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How to Solve Motivation Problems - Insert Trust into the Equation
Recently I’ve had some pretty low-energy conversations with people working in organisations. It could be the political climate, it could be the time of year, it could be the weather… I’m not going to try to interpret the detail of what’s behind these conversations, suffice to say there’s a lot of people around who seem to be experiencing a distinct lack of motivation. However, when we do get to talking about the ‘why’ of all this, the word I hear more often than I should is TRUST - there seems to be a definite lack of trust out there. Google Trends reckons this word is searched for some 4 to 5 times more than 'Motivation'. Trust - Motivation, what’s the connection? Let me give you my take on all of this. I’m going to start with something we know about motivation and use that to look at how trust becomes a player. There are many process theories about motivation, but the one I tend to reach for is Vroom’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation. It’s a relatively simple Motivation Equation, it’s only got three moving parts which makes it easy to collect evidence in a workplace setting when looking to answer questions about why people are / aren’t motivated in particular circumstances. I often apply it with clients who are wondering if a particular new initiative will work (will our people get behind this?), or, retrospectively helping clients to understand why a particular new initiative didn’t work (why didn’t our people get behind this?). Obviously the former of these is the most desirable, the latter is by far the most expensive. What Vroom says is focused on what individuals expect in the future. Specifically, that an individual’s motivation is affected by how much they value any reward associated with an action (Valence), how much they believe that by putting effort into something they will be able to generate good results (Expectancy) and how much they believe that generating good results will result in a reward (Instrumentality). Importantly the reward may be either intrinsic (like a sense of fulfilment or achievement) or extrinsic (money or promotion). This is usually expressed as the Motivation equation M = V * I * E So where does Trust come into this? Let me add this key word into how the equation is usually explained. Valence: is pretty straightforward. How much does the individual or group value the potential rewards? Hint: go and ask them! Expectancy: How much they TRUST do they place on the information that their additional effort will help them achieve the target results? Instrumentality: How much TRUST do they have that the rewards will actually appear should they achieve the target results? Put like this trust becomes somewhat pivotal in motivating people to do what leaders want them to do. At that point I usually see the lightbulbs going on - that in order to get people to do what they are told, they need to trust the leader who’s telling them to do it. Now we’ve got a different question to answer: How do we build trust in our leaders? I can easily answer that one in the negative - you don’t build trust in leaders by telling people that they are worthy of trust. It’s here that the term “walking the talk” is usually introduced by somebody, and that tells me that many clients get this in principle, but may be struggling with the practice of making it happen. My answer usually emphasises the need for shared experience - there is nothing quite like having stood shoulder to shoulder with a leader in a challenging situation to build trust in their ability to perform. The trouble is that challenging situations - where the consequences of failure could be drastic - are not places for experiments in leadership practice. This is where authentic and engaging experiential learning environments are worth their weight in gold. The consequences of failure are perhaps a little embarrassment and certainly a lot of learning, but crucially the increase in interpersonal knowledge is the stuff the trust is built upon. Very often in organisations there is an assumption that certain development experiences are for leaders, and other development experiences are for the people they lead. Think how many trust-building opportunities are lost by playing to the ego that exists at the top of the organisation - and how crucial that lack of trust could be when the leaders need the workforce to follow them. My prescription is to work in vertical slices and put the teams / groups into shared learning situations where they can experience one another performing. More complex tools like T-Trade and Minefield lend themselves perfectly to these learning outcomes, though it may well be advisable to use a preliminary exercise like Colourblind, Webmaster or Simbols to build some initial trust / familiarity.
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How to Develop Effective Team Leadership
There are many definitions of team leadership, but, at their heart, most will feature the need to somehow define a goal for the team, and then ensure that the team feel enabled to work towards that goal. There's a simplicity here that may be very easy to describe, but difficult to achieve if the leader is to stay in the 'sweet spot' that lies between a hands-off approach and micromanagement. It's very likely that actively demonstrating where this sweet spot lies will be singularly more effective than finding the words to describe it. Working experientially there are two activities I find to be particularly useful in structuring an effective demonstration of what's needed here; which one I choose largely depends on the complexity of the workplace situation I'm gearing- up the team to face. If I'm working in a situation where I simply need the team to efficiently pool the knowledge they hold, I don't want personality and status to deflect them from this task. We need to hear what each individual knows without interruption or bias so that the team process is smooth and direct. Sharing in this way is the quickest way to firstly reach agreement on an objective and then go on to achieve it, and it's a process that is perfectly demonstrated using the Workstations activity. I don't want to spend a long time with a team getting them to trust and value the contribution of colleagues, Workstations allows me to move quickly to illustrating this process. If, however, I'm working in a situation that is more complex and dynamic, particularly one where knowledge is emergent, I need an activity that lasts a little longer so that needs and understanding can change and develop. Here I might turn to Minefield, particularly if I'm working with more senior leaders or representatives of more than one team or function. Within any organisation knowledge develops at different rates. This knowledge might be specific to a particular function, but there's always going to be content that will inform the work of other parts of the organisation. I need people to consistently scan what they're finding out, and to recognise what might have value elsewhere (and this might include partners outside of the organisation), then to understand the relationships and channels they need to move the information effectively. With Minefield I can recognisably simulate this environment; allowing teams to build understanding of their operating environment, collate knowledge, work against a budget to place a value on this knowledge, and to consider the extent to which they need to collaborate with other teams. Ultimately the group will achieve a score, and it's a feature of Minefield that this score is a direct evaluation of how accurately they have assessed the situation and managed the knowledge environment. It's an activity that generates strong emotions and powerful learning, making the transfer of learning back into the workplace both direct and insightful. As a leader I want my team to have all the tools and permissions they need to self-manage their knowledge environment; achieving that degree of autonomy is something I'm prepared to invest time and energy in achieving. Working with experiential learning tools like Workstations and Minefield has got to be a strong consideration for this investment.
