Hi Carol–you are so right that motivation is often misinterpreted and mismanaged–and assuming that followers will be motivated by the same things as leaders is one of the issues that trips leaders up. One of the keys to good leadership is for managers to take the time to talk to their people, learn a little bit more to find out what engages each of them individually, and then act on that information. Thanks for joining in the conversation!

This is a terrific statement. It is important to reflect on your goals, take action, and reflect on your actions. This statement speaks about legacy to me. Life is short so you should lead today because you never know what tomorrow brings.

Hi Scott–thank you for your passionate and thoughtful response. All I can say is yes, yes, yes, and yes! I can tell that you have been in this situation and understand all of the nuances involved in helping someone else succeed at work. I appreciate your advice for leaders to ask questions, keep an open mind and an open-heart–and to be ready to accept your own possible responsibility as a leader for the situation. I think that attitude gets at the core of what Susan Fowler is proposing when it comes to individual motivation at work. Leaders will be more successful if they ask questions to better understand an employee’s motivation than they will be if they apply blanket strategies such as incentives and sanctions–and then follow-up by holding people accountable (which seems to be the goal of most performance reviews.) As you stated, in most cases, this approach causes more harm than good the way it is currently applied. Thanks for adding to this conversation!

First, if we are waiting for formal performance reviews to address motivations, we are missing other intervention, supervision, and leadership opportunities along the way. No matter what flavor-of-the-month version is being used for the reviews, all formal reviews invariably succeed at six things: (a) Demotivation [“You’re doing great, BUT …”]; (b) Discipline [If it feels like a slap in the face, it is a slap in the face]; (c) Documentation [Great. How will I ever put this behind me?]; (d) Defensiveness [“You really don’t have a clue what I do.”; (e) Disingenuous Behavior (Candor dies a thousand deaths, the messenger is always shot, and trust is quickly thrown under the bus]; and, (f) Delayed Feedback [“Really? You couldn’t have asked me about this six months ago?”].

Second, if the focus of this article are changes in the behavior of normally well-performing employees, the focus needs to be on performance, not motivation. Motivation is interesting, but it seldom matters. On the other hand, performance always matters.

ASK THEM why their performance has changed for the worse. We work with people. People will always be imperfect, people will always have issues, people will always have problems, trials, and tribulations. That applies both to them and to ourselves. Find out from them what the reason(s) is/are for the downturn in performance.

If they trust you, they will tell you and you can try to help them. Keep an open mind and an open heart. Be ready to accept your own responsibility and accountability.

If they don’t trust you, the only tool left is the formal performance evaluation and formal due process. If they don’t trust you, you have serious organizational behavioral problems that performance evaluation processes alone will not cure.