Want to motivate your people? Tried and true methods not working? Here's what Alexander Hiam says in Streetwise Motivating and Rewarding Employees (Adams Media Corp., June 1999):

Consider your people's strengths. Most managers worry about what their people are doing wrong. It's a natural concern, but it demotivates people. Ask yourself why you or someone else hired that person in the first place. Then remind the employee, allowing them to take advantage of their strengths.

Recognize that motivation drives bottom-line performance. Highly motivated station people perform better. Commit to motivate your people daily. Make it a core issue, not a peripheral one.

Stop using motivation methods that don't work. Have you ever seen managers do the same thing over and over, expecting to get different results? We see it virtually every day at TV stations. Don't frustrate yourself. If an approach doesn't work, figure out why. Learn from the experience. Try another approach based on the suggestions in this article. Call your AR station strategist to gain an outside perspective.

Acknowledge that even news and marketing people may be motivated by things beyond their work. Maybe they're passionate about a hobby, sport, or cause. Those interests can stimulate growth and interest at the station. Find out what interests them. Recognize their outside accomplishments.

Re-calibrate your motivation scale. We often accept mediocre motivation, forgetting that everyone is capable of high motivation. For example, we know of several stations where anchors didn't want to report, but they now do. At another station, reporters who were bringing back one package a day now average two. Set benchmarks higher. Showcase your highly motivated people; hold them up as examples.

Teach your people how to measure their own success. You can reduce every performance goal to a trackable measurement. If you can't quantify it, rate it on a judgment scale. By keeping score, they can track progress. Examples include how many stories each reporter initiates a week and the percentage of updated or new stories a producer includes in the late newscast.

Ask your people what they want. Employees are motivated by what motivates them, not necessarily what motivates others. Different people have different goals. To maximize motivation, identify your people's goals and help them achieve them.

Communicate. Many news people say their managers don't communicate openly with them. The managers say they do. Who's right? Wrong question. The real question is how to communicate more openly. Ask your people what they want to know. Use e-mail, one-on-one sessions, and staff meetings. You can usually give them the information unless it's vitally secret.

Explain your reward system. Rewards or salaries can generate cynicism, not motivation. Explain why certain people make more money or get the assignments they want. Prove it's not arbitrary. That might motivate more of your people to achieve those goals.
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Should You Praise Your Employees Every Day?

That's the current wisdom as so-called motivational management sweeps across the business landscape. From Inc. magazine comes the advice that supervisors should write a weekly "to do" list with each employee's name on it, to be crossed off when you find a way to praise them. A newsletter called The Motivational Manager prescribes even more frequent praise, recommending that every manager "make recognizing employees part of your daily routine." [The Motivational Manager, undated issue received May 1998 from Ragan Communications, Chicago IL. Quote from page 1.]

And many managers are getting the message these days--but feeling guilty they don't have the time or inclination to be a full-time cheerleader for their people. Should managers feel like they've failed their people and their organization when they don't provide continuous praisings? Is it essential to provide frequent, positive feedback for employees? No! Actually, these prescriptions are seriously flawed. They don't produce better performances. In the long run, they hurt attitudes and performance.

Seven Reasons Why Daily Praise Won't Work
What's wrong with the currently-popular prescription for constant praisings? Everything, or at least the following seven things:

First, it is controlling
If managers insert themselves into employees' daily work to tell them when they are doing well, employees will become more dependent upon managers' telling they are doing well. They will become "hooked" on this external source of feedback. They will work for the managers. Too rich a diet of praise can be overly controlling. Employees tend to learn to look to their managers for approval, instead of developing independent judgment about what is and is not good work. The same problem arises when you use "token" feedback systems, in which employees earn tokens, points, or credits when their managers think they are performing well. Better to emphasize informing and educating employees, with the goal of making them more independent instead of more dependent.

Second, it is "telling"
Managers who tell employees they are doing well are praising, which is a good idea. But they are also telling, which is a bad idea because it keeps them from listening. Managers who are less directive and more open to employee comments and concerns are typically more effective. And they are greatly preferred by employees, who rank open communications as their number one priority in many surveys. So instead of devoting all-too-limited "face time" to telling employees how they are doing, managers might do better to ask them how they are doing.

Third, it's unpredictable
If your management plan makes praise the main source of positive feedback, you will inevitably provide inconsistent, arbitrary feedback. Why? Because managers cannot possibly watch employees closely enough to know exactly when they do what, let alone whether they've done a good or poor job at each task they do in a day. When managers do happen to take note of a good performance and praise it, the event is an anomaly that often takes employees by surprise. Employees may even feel that the praise is inappropriate or should have been directed at a much more important performance the manager is unaware of. Employees will find it difficult to predict or control the desirable praisings. And when they view praise as inconsistent and arbitrary, it is not motivating to them. They lack the clarity of understanding needed to related their own performances to the desired outcome.

Fourth, it's inconsistent
In addition, praise often contrasts with other events in the employees' experience that are seen as negative. Restrictive policies, increased workloads, problems and complaints may create a negative feeling in the workforce. Also, managers often are terse, dismissive or rude in their interactions with employees?and may not even be aware that their behaviors are seen as negative by the employees. The occasional praisings thus seem inappropriate and managers are viewed as sending confusing mixed messages.

