Petra. I will have a job interview in two and a half weeks for my current manager's
job. I am sure I will get questions on motivating. Okay. Can we get Petra three months in the
leadership program for this awesome question? Uh, Petra. All right. I will, we'll have a
job interview in two and a half weeks and she's interviewing for her current manager's
job and she's, uh, uh, interested in motivating the staff. I feel like not everyone can be
motivated the same way and the easiest way to motivate people is to determine what they
care about, what their interests are and understand. So I have to know what you want to be motivated
to do, meaning that if you are, because we're going to use your example, because you asked
the question, you, you let's assume you have a team, it has a goal, but not everybody cares
about the goal.
The same way somebody might say. I really care about helping our customers. And that's
what motivates me. Somebody else might say, well, what really motivates me about doing
this is I don't care as much about the customers. That's well, that's fine. Okay. But I do care
about my personal development and that's what motivates me. Okay. So what am I getting at?
Well, the first thing is you got to know what motivates people, cause you got to know, I
hate the expression, but you got to know what buttons to push, right? Or how, how to get
them to react. And by the way, and when I say this, I don't mean in a manipulative way.
I mean, in a supportive way, I would like to know what you care about so that I can
explain the rationale of why this is important and what you're going to get out of it.
And then I need the tactics of how I can help you grow, how I can help you support the customer,
how I can, whatever. So when I look at motivating somebody, it has to do with inspiring them
to get what they want and what they're, you know, the, the enjoyment, I'm talking about
the enjoyment out of the doing okay. If somebody is incented and motivated by money, we, well,
then we need to have proper compensation structure to elicit the behavior we want. We need to
insent them properly. Give you a great story. We, um, I was a angel investor in a company
a number of years ago. And uh, the company was like five guys in a garage. And then we
grew it. And then I sold my membership interest. I served on the board, we did some recruitment
for them. And we, uh, had this opportunity.
The CEO approaches the staff and says, um, we we've got these incentives that if we hit
this particular deadline in this quarter for this client, then there's a big, there's a
big bonus. Okay? Now everybody in the company has what was called a P I U a profit unit.
It's there like a shareholder. So Petra, you own 10 shares. And then the PIU, the profit
interest unit is given a designated value, $10. You own 10 shares, $10. And then when
we hit our, our target revenue, the 10 bucks kicks in and you get the a hundred dollar
incentive. Now the CEO says to the staff, Hey, tell you what. I could hire more people.
And it make it easier on you to hit that goal. And then your profit interest unit is going
to be worth a little less, or you guys could work overtime.
We don't have to pay for any extra people. And if you hit the deadline and this is like
an exponential thing, then what do you want to do now in motivating people, people like
choices. You can, I can hire somebody kelp, you get hit that deadline. You could do it
on your own collective bigger Mona's guess what they chose. Don't you dare hire anybody.
We'll get the work done. Okay? Like there's many different options and levers for you
to pull, but three things always contribute. What is it that you want, tactically? How
can we achieve it? And what's the reward. Okay? What is the reward? And, and, and, and
the choice, those things always insent people they do. And so your, your answer is going
to need to cover those, those components. But it, I need to know what my people are
thinking and what they're interested in.
I need to tailor my, uh, direction and tactics to what resonates with them, right? Some people
need the guidance and the kick in the butt. Other people need, no, I trust you and go,
right. That's how it is. Everybody's a little different, but you're, you, you are a big
part of leadership is about the leader, gets the team to behave individually better than
anybody by themselves could write. I inspire you to do more than you initially thought
you could, without my inspiration. And, but the collective goal of the team needs to be
met. So in order for me to get everybody operating at maximum capacity, I have to approach each
person as an individual, not as a team, even though there's processes and protocols in
place. So all of that stuff has to be included and is a big part of being a great leader.
So I hope that helps.