In the past two parts of this series, we talked about the first two core activities a manager must do to motivate employees:  selecting the right person for the right job and setting clear expectations.  In this installment, we'll consider the last two of the core activities:  developing employees and focusing on strengths.

Developing employees

Many employees, although basically happy with their current jobs, would appreciate an opportunity either to learn their current jobs better or to acquire the skills needed for advancement within the company.  If you are able to provide those opportunities to your employees, it will help to motivate them because they will be more content with their employment. 

Think about the last time you were unhappy in a situation.  Perhaps you felt taken advantage of by someone in your family, or maybe you didn't like a decision reached by the governing board of your Rotary or your church.  While you were disgruntled, did you have any desire to perform to the best of your ability?  Of course not, and neither do your employees.  How often have you seen a sports superstar's game go downhill when he or she is dissatisfied with playing time or salary or the amount of perceived respect he or she is getting from the front office?  It's the same for those of us who haven't been blessed with extraordinary reflexes, speed, and ball-handling skills. 

Lest you think that development activities are only important for management level employees, check out this excerpt from a recent article in Business Horizons magazine. (Emphasis mine.) 

"...taking good care of frontline personnel should be a top management concern. One way that service employees can be shown they are valued members of the organization entails the implementation of thoughtful and organized career development programs, initiatives which help increase employees’ job satisfaction and feelings of empowerment in their customer-facing roles. Before they can become enthusiastic about meeting the needs of their customers, employees have to feel that their own needs are being met within the organization. In this regard, firm investment in frontline employee career development programs will be money well spent: they are capable of reducing employee turnover and increasing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and profitability."(1)

Focusing on strengths

Your last core activity as a manager seeking peak performance is to motivate your employees by focusing on their strengths.  We started this series by pointing out that your employees likely have varying levels of ability for each of the job tasks they are asked to perform. 

Your time is much better spent in exploiting each employee's strengths than in trying to force an employee to do something for which he or she has no aptitude.  Imagine yourself in charge of a dairy farm.  Which project do you think would give you the best results:  feeding the cow a better diet to increase milk production or teaching the horse to produce milk?

So it is with your employees.  If an employee simply doesn't perform well at his or her given task, perhaps that employee would do well in another capacity, or (sadly) at another company.  You may decide you need the horse to get out of the barn so you can have transportation when you inspect the pasture fences, or you may realize you don't really need a horse at your dairy farm.  Although it is never easy to terminate an employee, common sense dictates that both you and the employee will be better off if the employee is released (or even forced) to pursue other opportunities more in line with his or her abilities.

Once you have begun performing these four core activities (selecting the correct employees, setting clear expectations, providing developmental opportunities, and focusing on each person's strengths), you are ready to begin assessing how well your employees are being motivated by your efforts. Part VII of this series will present an assessment tool for your use.

(1)  Jackson, Donald W and Nancy J. Sirianni.  Building the Bottom Line by Developing the Frontline:  Career Development for Service Employees.  Business Horizons 52(3):  279-287.  May-June, 2009.