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Issue 7 June 2006
June’s Perform is here. Please take the time to read it. We recommend a cup of coffee, a muffin and five minutes quiet time to read it. As well as discovering an interesting fact or two, you can relax a little! In fact giving managers more time is a benefit of ours. If your people are motivated to perform well, you have established a proper system of delegation and you can monitor activity with the lightest touch then you have the time to look out of the window: not to daydream of course. You want to look in the marketplace to see what the trends are: you want to search for revolutionary changes in regulation, technology or whatever. Of course, this is what you should be doing anyway. Why do you spend all day every day managing in your business? You employ people to do that. First, let me admit that I am not a football fan and after an awful week, I am dreading the next four weeks, apart
 from the Wimbledon Tennis coverage!However, as football is so popular I thought I would think about footballers and managers as role models and leaders.
Football causes a deep passion in so many people. Wouldn’t it be great to create that much passion in people for their work? I am sure there are many people who do have that much energy for their job, I know I do!
Sadly, most children want to emulate their favourite stars but they don’t see the hard work that most of them put in and many adults just see the team spirit as something that equates with the world outside, not at work.
So how do football managers engender this team spirit? Phil McNulty, Chief football writer for BBC Sport, said that the alleged incident in the dressing room between Alex Ferguson and David Beckham was “the act of a graduate from the managerial old school”.
I’m sure there are no modern day managers who would see that method as being effective and, sure enough, his “staff” left the company.
Good managers allow their teams the freedom to get the job done by doing what they know they can do. By empowering them, you give them the opportunity to be stars in their own world so they can have the same passion for their work as they do for their sport. Think what an effect that would have.
So are footballers good role models?
They should be and they should know the influence they have and take responsibility for it. Some footballers do silly things and abuse their position in society. Money and fame should not equal bullying and lawbreaking.
Good football managers have to inspire and empower their teams. There is a direct parallel between them and organisational managers. Good managers should be leading Premier Division teams.
Would your team win the FIFA World Cup?
We are used to being treated as special customers, as individuals. We expect to be able to get exactly what we want, when we want it.
McDonalds, for example, do not sell just burger and chips. There are over 75,000 combinations of main meal, side order, dessert and drink. Include the garnishes and there are in excess of one and a half million unique meal combinations!
We special customers are also, in the main, employees.
Naturally, our desire for treatment as special people, as individuals, comes to work with us.
You can see the effect in the recent growth of flexible benefit packages. You can swap pay for holiday, medical benefits or gym membership etc.
Flexible packages are desirable. They do tend to increase the desire to work for that organisation.
The availability of the flexible benefits does not depend on the day-to-day performance of the individual though.
Neither does our immediate manager have any sway over the package. There is no link between our performance in the job and the benefits we receive. You get the benefits simply by turning up to work.
 How do you reward people for performance in the job?
Our immediate manager may have very little flexibility in her treatment of us. There may be policies or procedures to ensure equitable treatment. Perhaps there is a fear of setting a precedent. Our manager’s freedom of action is restricted as a result.
Why should we, as employees, put in discretionary effort to help speed the job along, when our manager will not give anything in return?
Let me define discretionary effort.
It is when we do a little more, take trouble to ensure things happen correctly, quickly or more sympathetically. It may mean missing five minutes of our lunch break to ensure that quotation goes out promptly. We do not expect monetary reward but we do expect the effort noticed.
The ability to give non-standard rewards is one of the abilities that are lost to managers as organisations grow in size. The owner/manager can give someone the afternoon off. The manager in a bigger organisation is unlikely to have the same freedom of action.
We expect our small discretionary efforts noticed in a timely and relevant way.
How do you ensure your managers have the authority to reward the extra-special discretionary effort you want to encourage?
Are your policies and procedures stopping your people working harder?
We often hear that professional people do not need motivating by their managers. Professional people know what to do so you just let them get on with it.
The facts seem to say otherwise though. The UK’s Child Support Agency IT system, a £0.5bn project, was a year late and does not seem to work well: the US IRS had to drop an IT system overhaul project after spending $4bn. Add to these Wembley Stadium, the Channel Tunnel and, doubtless, you can add to the list quite easily.
Perhaps leaving professional people to “just get on with it” is not the answer.
Why are professional people believed to be different? They have already shown that they can defer gratification by going though their qualification process. They usually do have a strong and far-sighted view of the right thing.
Managing professionals is on a par with herding cats. They have minds of their own and want to do it their way when they are ready.
What if doing it “their way” does not match the organisation’s needs?
I managed a design team some time ago. Among a group of highly qualified engineers, there was a particularly brilliant software engineer. He would sit and think for days. He would write nothing down, make no notes and have no visible output at all.
 Then in one day, he would frantically produce code that was quite astonishing: he was a truly creative individual.
His other foible was suddenly to take out his violin and play a tune! This did not amuse the other hundred people in the open plan office.
He was a difficult character for sure!
I had to find a way to manage his work without stifling his creativity. Patient explanation of his part in the bigger picture helped, as did my acceptance of his thinking/frantically writing way of working. We learnt to manage his part of the projects in bigger but more meaningful tasks. The violin had to go though!
To return to the question – “why are professional people different?” They are not different of course. They just need to have their motivation to work managed in line with the needs of the organisation. This is not a straightforward management task though.
There is no neutral choice. You either make things better or make things worse.
Good motivation management practice is simple as a maze is simple – just make the right choice at every turn and you reach the prize.
You can always hire a guide of course!
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© Motivation Matters 2006
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