Motivation & Inspiration
Motivation
Motivation is the inner force that drive us to act on things.
Motivation is not something you can give to anyone. You can't teach it. You can't generate it. You have it, or you don't.
What you can do is protect it and eventually regenerate it back to its original level.
Most people are motivated by default. Driven to explore, driven to experience, driven by curiosity. There are obviously different levels, but generally, everyone is motivated by the pursuit of some kind of satisfaction.
As a mental exercise, I keep in mind this "scale" to place one's motivation level, and I think you should recheck yourself on a regular basis to see where you are on it in your current circumstances.
Motivation is getting challenged throughout your life - personal and professional - by all sorts of events, and ultimately to the point of complete suffocation. That's what burn out will do to you.
As a team leader/manager, you have to pay attention to the things you may say or do that will demotivate your people such as:
- Exhibiting a "Do what I say, not what I do" attitude - It's the diametrical opposite of leading by example and is a nuclear bomb on motivation.
- Unfair treatment of employees - This can be more tricky as expectations and entitlement can create the sense of unfairness; You'd still need to address it by explaining your decision process and over-communicate expectations and due process.
- Credit misappropriation - no credit, shifting credit, stealing credit, letting credit being stolen by a third party or anything that will remove the deserved recognition and rewards one deserves for their work.
- Impossible satisfaction metrics - If you create an impossible situation; and this can be out of a large leap in scope - yet realistic.
- Little to no leadership with little to no inspiration - Extends the point before - which covered more the ante-situation - on the post-situation. Basically, if you don't provide guidance/inspiration on a seemingly impossible situation, you incentivize the "what's the point" feeling.
- Mass layoff and other drastic ridiculous decisions - For instance, stock buy backs at the same time of raises freeze under pretext of financial difficulties.
These may come from above you and around you as well. You have to do whatever you can to protect your team. This can mean creating a sub-culture where your team feel disconnected enough from the demotivation source. It's tricky to handle correctly as you walk the fine line between this healthy separation and going against the rest of the company - which you never want to do.
Beyond these defensive moves, what you can do is hire better.
Approach your recruitment from a profiling perspective first, skills second. Make sure your interview steps cover motivations. Make sure your final decision process has a higher emphasis on the motivation rather than skills.
On the regeneration side - which is about bringing a previously motivated employee to their former level - you're looking at a typical inspiration moment. Demotivation is often tied to a sense of impossibility to overcome the demotivation factors. Inspiration can wipe this out.
Inspiration
Inspiration is the feeling you have when a previous notion of impossibility is successfully challenged, usually by either someone doing something or saying something.
Inspiring is a core leadership skill. You have to be able to convey the feeling that impossibilities are just another day in the park for you. Anyone can be inspirational and should try to be at any moment.
You can be inspirational through sheer demonstration of skills. This is actually a common case with very experienced engineers who tend to be put on a pedestal by the rest of the team because of their ability to just close problems. By their side, more junior engineers are inspired by their ability to just get things accomplished even if they don't fully understand why or how.
Another way is through attitude using positivity, wisdom, confidence and experience. Demonstrating these, is often an exercise of accurately assessing situations, handling them on the wire and landing on predicted results. All of it with a confidence level known only to the "cool guys" who "don't look at explosions".
Regardless, inspiration is an essential element in a healthy team dynamic. Companies that are continuously inspirational (understand a constant cycle of inspirational leaders conveying it correctly) find themselves closer to the tip of the spear of what's possible. This in returns helps them become unchallenged market leaders.
Inspiration is no silver bullet though. Inspiration without action is entertainment and motivation is the force of action. All the inspiration of the world won't get a demotivated team to go anywhere, and you may run out of steam with a motivated team that isn't inspired ever.
The first scenario may force you to hit the reset button with your team structure - which is on the top of the worst things that could happen to your teams - but unfortunately, quite common