How to Motivate Employees
Have you had a day when you knew it was going to be the best ever? Only to have the kids run late getting to school. The traffic was bad on the way to the office. You show up to work and your team informs you that they are not going to meet your deadline. All before you had your first cup of coffee. You ask yourself what is wrong with this picture. Why can't my team be more motivated?
Yet you're probably motivating your team with old worn out techniques that usually create a temporary increase in performance.
Even better is finding yourself as a manager always having to push them and as long as you're pushing they keep the performance up.
What is missing?
The great motivators of sales forces and teams know what drives each individual of the team. Breaking news..... People do not work for you so you can meet your goals they work for you to meet their own goals and dreams. The best managers know what their people's goals are and the reasons why they come to work. For some it will be to provide for their family. Some it is to give their children education and a better chance in life. Others it is for the toys that money will buy. There are many different reasons as to the personal benefit for working for you. You need to know why people work for you.
Go find out! Ask why do you work here? What motivates you to do what you do each day? What is your life dream? When you know these answers you have the insight to become a great motivator. Then start asking the question; is your performance moving you closer to your goals or away. What do you need to do differently to achieve your objectives? What support can I provide to assist you?
A friend of mine who was a very successful high school football 
coach said I know what you mean. As soon as I found Johnny wanted to go to college I asked him if he thought the recruiters would look closely at him if his passing statistics were higher. Another player wanted to be popular with the girls. I asked him do you think the girls would want to meet you if you scored more touchdowns. All of a sudden I became a great motivating coach because I knew what drove each player.
Managers when your people seem to lack motivation go back to the basics and find out what drives them. You then reinforce their belief systems by telling them how well they are doing and this builds a strong self-image. You practice each day the habit of positive reinforcement. Your expectation is that they are the best at whatever they do. In fact when they don't measure up to your expectation you say to them, "your performance doesn't match my world class image of you and your performance is usually better" and say you're better than that now go be the best and excel. I always ask managers what they say to the top performers on their team and usually they say nothing or celebrate their high performance at the employee of the month meeting. Why? They know they are the best and so does the rest of the workforce. Than start treating everyone as if they are the best.
The best athletic teams of the world are always trimming the poor performers and looking to bring better talent to the team as a result the better teams keep getting better. How is your team?
Need help motivating your team? Learn about Jim Jackson's Team Building workshops!
Learn more about employee motivation here.
Building self confidence
As I watch American Idol there seems to be a common theme from the judges. They coach the participants by telling them they need to have more self-confidence.
I can only imagine what the contestants are thinking. It may sound something like this, I am not projecting self-confidence and I am on national TV. Are they kidding me? I will just run down to the drug store and buy a bottle of self-confidence. Yea right so they try to fake it until they make it and give the judges a little attitude to demonstrate confidence.
I have been there myself until I learned what I am going to teach you. Just so you know I had 37 different jobs by the time I was 27 years old. I can remember people telling me just have more self-confidence. My self-doubt would go into overdrive trying to learn how to have self-confidence right now and why did I not have it whatever it was. I was coaching myself backwards by asking myself what is wrong with me.
The Power of Suggestion
Why is coaching yourself so important? Because we, as human beings, move towards what we think about. Whatever we're thinking about, we move toward-whether it's what we want or what we don't want.
It's like driving down the road. Have you ever tried to cross the white line and not hit those little bumps?
What do you focus on? You focus on the bumps. It's almost impossible to go between the bumps until you learn the art of looking for the spaces while you're driving down the road.
We move toward what we think about. Say you're on your bicycle, riding down the road. You see the rock in the road up ahead. You don't want to hit the rock, but if you see it and keep focusing on it, what will you hit?
In our minds, the power of suggestion is absolutely powerful. You use it all day long, whether you know it or not. Either you're coaching yourself or someone else is coaching you by telling you how you are.
And it's working. Your life is turning out exactly like the coaching you're receiving all day long. It's very powerful stuff.
Coaching is so powerful that I'm going to tell you to do something that's very important. I can't emphasize it enough. Listen very carefully: Stop the negative coaching!
Do this for the next couple of days. Only say positive upbeat things to yourself about yourself and others. Your days will seem much brighter. Do this one positive coaching exercise for yourself. Focus on what you want!
You can go to my website http://jimjacksonlive.com and download the chapter on coaching from my book Power to Change free.
Back to the American Idol, self-confidence starts before you ever walk on stage or in the door at work. You coach yourself forward by saying this statement as if it has already happened. I am confident in who I am and I know I am very good at what I do, I need only my opinion to be happy and successful. The key is to visualize this in your mind walking in and performing at the highest level. I do this each time I go on stage to deliver a keynote in front of 1,000's seeing success before it ever happens and when it does in real life that is called self-confidence.
Discover the secrets to building your self confidence and more with Jim's inspirational BREATHE program!