Yesterday’s Oldie was a reminder that there are very view motivators that can beat VSI (vested self-interest) when it comes to engaging your team.

Some people respond to money, but many more respond to intangible rewards.

How do you know what works?

How can you tailor motivators individually for each person?

I’ve heard from bosses at every level that they’re already stretched, they need to focus on the deliverables and their team and just don’t have the time to deal with individuals.

Which is laughable, since the team is comprised of individuals and the bosses job is to engage and motivate them, so the deliverables are delivered on time.

Great managers have no fear of using one of the most efficient approaches, i.e., ask your current team and each new hire.

Don’t suggest or use multiple choice, just ask.

• What makes you eager to come to work?
• If you could choose just one thing, other than compensation, that would light your work fire what would if be?

Don’t ask in a group situation if you want real answers, honest answers.

In fact, don’t ask in person, since you may not be able to control your initial reaction. If that happens it will break trust with that person and it is unlikely to be rebuilt any time soon.

Remember, this isn’t about what motivates you, nor is it any business of yours to judge what motivates someone else.

Hand the questions out in hard copy with each person’s name already on it.

Tell them you are using hardcopy to avoid the chance of accidental leaks and promise their responses won’t be shared with anybody.

It is extremely important that you don’t share them, even anonymously, with anyone, especially inside the company. Doing so for any reason, with anyone is betrayal, pure and simple.

Explain that because all humans are different you want to understand what really matters to each of them and that once you do you’ll do your best to provide it.

Finally, don’t kid yourself, if you don’t honor your promise it is betrayal, the equivalent to sleeping around when in a committed relationship.

If you don’t know how to be faithful, you’re better off just forgetting about this post.

Image credit: Auckland Photo News

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Engagement is way down, jobs are plentiful, turnover is way up, and managers aren’t just searching for solutions.

No, what they really want to find is a silver bullet; a Harry Potter magic wand they can wave to promote engagement, hike productivity, juice creativity and sustain the whole thing.

But as we all know, silver bullets and magic wands are in extremely short supply.

That said, VSI, as explained below, comes pretty close.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

How do you lead/influence/motivate/get/force others to move in the direction you choose or achieve a goal, large or small, that you set? That question is the basis for yards of books and megabytes of content, but in spite of all that’s already been written I thought I’d add my bit to the total.

After all, responding to this question is almost a right of passage in the land of leadership and motivation.

So here’s my two-word answer: vested self-interest (VSI).

Over the years, I’ve found vested self-interest to be not only the most powerful people motivator around, but also one of the least expensive, since the cost is mainly from the effort to learn what it is for each person.

And the idea must have merit when you consider that a Sudanese cell phone billionaire is using it to incentivize African heads of state to act responsibly.

In that case, the incentive was money, but that’s not always the case. If it were, then companies wouldn’t lose talent to other companies offering the same or even lower pay.

It’s an error to always assume that dollars will do it, or that what turns on one, turns on all. Hot buttons are as individual as your people are and don’t always involve tangibles.

As a manager, it’s up to you to discover each of your people’s hot buttons, i.e., what really turns them on, and then find a way to satisfy it in return for what you want in performance, innovation, etc.

Taking the time to learn what the buttons are allows you to power your team as never before, which, in turn, should give you the ability to satisfy your own VSI.

Remembering that generalities are always dangerous, here are some of the most common hot buttons

• • public recognition – not just for big things, but for the small, everyday wins that fill most people’s working lives;
  • strokes – a few words here, a compliment there, doesn’t take much time, but be warned, people aren’t stupid, if your comments are lip-service only they will know and respond accordingly;
  • giving back – supported or encouraged volunteer programs, leave day banks, etc.;
  • making a difference – internally and/or externally; and
  • growing/stretching – the opportunity to do something new, learn new skills, etc.

Obviously, money is still a motivator, but it’s not always big bucks, it’s more that the amount is relevant to the accomplishment and logical relative to the company’s circumstances.

And it doesn’t need to be “new” money, it can be a different way to cut a current pie. For example, I get many queries from senior execs asking for exotic approaches and detailed how-to’s for implementing cultural and other intangible changes that often require encouraging (and at times, coercing) their managerial staff into actually doing them.

The most successful method I’ve found is as simple as one, two, three.

1. 1. Carefully define, in a quantifiable manner, what you want done (not “increase retention,” but “reduce turnover X% by [date]”).
   2. Include these well-quantified goals in the managers’ annual objectives. (This is not a variation of MBO.)
   3. Make it clear to your managers that they will be evaluated on these goals and that the evaluation will impact their annual reviews and compensation.

Vested self-interest should do the rest

And as any parent can tell you, VSI works great on kids, too — or anyone, for that matter.

Image credit: Quotes Everlasting

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

A couple of years ago Dick Costolo explained why startups needed to hire “brilliant jerks” in order to succeed.

It’s stuff like that, especially from people like Costolo, that gives people permission to act like jerks.

Why?

Because people who tend to be jerks are usually delusional enough to believe that they’re brilliant.

But what about those who are brilliant (or what passes as such these days) and act like jerks?

Well, why not?

All they are doing is living up to expectations and, like Pavlov’s dog, the more free passes they get the more they will believe their actions/attitudes are OK.

In my life I’ve been around a lot of real brilliance and they had certain traits in common.

Without exception, they loved sharing their knowledge, building up those around them and helping them grow — no matter who.

That’s what truly brilliant people do; that’s why they are remembered.

The same goes for everyone who does the same.

Whereas the jerks are ephemeral and soon forgotten.

If they are remembered, it’s for what they did, as opposed to how they acted.

Steve Jobs is a good example, as is Jeff Bezos.

Think about it; what’s the likelihood that the brilliant jerks in your world are in the same league?

