Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of organizational psychology at University College London and CEO of Hogan Assessment Systems, answered these questions in an interesting article on the Harvard Business Review website.
He states that the majority of managers motivate subordinates based on their personal intuition and experience, instead of following the vast scientific knowledge already available. We can even say that motivation is not an art, but a science.
If you want to take a scientific approach to motivation, start by uncovering the main causes of why motivational techniques fail.
1. Lack of awareness about goal setting
Today's scientific evidence shows that stretch goals and ambitious goals work as a good motivational tool in transactional activities with clearly defined inputs and outputs.
However, if you want to motivate people who work on intellectual and creative tasks, you can achieve higher motivation and better results by asking them to do their best.
2. Distorted performance evaluation
Most managers tend to reward people who are like them. The negative impact of such evaluations on the performance, diversity, and overall atmosphere in teams is obvious.
There is even a proven negative connotation between employee talent and popularity. People without talent often excel in the ability to pretend they are capable.
3. Boring work
Work performance has become much more composed of specific, measurable and predictable parts. This has its advantages. However, work composed in this way is often repetitious and becomes routine and boring.
Research confirms that boring work will always be boring, even if you try to increase motivation by external incentives such as money. The key to success is not in motivational speeches or teambuildings, it lies in clear concepts and the allocation of roles.
4. Unproductive feedback
We constantly hear how important accurate and timely feedback is for motivation. But the reality is that feedback usually discourages employees, although managers try to highlight the positive aspects of their people's performance in addition to criticizing them.
Once a manager is too critical and demanding, he or she becomes annoying for the employees and even money can't motivate them.
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