How to motivate the unmotivated?

How to motivate the unmotivated?

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best approach is to start with carrots and move to using a stick only if carrots bring no results. But since your team is up against the wall there's no time for just carrots. Senior management has already threatened the stick, so your job at this point is to be fair but be firm.

Because research shows that only seven percent of workers know how their work contributes to the big picture, let's start there.

A. Hold a meeting to connect their work with the big picture.

1. Remind people of the vision / mission of the company and that everyone in the company is on the same team.

2. Inform them you've personally observed unacceptable performance and that it's these types of actions that give them their reputation as a "toxic energy dump."

3. Ask them to think through their near-term future. Do they want to work elsewhere, or do they want to be part of the company team and its vision and mission? Don't worry if people opt to leave. If they won't support the company, they shouldn't be there.

4. State that people not dedicated to the company vision and mission will be identified by the quality of their work. Those people will be asked to find work elsewhere.

5. Ask what the department can do as a team to help the company achieve its goals. Write down what they say, as this begins to form goals for your department.

6. As a team, turn these ideas into SMART Goals with specific actions and deadlines.

B. Select your best people and put them in charge of tracking progress on the goals, one person per goal. They should be 100% responsible for ensuring those goals are met. Make progress and achieving those goals part of those employees' performance reviews.

C. Revisit and rewrite job descriptions for all employees in the department. Then use those job descriptions to train people and also for evaluating them .

Motivation is fire lit from within. You can't light that fire, but you can create the conditions for that fire to burn brightly.

Motivate your sales team

How to motivate your sales team?

A motivated sales force can exceed your expectations for revenue and for profit. How do you motivate them to go above and beyond? Here are some ideas:

Foster a team environment

Coach and mentor them

Create some friendly competition

Listen to their pain points

Give them the tools they need to succeed

Show them the money and appreciation

1. Foster a team environment

Many companies find that a team mindset can provide great results.

Do your sales people feel like a team or is everyone out there as a lone ranger? Even if the nature of your business requires people to work individually there is value in having a shared sales goal and business identity.

When people communicate, they can also begin to collaborate better. Senior salespeople can help junior salespeople. Sales conferences, group training, team meetings, team building events, and social gatherings can all help you foster a better team environment.

2. Coach and Mentor Them

Sales is an evolving role. Today it’s not about just selling but about fostering relationships with customers. Foster relationships with your sales people and you’ll get better results from them just like you will with your clients.

Coaching and training sales staff can result in significant improvement in results. People respond to individual feedback on performance. You may consider implementing one-on-one meetings on a monthly basis with all of your salespeople, for example. This is where you can give praise when it’s due and help struggling salespeople overcome challenges as well.

3. Creating some friendly competition

Salespeople tend to be competitive by nature and motivated by money. Internal contests can inspire great results and can also be a great way to foster team collaboration, too. Regular contests can make a big difference in the mindset and the morale of your sales team.

4. Listen to their pain points

Regular sales staff meetings and individual one-on-one meetings can help address issues and problems that your salespeople are experiencing. Listen to your salespeople and act on their concerns. A happy and steam lined sales team leads to motivated and long lasting employees.

5. Give them the tools they need to succeed

Do you have outdated sales tools? Do your sales tracking, CRM, and order fulfillment tools help salespeople do their jobs or do they make life difficult or just add another step in their day? Upgrading to the sales right tools can help your staff become better at what they do. Your efforts of continuously improving processes in the company can translate to a salesperson being able to continuously improve his or her results.

6. Show them the money and appreciation

Recognize excellence with compensation. You can do this with cash, gifts, plaques of appreciation, and so on. This probably seems pretty obvious but how long has it been since you reviewed your company’s compensation plan?  Is it considered competitive for your industry? Are you rewarding the performers and inspiring those who are struggling to try a little harder? Regularly review compensation and incentives to make sure you continue to inspire people through rewarding excellence.

Whether you implement some of these suggestions or all of them, continually working to motivate your staff can yield some great results!

Source:

5 High Performance Employee Motivation Techniques

These employee motivation techniques are the key to boosting team and business performance. Implementing these five techniques will deliver increased performance and create a workplace that buzzes.

Provide Meaningful and Challenging Work

When people feel that the work they are doing is meaningful makes a difference in some way and provides them with challenges that stretch them they become internally motivated. In other words they don't need anyone standing around coercing them into higher levels of performance.

Even the most mundane of work can be motivating if the leader helps the team member put into context the value their work brings either to the consumer or to the organization.

A great leader is able to help inspire and motivate people by getting them to see beyond the immediacy of what they are doing to the bigger picture.

Providing challenging work is also intrinsically motivating for people. The vast majority of people want to feel that their potential is being regularly challenged. When the team leader provides the team member with the environment that enables, for example, learning new techniques or taking on additional tasks this can engage them more fully.

Set Clear Targets and Expectations and Measure Performance

Imagine you were bowling and no-one told you the aim of the game and each time you bowled the ball as it got half way down the alley a curtain came down so you couldn't actually see how many pins you had knocked over. How long do you think you'd remain interested, excited, engaged by the game? If you are like most people not too long!

It's the same in organizational life. People can be all fired up and ready to give of their best, but if they don't know what is excellent performance or don't know when they've performed excellently or don't know what the aim of the game is ... you can pretty well shut the gate on motivation. Spelling out specific targets, goals, and expectations for behavior and performance need not be anything complicated ... it just needs to be done and people need to get regular and timely feedback on how they are performing against those goals.

Give Regular, Direct, Supportive Feedback

Feedback,  both positive and performance improving, is vital to continuous improvement and done well it motivates and inspires people to continually move toward using more of their potential.

Feedback needs to be timely, specific and presented in such a way that the individual is clear about what behaviors or skills they need to modify (or continue using) in order to improve performance

Design People's Roles So They Can Use Their Strengths

Assigning people to specific tasks and duties that play to their strengths is one of the best employee motivation techniques. Research has shown, more than anything, people who are able to make use of their strengths on a regular basis while at work are more likely to work in teams that perform at higher levels.

When people are playing to their strengths on a regular basis - they feel effective, focused and fulfilled, a win for them and for their organization. The person becomes more internally motivated, feeling upbeat and enthused by what they are doing and will feel inspired to continue more.

Enable Input and Choice In How Work Gets Done

95% of people want to do a good job, feel pride in what they do, have good relationships with their co-workers and feel they are contributing in a meaningful way. In other words, they are set up by their own internal nature to be a high performer.

Unfortunately in many organizations managers turn the majority of their focus toward the 5% of people who are allergic to work and then instigate rules, policies and practices (such as close supervision) to control this 5%. As you can imagine all that does is demean, annoy and demotivate the 95% who are motivated to do their best. You are wasting the talent and natural motivation that the overwhelming majority of people bring to the workplace.

Provide people with a forum where they can provide their input in to how work is performed. Giving people control over how they perform the work is intensely motivating.