, feel really demotivated and resentful.
There are other tangible incentives that can be very motivating. I remember one particular project that required a lot of effort and extra work. One of the scientists in the team spent a couple of weeks working overtime at the lab. I knew that this had an impact on his personal life. He and his wife made it a point to maintain proper work-personal time balance and the project disturbed that. When the project was over, I sent his wife a beautiful flower arrangement and a handwritten note thanking her for her patience in sharing her husband’s time with us. They both were very happy with that small gesture. It showed them that their efforts had not gone unnoticed, and that by no means that was going to become a regular situation.
I encourage you to pay attention to the AMPs that you give to your organization, and use monetary incentives carefully, when appropriate.
