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We talk a lot about motivation in the world of sales, so much so that a multi-million-pound industry has grown up around the concept of keeping employees – and especially sales staff – motivated. But what about the opposite – demotivation?
What demotivates?
Systems, organisational policies and management actions can all actively contribute towards a demotivated workforce.
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| Demotivation: unachievable targets. | Of the three, it’s probably the individual manager’s actions and behaviour that has the greatest immediate effect on staff motivation… or lack of it.
Here are seven ways you can guarantee to demotivate staff…
1: Annual reviews
Annual reviews are a vital part of corporate life but they can be extremely demotivating if handled badly. Performance evaluation is a constant process. People need to know where they stand and what they can do to improve all year, not just at review time. Managers who wait until the formal review to communicate the need to improve, are setting up employees for a fall. They claim they want staff to succeed, but employees wonder if managers really mean it.
2: Micro-management
That said, constant criticism isn’t going to work either. Most people need some measure of autonomy at work. Micro-management – dictating every detail of how a task should be carried out – deprives people of that autonomy. It communicates that the manager believes staff are incompetent and incapable of making their own judgments. The worst form of micro-management is telling people how to do a task without telling them why it matters.
3: Public criticism
For sure, you will need to criticise occasionally. But, when you do have to criticise, make certain it’s in private. And that doesn’t mean shouting so loudly that all your colleagues can hear even when the office door is closed. A public dressing-down is humiliating and a sure-fire demotivator. What’s more, it doesn’t just affect the target; it demotivates everyone who witnesses the event.
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| Public dressing downs are demotivating. |
4: Do as I say not as I do
When you ask staff to do something, you have to be able to convince them that you’d be prepared to undertake the task yourself – or are capable of doing so – even though you are delegating it. Lead by example in terms of the way you approach the job, although your role is different: it’s to manage.
5: Calling for one type of behaviour but rewarding another
Make sure that, when you ask people to carry out their roles in a certain way, that’s what you actually reward. It’s extremely demotivating for staff to feel they are on target, performing and carrying out their work diligently, only for them to find out at the end of the day, the system rewards other people for behaving differently. Of course, there’s always room for creativity but that should be explained as well.
6: Unachievable deadlines…
Some people thrive on tough deadlines (journalists apparently – Ed!) and sometimes they are essential when it comes to putting a particularly vital bid together. Most people will bust their butts to meet a challenging deadline so long as they believe there’s a fighting chance of making it. But give them a deadline they believe is impossible or, worse unnecessary, and motivation drains away.
7: …and targets
There’s nothing worse than a target that’s perceived as being unachievable. It’s seen as pointless and a dead weight that hangs over everybody. It’s intensely demotivating.
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