Black Belt Leadership

How does an organization get people to bring their best talent, energy, creativity and experience to the job every day? When workers are new, they possess a lot of enthusiasm, but it isn't long before the more seasoned members of the staff have words with them and they become jaded. What happened to the bright young person who was hired that was so willing and able during the interview process? It's true that time, politics, and mistakes by managers all take a toll on morale. Can anything be done? How can a workplace be recharged? How do you get their hearts back in the game? And how about the clock watchers who are looking to the end of the day, the end of the week or the end of their working career? Can they be re-engaged? Here are some things that will not work:

–     motivational talks

–     threats

–     fear

–     intimidation

–     ridicule

–     tough, new performance standards

–     elimination of 10% of the lowest rated performers

–     sending the group to team-building sessions

–     more training

–     bed checks (the boss snooping around at 5:30 to see who is still there)

There are pitfalls with all of the so called “motivators” in the list above and even though they may provide a short-term, surface level push, there is no sustainable positive effect from these measures or dozens like these. These are traditional, conventional wisdom answers to age-old situations. They are also completely ineffective. Workers can look busy, and can report impressive weekly activity reports, check marks can make it look like projects are getting done, but until some fundamental problems in the work place are addressed, there will be little if any sustained motivation.

First of all, a few words about motivation. People can't be externally motivated. Anyone with parenting experience can tell you unless the motivation comes from within, as soon as the person who administers the reward is gone, so is the motivation. So why isn't a pay check a motivation? It is; people will show up for work every day to get the pay check. But is that all there is to work? Everyone involved would like a little more than a personal appearance. The company would like more than a physical presence and the employee longs for meaningful work. A person will perform at peak levels, only if their heart is in the game.

At this point, if you find yourself saying “I'll motivate those lazy slackers” read on, this is more for you then anyone. Leadership is very complicated but very simple if you can grasp the concept of servant leadership and that by sharing power, you gain more power. This is the black belt lesson of leadership.

So how does this work? By holding onto power and trying to control every aspect of a group or an organization, a person starts losing the ability to manage many details and aspects of the position. There are not enough hours in the day to do everyone's work, to look over every shoulder and still attend to the managerial/leadership responsibilities. Efforts to be overly controlling will backfire. More things get out of control because there is only one person who is able to make all the decisions. By sharing power or giving it away, there is more capacity to do the things that enable the people on the team. Employees start taking ownership and if they see that the manager or leader has confidence in their abilities to get the job done, their energy and enthusiasm will rise. Leading by example is a powerful technique. This is not to suggest that the leader delegates all the tasks and then leaves for the golf course. Again, the team looks at behaviours and if the boss is out on the golf course, guess where they think they should be. Accountability is a strong component of this style of leadership. What gets measured gets done. It is an old adage, but it still remains true. Weekly activity reports that are short (no more than 5 bullets, one sentence per bullet) will report on the activities of the past week and three bullets for next week's plan is sufficient. And these reports go to the entire staff, because sometimes you can snow the boss, but the co-workers are hip to what's going on. Maintain an atmosphere of mutual respect and openness so that these reports can be respectfully challenged. They also serve as a means for keeping on track. If the activities reported do not match the direction of the team, intervention can be implemented for a course correction. Now here's the list of things that will work to get the team re-focused, re-energized and re-motivated:

–     profit sharing or gain sharing

–     ownership of work

–     making certain that people are in the right jobs for their skills, interest, education and experience

–     rewarding creative responses to problems

–     relaxing the dress code

–     accommodating flex hours

–     trusting people to do their jobs and holding them accountable for progress

–     good project management skills

–     repeatable processes

–     removing roadblocks to progress

–     making certain everyone has the tools, knowledge and training to do their jobs

–     allowing people to stretch into other jobs as their interests and time allows

–     job rotation

–     mentoring

–     learning from failures

–     subordinate reviews

–     democratic leadership when appropriate

–     leading by example

–     giving people a few hours a week to experiment

–     setting aggressive yet achievable goals

–     providing six month, paid sabbaticals every five years

–     allowing people to design their jobs and job descriptions

–     360 reviews

–     post mortems for projects: what worked, what didn't and lessons learned

–     celebration of project completion

–     rewarding job-related creativity and innovation

Would you want to do your best if you had the environment that has the elements listed above? If any workplace is going to bring out the best in workers, it is this kind of nurturing, encouraging and rewarding setting. So get going and integrate these behaviours for your company, organization and team and stand back and watch workers perform miracles.