What would it mean for you if increasing motivation for your vision also helped you to create a new improved culture in your business?

One of the great things about being a leader is that your people respond to everything you do, good leaders understand that their actions can have a significant positive impact on their people, they also understand that their actions can have a significant negative impact on their people. 

(picture with Tagline – graph of effect of leader on employee)

The task of increasing motivation for your vision requires you to be a positive leader, here are a few management tips for being positive ·

• If an employee asks “how are you today?” - you are always good, great or fantastic; you are never ok, doing it tough, over worked or under pressure.

• If you find an employee who does not believe in your vision; there is no point arguing; Just reinforce your belief “I believe that we can achieve ………”

• If you are passing on a directive from above, actively support the directive. Too many managers hide behind their superiors, “I do not like it but we have to do it, it has come down from the top”. You support everything and explain why you support it to your people.

• Persistence means keep doing or keep trying – don’t expect results immediately. You have reinforced the same message 6 times over at least three weeks. It takes a while for people to realise that you have changed your responses. 

Key Point:

You will start to see a difference in your business when

• your people see you coming and instantly know what topic you are going to talk about, or

• your people start to respond more positively to you being more positive

Note: Increasing motivation could take as long as six weeks, however you will more than likely see signs of improvement a lot sooner.

Note: It will be easier to reinforce priorities if you include discussion on the priorities in most of your informal discussions with your employees.

Examples:

• Imagine you get to a meeting early and two of your employees are also early, you can choose to use this time to ask about their experiences with your priority, rather than idle chat about sport.

• Consider this scenario, one of your employees has an issue with a machine and wants to show you; on the way to the machine you take the opportunity to discuss your priority.

Increasing Motivation, your MBWA Walk

If you are ready to do your walk, you will have

• A clear understanding of your selected priority,

• Your list of employees who are critical to talk to or to influence, 

• Results or current performance related to your topic

An example using a priority of increasing sales, with a sub priority of improving cross selling· 

• When you look at someone let your face light up as though you are please to see them, smile and say “John, 8% increase in cross selling well done” (I sometimes point at them as I say it – using a small hand gesture) and keep moving.

• You get to Mary who is on a customer call, so you smile at Mary and write on a post it note “top cross seller yesterday :o) well done” and stick it to Mary’s computer screen – I bet she smiles.

• You get to two staff having a chat waiting for a call; ask, “How is the cross selling going?”

If the above scenario reflects your management by walking around program you have done the following

• Made John and Mary’s day

• Reinforced the business priority and sub priority

Increasing Motivation: What you should expect

The first time you do your management by walking around your questions to employees will result in staff hesitating, and looking around before answering.

When you have repeated the exercise 6 to 8 times your employees will no longer hesitate, they will have a great example ready to share with you from earlier in the day/week. They will even initiate the discussion on the topic. Make sure you feel good when this happens, because you influenced a change and focused your staff on the business priority – well done!

Increasing motivation is the work of a leader and you have just increased motivation.

Management by walking around does not always go your way. What happens if you ask an employee about cross selling and the employee replies with

“What is cross selling about” – you say “ask your team leader, so that tomorrow when I ask you will know the answer” and make two notes

Note 1: To ask them again tomorrow, following up indicates importance

Note 2: Ask their team leader why the employee did not know – be gentile there maybe a good reason. (If you are the team leader, schedule a coaching session with the employee)

Link to workbook: Find out how to use motivation techniques to accelerate your culture change programs.

Management by Walking Around - Key Point

Remember you have to focus on a topic for several weeks for your staff to realise that it is important to you. Typically, you have to stick with each topic for a minimum of 6-8 weeks before adding your next topic. It will take this long for your employee focus to shift to each of your sub priorities.

Did you notice I said adding your next topic in, not changing your topic?

Increasing motivation is the work of a leader; by adopting the techniques listed here, it will not take long for you to blast your old culture away.

Take the final step, a key leadership activity, stop, reflect and learn.