Various pieces of research, including those by Frederick Herzberg (2003) and Harry Levinson (2003), have shown clearly the importance of distinguishing between extrinsic incentives like pay and conditions and the intrinsic ones that lie deep within human nature. Ask people what makes them dissatisfied at work and you hear about poor pay, irritating bosses, uncomfortable working environments, unfairness and inappropriate rules, red tape and bureaucracy. Managed badly, these factors make people fed up and are likely to be demoralizing. But when managed well, they do not necessarily motivate individuals to excel. People are more likely to be motivated to perform well if they have interesting work, more responsibility rather than less, challenging assignments, an opportunity to develop their skills and recognition for their efforts. These intrinsic factors answer people’s deep-seated needs for growth and achievement.
It is clearly desirable for firms to provide competitive pay and benefits. It is also sensible to provide good personnel policies and procedures, a decent working environment and to avoid stupid rules, red tape and bureaucracy. These help to prevent dissatisfaction, poor performance and high staff turnover. However, when they are in place they do not, by themselves, guarantee a high level of motivation and a desire to excel. They are necessary but not sufficient. For outstanding performance to occur, team leaders have a crucial role to play. It is their job to ensure that team members are engaged in interesting and challenging work assignments. They can help people to develop their skills. They can look for ways of providing team members with more responsibility. They can provide opportunities for everyone in the team to generate ideas. They can make sure that people receive recognition for good performance. In other words it is the job of the firm’s top management to ensure that the extrinsic incentives like competitive pay and decent personnel policies are in place. On the other hand it is very much the task of team leaders throughout the firm to search, continually, for ways of improving those intrinsic incentives that can reach deeply into people’s psychological make-up and bring the best out of them.
Managing Partner Tim Solomon has this to say about the intrinsic motivators at advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather:
In advertising a prime motivator is the work itself. It is fun and it is exciting. Feedback comes to everybody, formally and informally, from the clients and through the figures. So, everyone knows how she or he is doing. Good team leaders are well aware of the motivational effect of the work. They can give people a bit more room to deliver. They can keep raising the bar. They can encourage people to stretch themselves.
Team leaders who are enthusiastic and energetic radiate excitement. I believe that this helps motivation. Undoubtedly the opposite is true. Glum leaders very quickly spread gloom and despondency among their colleagues. Even when life is tough an attitude of things will get better helps. Walking the halls, sitting on people’s desks for an informal chat, being truthful, not over-promising and building trust are all important for motivation.
If individuals lose some of their motivation then our team leaders provide help. It might be a matter of assisting with skill development through coaching. Our world is a high-pressure one. If people feel a bit low because things have not been going too well it is the team leader’s job to provide support and to get team colleagues to help to lift them. So in one way and another although the nature of the work is the key to motivation there are many things that team leaders can do to help things along.
Development Director Alison Chadwick and Account Director Ian Pearman at advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers also provide insights about intrinsic motivators. This is what Alison Chadwick has to say:
The opportunity for advancement is central to motivation here, in terms of promotion, but also through the work that people are involved in. We believe that giving people more responsibility and fresh challenges is a strong motivator. We take long-term career development very seriously, and we are always looking for ways of stretching people. As part of this, team leaders are expected to listen to people’s ideas. We also place great emphasis on recognizing good performance. It is a day-to-day responsibility of individual team leaders to acknowledge good performance, but praise for teams and individuals also comes through memos from senior management that are circulated throughout the agency. This recognition is often for achievements such as new business pitches won. However, if for example a pitch is lost but the efforts to win it have been good, this is still publicly recognized. We believe recognizing talent and effort is a critical factor in sustaining motivation and morale. Other ways of appreciating people’s contributions are also encouraged. For example, team leaders sometimes give flowers or other gifts for good work or significant effort. Some departments also give regular awards to highlight excellent performers. Overall we try to provide a challenging environment for everyone to achieve their potential, and plenty of support to encourage them along the way.
Ian Pearman adds further thoughts:
When we are going through a tough time it is part of the leadership job to create momentum. It is too easy to fall into the trap of gloom and despondency. Instead we have to create a virtuous circle by focusing on things that are going right and stressing that things will get better. This lifts people and we stand a much better chance of making some good progress as a result. Our approach to motivation is to emancipate people from fear. We believe in very much more carrot than stick. We all make mistakes. We try to learn from them and give support rather than castigate. As a result people feel sorry and a bit guilty when they make mistakes. They feel that they have let the side down and are keen to make amends. Of course we work out between us how to avoid similar mistakes in the future. This sort of reassurance and support is good for motivation. There is, however, one thing that we are tough on. That is arrogance and spikiness. It is an important part of our value system that people treat each other decently. We are usually successful at picking up the important qualities of courtesy, humility, openness and willingness to listen at the selection stage. Occasionally people slip through, behave wrongly, and then we make it very clear that it is unacceptable.