Fifth, it's disrespectful
When managers make a special effort to offer employees praise, employees often "see through" the effort and view it as contrived and awkward. It may seem to them that managers are being manipulative in a heavy-handed, obvious way. And they feel insulted that their managers think they are so easily deceived. Employees often complain that their managers treat them like children, or, even worse, like pets! Genuine, appropriate and natural praise is respectful and helpful. But forced praisings don't feel right. They are often interpreted by employees as indicating a fundamental lack of respect.

Sixth, it's impersonal
What motivates each individual? It depends on their personality, plus their current commitment and competence levels. A simple pat on the back, administered formulaically to each employee, is not appropriate to any of them. Same with many of the reward systems and programs, which hand out generic reinforcers when each employee's context and behavior is unique. There is no substitute for direct, one-on-one supervision. Employees know it. Managers need to admit it too.

Seventh, it's dishonest
If employees are really doing an exceptional job, then they deserve daily praise. But most supervisors are frustrated with most employees' performance?as the employees learn when it comes time for a formal performance review or whenever the next layoffs and promotions are handed out. Why spend your time praising people if you don't think their work is all that great? Tell it like it is! Sometimes the truth hurts, but lies always hurt. And when managers admit that their employees are not performing up to snuff, then they can tackle the performance problem honestly and in greater depth. They may need to rethink the way they define employee tasks and the way they relate to and supervise employees. Fundamental changes are often required. When managers pretend that a few seconds of praise will fix all the problems, they are being dishonest with their employees and themselves.
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Does Money Motivate?

Welcome to the oldest and most acrimonious debate in the field of motivational management! Typically, this debate focuses on whether you should offer cash awards or non-cash awards (like trips or trophies). But it actually goes much deeper. At its heart, this question asks whether money itself is a motivator in the workplace.

Do people work for money? Will offering them more money or making their pay contingent upon performance increase their motivation and boost performance?

On the one hand, many people argue that a good salary and compensation package is important in motivating prospective employees to apply for a job. But then loses its power to motivate once an employee is working and the payment becomes routine and assumed.

On the other hand, many people argue that linking some or all of a person's compensation to their performance aligns their interests with the organization's and provides the ultimate motivation.

Well, they are both right. That's why their arguments sound appealing. But they are also both wrong. You can find plenty of cases in which employees are not trying hard or performing well, in spite of high salaries or commissions.

So money alone won't produce all the behaviors you wish to see in your people.

But on the other hand, money sets the stage for employee attitudes and behaviors. It is part of the emotional foundations of motivation and performance:

• • On the down side, if the money equation doesn't feel right to your people, nothing else you do will move them.

  • And on the up side, if they feel that the money equation is favorable, they are much more likely to rise to the challenges of stretch goals and high performance expectations.

Money is the ultimate symbol, capable of representing just about anything. It can symbolize accomplishment. Respect. Rewards. Recognition. Status. Affection. And it can symbolize disrespect. Unfair treatment. Lack of loyalty. Lack of awareness. Ambivalence. Dislike. So of course money can be a motivator, a demotivator, or a peripheral factor in the great game of motivation. Everyone's right. But you don't care who wins the debate. You just want to win the motivation game! So be very careful to consider what money is symbolizing to your people. How they feel about any payments they receive or rewards they are offered.

More on that in a moment, but first, let's hear from a real-world case in which a large, far-flung operation, a district court system, found that cash awards were a positive factor for their people:

"Cash Awards programs have a positive affect on employee morale. This was reported by 74.8% of the respondents. Units noted that there was a drop in morale when cash awards were not funded. . . Dividing the money is more common than believed and this has a very positive affect on employee morale. . . Cash awards were most often given for the following reasons: sustained performance, work on special project and cost savings. . .The mean award for those reporting was approximately $430."
Cameron S. Burke, Clerk, U.S. District and Bankruptcy Court for the District of Idaho, reporting on the results of the Cash Awards Survey (197 respondents)


Conventional wisdom says money doesn't motivate. Bull! The pay you get for your work tells you the value the organization places on that work. All else equal, it's more compelling to do a job of higher value. So employees who feel they are well paid for their work feel respected. They feel that their work is important and they are more likely to treat it that way.

• • Good pay is good for one's self worth. It provides a good emotional foundation for building high motivation and superior performance.

  • It's simple common sense to offer better-than-average compensation to people you expect to perform better than average.

I'm all for good pay and, when things go well, sharing the wealth through cash bonuses too. But just remember that this is a great starting point for motivating your people, not an end. Offering a cash bonus for compliance when the job is demotivating is a waste of your money and will probably make things worse, not better.

But can you afford to pay them well?

What if you can't afford to offer higher-than-average pay or substantial bonuses? You need to figure out why you can't afford to pay people well.

• • It is either because they are performing poorly, in which case, perhaps you can't afford not to pay them well. You've got to get your people off the resistance path and onto the motivation path, and that generally requires management to make the first move.

  • Or it is because your business strategy is flawed and even the best people couldn't get superior returns from it. In which case, you better do your part and come up with a plan that can move everyone ahead. A bad business strategy robs employees of the opportunity to excel. Don't waste good people on stupid plans!

Face it, you simply can't afford not to pay your people well. Superior organizational performance can only be achieved through superior individual performances. Share the wealth, or spread the pain. Those are your only options. And either way, you just know money is going to have a big impact on how your people feel about themselves and their work.

Whenever you think you have a motivation problem, check the money trail first. Unless your people have the opportunity to earn good money, why should they do good work?
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