Motivation: it's not one size fits all

Khun Prakai is the national sales manager of a medium-sized multinational company based in Rayong. After three coaching sessions together over a period of a few months, he showed up at our most recent session a little late, looking exhausted.

"Sawadee krab, Khun Prakai. How are you?"

"Not very well; I feel tired," he replied.

"I can see that. What happened? Anything you want to share with me?"

"My team seem to be losing their motivation."

"Really? What makes you say that?" I probed.

"They've lost their energy, and are not as active. I know the sales target is very challenging, but they used to be able to achieve it. Right now, I don't see the same level of energy in them; they give up too easily. What should I do?"

"Interesting… What have you done about it so far?"

"I've tried to motivate them using several methods, like holding team-building activities, organising inspirational sessions with famous speakers, setting up extra incentive campaigns, and some other things."

"How did it work out?" I asked.

"Some of it worked, but never for long. Is there anything else I can do to motivate them?"

I told him that when most people start working, their motivational "glass" is full, but as time goes by, energy levels flag. There are reasons for this, and it is a leader's job to discover them before motivational efforts can begin.

According to Frederick Herzberg's "two-factor" theory, one set of factors in a workplace causes job satisfaction, while another set causes job dissatisfaction. People cannot be motivated if they are dissatisfied. Pay, welfare, fringe benefits, working environment and job security are factors that can cause dissatisfaction. Unless these factors are handled properly, people will not be motivated.

When dissatisfying factors are removed, people are satisfied but not necessarily motivated. In order to motivate others, one needs to know what motivates them, as different people are motivated by different things.

For example, many organisations try to motivate talented employees by organising lunch for them, with the CEO hoping this will be a good motivator. But what the CEO fails to understand is that it doesn't matter how much he or she values such a lunch; what matters is how much they value it - it is about them, not about the CEO! If they don't value such an event, it's worthless. Having lunch with the boss might not be what the employee wants; therefore it is not an incentive to work.

"Khun Prakai, actually you cannot motivate your staff unless they motivate themselves. Therefore, as a leader you need to know what they want and use that to motivate them," I said.

"It's interesting, Khun Apiwut - most of what you say is not new to me; I simply overlooked it. Actually, this reminds me of when I was younger and worked as an upcountry salesperson for a large Thai conglomerate.

"A friend of mine loved fishing. Every month we were each assigned Bt10-million sales targets. He went out on his sales trips right after our monthly meetings and started working with customers non-stop - I mean seven days a week, 10-12 hours a day. He would close his sales target within 15 days of starting his trip, then go fishing. My boss soon became aware of this, and was upset, calling my friend in and telling him he should not stop selling, as the more he sells, the more commission he gets. After trying to motivate him for a while, my boss increased his target by Bt2 million. My friend did not complain, but simply worked harder and closed his new sales target within 18 days, then went fishing again. My boss happened to find out and repeated the conversation with my friend, trying to motivate him with the commission, then adding another Bt500,000 to his target, hoping this Bt12.5-million goal would use up his time so that he would not go fishing."

"What did he do?" I couldn't wait to hear the end of the story.

"He resigned and went fishing. Now he is the owner of one of the most successful fishing magazines in Thailand," he said.

I laughed and said, "So, Khun Prakai, what will you do differently with your team to re-energise them?"

"I have to diagnose the root causes of their lack of motivation, try harder to understand what motivates who, and only then prescribe a remedy," Khun Prakai said, drawing his own conclusion.

Apiwut Pimolsaengsuriya is executive director of Orchid Slingshot and an ICF-certified executive coach. Write to him at [email protected]