Rewards : Do they Motivate? - II

In my earlier post regarding Do rewards Motivate? and to my promise in the same post to tell you what would be an Ideal Reward like..... I felt the need to explain the differentiation between rewardful and rewardless motivations... To what I feel and I can easily describe why rewards were ever introduced is to create a passion in the people to do things better to have optimum or more than optimum results and to think beyond the boundaries that they work under.... I am not sure if I can call it extrinsic Motivation..... but the reason I feel I can call them extrinsic motivation is the fact that the motivation is in form of some or the other sort of rewards... this somehow clearly mean to me that the moment rewards are off the motivation can go for a toss... surprising no? The other fact about the extrinsic motivations is that it comes with a cost which obviously not so very easy to be managed by startups and smaller organisations who have to work over limited costs until they grow bigger. One of the blog post I read from a startup CEO was "How to Cut down Costs" and if of course talked about costs related to non business activities.

So lets leave what we don't have to opt for... I am sure all of you would be wanting to know the other side of motivation that does not ask for tangible rewards. But like any other product sale this type of motivation needs COMPLETE support from the individuals... Yes we are talking about the intrinsic motivations... the same that lead the leaders of countries , CEO's, Business Managers and many others to create a path to success by way of fantabolous innovations and aspirations... Yes creating a passion and intrinsic motivation can be the Ideal Reward.... The reward that can help someone achieve goals not only in line to organisation goals but beyond that.

So Whats the tangibility of this Ideal Reward?
Who Gives this Award?
How can it motivate those who look money as rewards?
What type of Employers can reward them?
Is it only verbal and nothing tangible?
and of course hell lot of questions that I see driving 90 miles an hour in your heads...

So to begin with the promotion to be intrinsic motivated is not at all tangible... you wont get any motivation in a handy form... however intrinsic motivation will lead you work towards something that you have always wanted to do...

When we started TechShepherds Software that was the Idea... and the way the motivation went to the associates was through a share in the profits of the organisations directly... how fun it was when I really saw everyone working as if it was their own company... of course challenges came for every hard or strategic decisions we made or the approach we took... and that's how the empowering for most worked.... to that matter 5 out of the 13 run their own setups big or small and I am sure they follow the same approach towards success now... Yes create a motivation that makes everyone feel been a part of it and just not closer.

Who can reward here or who creates this passion within?
Yes its the leadership that works in front or behind the scene here.. remember The Commodity Leaders have no role to play here, specially because the commodity leaders want to Empower Themselves to achieve success...

How can it motivate those who look for Tangible gifts?
So the answer here goes for 2 layers of people... this cannot be implanted in them who:

1. Think that the Employees/ Resources are a liability.
2. Think that money and designation is the only way to grow.

Is it only Verbal?
Yes it comes in different forms and different stages... Which I would really like to share....

What are the Stages of this reward or how this motivation works and helps?
1. Create a feel of responsibility and intrinsic interests in the goals the organisation is working for... (remember this is not easy and needs lot of understanding of the resources you work with). A typical phscycological study of human behaviours might be required. Also remember that the leaders have to show a vision of the organisation and not self....

2. Understand the Objectives and Goals from the Team and individuals, its very important to do that... for instance if someone has core interests in making movies he might not be a good developer but he definitely can be a good Product Analyst or a Web Designer. It might not be easy to understand this too... You wont find many people who can tell you what they want to do in their life.... but all will conclude to earn money and retire ;)

3. Identify the rockers and the boulders.... both of these types cannot be motivated so do not waste your time creating intrinsic strategies on them...

4. Throw responsibilities but do not control. Passion at work is affected badly when responsibilities handled by the associates are been directly and minutely controlled by someone. The effect it has is the Member who has intrinsic interests have a feel of failure and thus been controlled. This can also make the intrinsic motivated run on a different side.

5. Let the motivation be transferred.... and let the authorities , visibility and responsibilities rotated... this helps the teams and the players to be very effective to work towards a goal.

6. Let them have their shares....
Its very important that the players with intrinsic motivations get their share of success in whatever form it comes... this also means that the leaders have to let these players accelerate well and at times well enough to overtake the leaders themselves... Solidatory success needs to be lonely settled with them... one of the good qualities of players that are intrinsically motivated is that they thrive for the next thing and want to move fast... the speed of the organisation and individual goals should be able to match this... else its too late.


7. Praise and Curse
Doesnt go in the same words though... make sure that the innovations from every player is praised and whenever required failures are cursed so that the feel of failure lead them to success... its very important to de-motivate the players so that they understand what , when , how , where and which is important for their lives. Make use of talented hunour to give the message out. Use quality humour to praise and show whats wrong, Be direct and clear when required, Be hard and firm when necessary and be Soft and calm when must. All of these help the person to identify himself and find a way to move in the direction of desires and aspiritions.

Well there are many more thingsz that you can definitely do.... unfortunately I think its enough at this moment if this post works as a motivation for you to motivate others to do miracles...

Remember Our Teachers and Mentors have made us, and we have to take their seat to be equally effecient and effective for others...


Regards
Sameer Shaikh
http://pm-better-than-sex.blogspot.com