Motivation & Communication

Motivation has been and continues to be a challenge for organizations and their managers. The concept of motivation is defined as a “personality dimension which occurs as an inner drive or need that leads to sustained effort toward a specific goal.” (Anderson, 1988) In most cases, the managers within an organization are held accountable for the performance of the people within their area of responsibility. These managers have been given the mandate to accomplish goals set forth by the organization. Motivation on the part of these managers is thought to be critical if increases in employee performance and productivity are to result. (Maynard, 1996)

5 Key Steps for Connecting Communication and Motivation

1. Be open with communication. You can never give people too much information. People want to be informed and involved. The more open you are with information to teammates, the more open they will be with you. Everyone on the team needs to know the vision of the organization. How can people work toward the vision of your ideal organization if they do not know what this looks like? The more clearly you define the vision, the more directed people’s performance can be. Define where you are, where you want to go, and how you want to get there. Include the team in as much of the planning as possible. The more engaged the team members, the more engaged your clients will be. Engaged team members create and retain engaged clients.
2. Team members who perceive their managers to be more open indicate a greater degree of motivation to solve their interpersonal conflicts with other team members. This is good news for managers and owners. Teach constructive communication skills to your team members and apply open communication in your relationships with them. They will both learn and model (see my last blog) these good communication skills and will use them in their own relationships. This encourages independence rather than dependency.
3. In addition, managers gain more favorable outcomes and productive results when they practice open, constructive communication.
   The bottom line to success is your ability to communicate. Good communication translates to healthy relationships with team mates, as well as with clients.
4. Each one of the systems of your organization needs to be set up carefully, administered excellently, and monitored to make sure pre-determined results are being accomplished. The success of your business will be in direct proportion to the success of your systems. This includes how well your team members communicate about these systems to each other and to clients.
5. Positively reinforcing people for taking steps forward on their path to change has been proven time and time again to be a strong and empowering motivator. Recognizing work well done and acknowledging that to the individual and to the members of the group has a profound and long lasting impact on continuous improvement. A leader can be a source of positive reinforcement and can also be a role model of positive reinforcement so that members of the team can support each other. Positive reinforcement has been and remains a strong encourager of change and of improved performance.