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Connection in a disconnected world: why learning experiences matter more than ever
I was in conversation with a long-time friend of RSVP Design, discussing the present state of workplace training. Part of her response really stuck with me and I've thought about it a number of times since: "We've never had a more interconnected world, yet we've never struggled so much for real connection. The quantity is astounding, the quality is disturbing." As a learning-design professional my automatic reaction is to start looking at possible solutions - what can we do to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of interpersonal connection in modern organisations? I'm not sure I have many answers yet, but the ones I can suggest have one thing at their heart - structured learning experiences which motivate those involved to want to find connection with their colleagues. In a world where interpersonal connection is no longer an essential component of working life it's easy to forget that human beings have evolved as gregarious members of communities where connection is what kept us alive. We are genetically coded to seek out other parts of that community in order to work towards mutual success. The whole history of organisation and organisations demonstrates how this attribute has been leveraged for common advantage. Yet in the past few years we have increasingly become reliant on remote working, remote communication and technological systems that remove the need for the perceived inefficiencies of face to face interaction; and that's fine....to a point. Yet the fact is there are still some workplace interpersonal exchanges that go beyond the transactional, and they need people to bring with them the best of their humanity. A few years ago I was witness to a bereaved daughter settling the financial affairs of her dead father. This involved calling the specialist 'bereavement phone line' for a number of financial organisations, insurance companies etc. I was deeply moved and impressed by the care, compassion and delicacy demonstrated by the true professionals on the other end of those calls, yet afterwards I reflected on the impressions that these calls left on me and realised it was largely the contrast between them and the routine transactional calls we're all required to make to get things done. What I was reacting to was the sheer humanity of a fellow human being investing their work with warmth and care, and realising how unusual this experience has become in my exchanges with corporate life. So (back to solution-finding again) how can we motivate people to want to bring their best-selves to the workplace? For me as a professional it's a challenge that has become more difficult in recent times, but I mentioned above one approach that I know has proven effectiveness in achieving this motivation: structured experiential learning activities that are designed and selected to achieve that goal. As ever the experiential learning process starts with a very clear definition of learning objectives - what is it you're looking to achieve in your decision to offer your people these activities. What do you want them to do that they're not doing now? Giving some time to getting an accurate definition of the behavioural change you want to see is essential in both evaluating your success and avoiding encouraging the outcomes you don't want. Once you have clear objectives you can select appropriate activities to enable you to realise the type of learning environment and outcomes you are seeking. If your primary objective is about encouraging people to better connect in the workplace (and your objectives should specify whether this is specifically with colleagues, customers, suppliers etc) then it's worth taking the time to determine as best you can what will motivate participants to want to better connect. It's accessing this motivation within your activities that will allow conversations to develop about how it might be encouraged in the workplace. If part of your concern is that people don't seem to have the opportunities (or are not making the opportunities) for quality workplace interaction then your experiential learning activities should give every opportunity for this to happen - too much 'facilitator time' means not enough 'participant time'. This is not a taught experience so let the participants get engaged in the activity without too much interruption from the front. A quality review / debrief is essential to draw out and define the available learning. This should be structured to address your learning outcomes and should not avoid the emotional interplay that featured during the activity - what were people feeling? Why did they feel this way? How did others affect these feelings? Facilitated well this isn't intrusive or somehow tacky - it's getting at the interpersonal dimension of human relations and that's where motivation to change largely resides. Finally the conversation needs to encompass the translation of this learning back into the workplace - could it work there? What would make this happen? Who needs to do what and when to see it happen? And remember, the people who need to approve the necessary changes may not be in the room, so part of the action may need to be about approaching them to start the ball rolling. As I've said this is just my take on possible solutions, and it's the one we offer often. I'm prepared to engage in that conversation as many times as necessary because I've seen it work in so many organisations, in so many geographies and in so many cultures, and I know that it works.
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