Image credit: HikingArtist

There’s enough career and how-to-be-successful advice to fill a stadium. It goes back decades; some is out of date in a digital world, but the best stuff isn’t.

• The lesson: Go in with big eyes, big ears, and most importantly don’t be a jerk.
• You can be the most talented and skilled at your job, but if people don’t like you, your success will be limited.

Such was the advice that was given to Corey Burns 12 years ago by a mentor.

He recently gave it to a colleague and it’s just as relevant now as it was then.

It’s also one of the true pearls of wisdom that, if we are paying attention, we each collect in the course of our lives.

The best advice, such as this, is so simple it can be offered in less than two minutes and understood almost instantly. (Click the link for a detailed explanation.)

But practicing it seems to be the biggest obstacle for a lot of people.

Watch, listen, don’t be a jerk.

• Make it your mantra; the thought that guides your words and actions;
• surround yourself with like-minded people; and
• avoid those who scoff and do the opposite, especially in the workplace.

Simple.

So, as Nike would say, just do it.

Image credit: Aaron Gustafson

(‘Jerk’ is used here as an umbrella term for bullies, manipulators, bigots, rotten attitudes, rudeness, cruelty, etc.)

Jerks have been around since the dawn of man.

In today’s workplace you can find jerks at any level of an organization.

It’s always been difficult to call out the jerks, because they are usually bullies and good at intimidation.

The rise of individual jerks, some of them extremely powerful, has fostered the rise of institutional jerks, also very powerful.

Some are in tech and run for companies that are household names — Facebook, Google, Amazon — others aren’t as well-known, such as Palantir.

However, you can find them everywhere, in politics — national, regional and local. In religion — any of them. And any other arena you want to focus on.

Their power is more far-reaching and they believe they are untouchable.

Sadly, they often are.

But how much worse is it when the institution itself is the jerk?

Talk about untouchable.

WeWork is on a role to lead the newest crop of institutional jerks.

The company acquired and plans to monetize software that tracks employees throughout a company.

Euclid’s website says the company is “focused on redefining the workplace experience of the future.” Translation: optimizing every aspect of the physical workplace so workers are their most productive.

Euclid does this by tracking how people move around physical spaces. Its technology can track how many people showed up to a meeting or to that after-work happy hour. The company can see where employees tend to congregate and for how long. It’s all done over Wi-Fi.

Sound creepy?

It is.

Governments are getting into the act, too.

While the legislation varies slightly from state to state, it generally requires contractors to install software that allows “automatic verification” of their hours billed. Some bills, such as those being considered in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, are as exact as requiring a software solution that takes screenshots of “state-funded activity at least once every three (3) minutes” and store that data for seven years. The New Jersey and Pennsylvania proposals also require logging “keystroke and mouse event frequency.”

Now comes the question that the jerks never seem to think about.

How do you recruit talent, let alone top talent, into an environment that says up front, “we don’t trust you”?

As for the private sector, there is no way that any kind of monitoring or surveillance will remain secret — any more than salaries did.

Companies that choose not to go down that road will enjoy a more productive, creative and loyal workforce, not to mention one heck of a recruiting edge.

Image credit: Steve Baker

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Jerks, by whatever name, have been on the rise for awhile, but that seems to have escalated in the last couple of years, especially in the workplace. Not that jerk bosses are anything new, but they are getting more blatant.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Although both articles I refer to are aimed at startup founders, I believe they are applicable to bosses at any level and in any company.

First, no boss ever accomplished their goals by being a jerk.

As Bob Sutton explains in The Asshole Survival Guide, treating people like dirt hurts their focus and saps their motivation. (…)

In the podcast, Reid [Hoffman] describes his test of a great culture: Does every employee feel that they personally own the culture?

Most jerks, no matter how unlikely that the comparison is valid, point to Steve Jobs to justify their actions, but consider how much more he could have done if he had been a better leader/manager..

It’s hard to find any boss who doesn’t recognize that culture is the most critical element in a company’s success.

However, what “culture” is has been twisted and warped out of all recognition.

These days “cultural fit” is the excuse of choice to indulge whatever biases, prejudices, and bigotry moves the hiring boss.

So, what does cultural fit really mean?

To answer that you have to understand what culture really is.

Culture is a reflection of the values of the boss.

Values have nothing to do with perks, food, or office buildings and everything to do with attitudes such as fairness, merit, transparency, trust, etc.

The point of cultural fit is to hire people whose personal values are, at the least, synergistic with the cultural values of the company.

Period.

That means that if the boss is biased, bigoted or a jerk, they will hire people who have similar values.

Image credit: Matthias Forster

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

It doesn’t matter which side you were on regarding the recent shutdown, because you were probably effected.

Maybe it was you, a relative or friend. Or maybe a friend or relative of a friend who couldn’t feed their kids or pay their mortgage/rent.

People were angry; some wrote letters, most unloaded online.

The more entrepreneurial (opportunistic) converge on Café Press.

But one entrepreneur went much further.

Greg Miller, founder of Neuticles, a company that sells testicular implants for neutered dogs so they appear unneutered, used his own product to make a statement.

As the shutdown has dragged on – it entered its 34th day Thursday – he is preparing to send his product to all 53 Senate Republicans, plus Vice President Mike Pence, with the message: ‘We are demanding that you gain testicular fortitude and have enclosed a pair of Neuticles to help achieve the necessity to stand up against the sole interests of this rogue president.”

Miller’s company, based in Oak Grove, Missouri, will spend around $13,000 on mailing plus the cost of the product.

He knows that sales are likely to take a hit from his actions, so why do it?

“I just want them to get some damn balls and think of America, not their political party.”

Male or female, entrepreneurs are known for being tough, in other words for having cojones, i.e., balls.

Greg Miller certainly does — in more ways than one.

Image credit: HikingArtist