Motivating Staff to Action

We're all interested in motivating staff to action, empowerment and creating a culture of excellence. We want to embrace diversity, develop potential and achieve synergy. More buzzwords ... they are so easy to say, aren't they.

But you and I need to put meaningful thought and action behind them if we truly want to see others reach their greatest potential while contributing to the year over year success of the organization.

I came across an interesting article on motivation by Tim Millett,  Motivating Staff ... What's the Buzz?. The author notes:

The interesting aspect of employee motivation is that there are many workers, both management and staff, who are motivated to succeed, but unfortunately that potential success is not seen as related to their current position or the tasks they are performing on a regular basis.

The symptoms? Staff who feel overlooked, under-appreciated and are looking for 'the right opportunity' to come up somewhere else. Meanwhile the organization gets bogged down in buzzword talk, training and motivational speeches. The results?

There is an enormous untapped potential in the labour force of most companies simply because people feel removed from the processes that equate to company success. That leads to a workforce searching for personal meaning (eventually with a position at a competitor!) or a workforce that is not mentally or emotionally connected to the company mission and thus underproductive.

So what's to be done?

The path to motivating staff is to focus on the mission of the company and then translate that mission into personal success.

How? The author offers several solutions.

• Creating a corporate culture that promotes staff involvement and reduces resistance to change


• Developing responsive management that values employee input


• Encouraging team participation


• Developing team leaders able to motivate others


• Becoming an organization that is able to cross traditional functions and communication barriers


• Creating positive energy that promotes individual success while also advancing company progress

I want to emphasize again what Tim says, The path to motivating staff is to focus on the mission of the company and then translate that mission into personal success.



I think that statement is worth taking some serious time to think about.