Motivation theory has been endlessly studied since the dawn of production systems in the early twentieth century.  There is one model that I use a lot though having not worked for a Premier League football team, am not sure if this would work there.

The approach is based on Hackman and Oldham’s five core job characteristic model (Hackman. J.R and Oldham, G.R Work Redesign. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. 1980):

If an individual or team are not motivated and you lead / manage them, consider if one of the following, is missing:

Skill variety:  Individuals are motivated when they use their skills.  If you are trained, currently training, or have been trained, in a particular skill area, and do not get the opportunity to apply these new skills, then this will act as a potential de-motivator.  The issue we have in this large complex organisational setting, is whether we know all the skills and capabilities of individuals?  I was at a company where the person had spent over twenty years there.  Within that time, he must have taken countless courses and developed his skill set to no end, but where has this knowledge been captured and made available to others?  Now more individuals are placing information on Linkedin, but is the natural one place stop for the capture and dissemination of this information.  It boils down to this: if we do not know, how can we utilize the skill?

Task identity: What is the visible outcome and can they link what they are doing to the bigger picture?  If you take a one thousand piece jigsaw set, and I give you a single piece and ask you what the big picture is, you will find it impossible to guess. The same applies to our work.  We need to know how our work contributes to the bigger overall picture of what we are all working together on as a team.  I worked with a project manager installing a large processing facility for the chemicals industry. Parts of the design work were done by teams located across the world far away from the actual physical installation.  So after we spoke about motivating the team, he started putting pictures of the plant as it was being assembled so that the design team could feel, in some small way, part of the overall project.

Task significance: Impact on others.  How does our work impact our stakeholders?  We often see our work through lenses but do not take the time to view it from the perspective of the user, the person who interacts and utilizes the product or service.  I have worked with a number of leaders within the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.  I was told a story of a unit that worked with children diagnosed with cancer.  The team was shaped by a lot of team infighting, and the leader became fed up and at a team meeting put a video on of a child suffering, which led to hush silence in the room and inevitable tears.  That event made the team realize the significance of what they were doing, and why they could not afford to not operate as a team.

Autonomy: The freedom to plan and undertake the task and avoid being micro-managed.  Smart people want macro-management not micro-management.  As a manager give the parameters of a delegated task: the resources, time constraints, the definition of success etc.  Then let the individual get on with it.  They may not take the route you would naturally take, but perhaps you can allow this so that they learn by doing. Smart people want smart management! See the work of Dan Pink on this.

Feedback: Clear information is provided on the task performance.  We all love feedback, but what do we mean by it?  Often feedback is often inferred as being either + positive or – negative.  There is no such thing.  Feedback is what feedback is – an opportunity to learn or improve – that’s it.  So we should be able to take both + and – feedback and not infer this in a binary mode and actually view it as a way of continuous improvement.  But to provide feedback, and actually make it useful, we need to make sure that there is another layer in existence before we offer feedback.  Trust.  If there is no trust between the individuals then they recipient will not take the feedback in its true sense.

I have used this model across organisations and it helps to identify root cause issues of dem-motivated individuals and teams.

Hackman and Oldham (1976) * identified five factors that enable a person to enrich their job and role:

• Using a number of skills during the task
• Completing the entire task rather than segments or small components
• Understanding the impact of the task on the key stakeholders, both internally and externally to the organization
• Providing the task holder with increased decision-making and autonomy in completing the task
• Increasing the feedback provided during and after the task

Regarding feedback, is it positive or negative?  It is neither.  It is what it is, an observation of someone’s behaviour or performance. Good feedback should be given as soon as an event occurs – not at the end of the year during a formal appraisal session. 

Before we can either give or receive feedback between two individuals, there has to be a relationship between them.  If this does not exist then the feedback will not be internalized, or at worse, seen as an attack on someone’s character.

* Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: Test of a theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16, 250-279.

My definition of what the aim of an organization is to “maximize returns for its stakeholders” .  But over what term?  When we say short or long-term what does this mean and what are the implications for sustainability?

I started thinking about this when reading a HBR article “Capitalism for the Long Term: by Dominic Barton: http://hbr.org/2011/03/capitalism-for-the-long-term

If you take a typical business, what does long-term mean?  Three to five years?  This defines the strategic planning activities, allocation of resources, finance initiatives etc.  What about a ten or twenty year timeframe?   This is typically unheard off in the West, but pretty much par for the course in the East, for the larger organization.

So how do these fundamental views of outlook impact sustainability?  If we use the definition of sustainability as being the capacity to endure (http://hbr.org/2011/03/capitalism-for-the-long-term), then having a short-term outlook (you decide what short-term means for you) will shape your view on all activities including the purchase and utilization of resources including materials, people, machines etc.  It shapes your finance initiates.  Is the organization seeking suitable short-returns that may increase its exposure to risk, in the pursuit of these returns.  This will shape an organizations approach to sustainability and all activities associated with sustainable practices.  

By its implicit nature, sustainability has a long-term outlook.  If we take the Bruntland Commission of the United Nations, March 20th, 1987, view of sustainable development as being the “the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, then a long-term approach is certainly viewed here.  So what happens when you are driven by the short-term?  The very nature of the markets in which you operate may dictate this and take this out of your control.  If the outlook is short-term, then what impact does this have on the sustainable considerations, your organization may be considering?  Are the organization goals at odds with each other (short-term metrics such as profit and growth versus long-term goals as sustainability)

Barton’s article focuses on the West near obsession on a short-term outlook and if we were able to adopt and consider a longer-term outlook, perhaps this would create better foundation for creating and sustaining growth, profits, allocation and utilization of resources, financing activities, use of personnel.  

If you are driven by short-term goals and measurement indicators, yet want to have a long-term sustainable outlook, what are you doing to maintain balance?

If you are UK-based, you may not of heard about Zappos.  They are a fascinating online retailer and a book has been written by Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness.

Zappos website states explicitly there values – a message for their internal employees and externally to the environment in which they operate. They include

• Deliver WOW Through Service
• Embrace and Drive Change
• Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
• Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
• Pursue Growth and Learning
• Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
• Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
• Do More With Less
• Be Passionate and Determined
• Be Humble

These are strong, powerful values.  If you examined them you will probably determine your own “favourites”.  From a leadership perspective, I like “Embrace and Drive Change”.   We live in a world that is constantly shaped by change.  Change creates its own challenges and managing change it becomes a high priority for many organizations.  Will the rate of change slow down? 

“Pursue Growth and Learning”.  How will organizations differentiate themselves from their competitors unless they create new products and services which can only be achieved through a continuous program of development from within.  A Results Orientated Work Environment (ROWE), follows this principle.

“Be Humble”.  This is should permeate throughout the organization at all levels of management and is a personal value that comes from within.