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I’ve always had a unique perspective on power, control and responsibility. It’s always frustrated me when leaders think they have ultimate control over the people they lead. People seem to often misunderstand that getting someone to do something almost always requires them actually wanting them to do that thing. When a leader forces you to do something simply because they are your boss, they are missing out on all of the constructive methods. It’s a lot easier to get somewhere when everyone on the team wants to be rowing there. Have I done enough to convince you that you should not be leading by fear, if not close this webpage and leave me alone.
So why else would someone follow you? Generally a good place to start is by figuring out a way to create some common ground. At a company usually the common ground is wanting to be involved in successful projects. Even the most simplistic, territorial, short minded people (like some managers I have worked with, more on that later) are generally trying to be out for themselves. The common ground you can find with those people is A. you want to get promoted, B. getting promoted means working on projects that succeed, therefore A+B means that you should do everything you can to make our joint project successful. Although it doesn’t always work. Sometimes they get lost along the way, sometimes your teammates make mistakes and it’s important to cover for those things too.
Another popular common ground is “you will learn something you need” from this project. A smarter player places a lot of value on their personal slope (see “y = mx + b” from draft 1). These kinds of players are motivated only if you can find a way for them to improve themselves using the project. While this can be extremely helpful as an alternative motivation source, it certainly has drawbacks if it is used exclusively as a motivation source. The primary drawback is that most jobs have at least some amount of busy work. Even a perfectly lazy engineer has to do some shitty manual labor from time to time. If you are only motivated by what you can learn, you won’t have the energy to take on work that is too easy to do.
The last common ground I’ll mention for now is the financial one, or more specifically the promise of future freedom. This one took me the longest to understand (as someone primarily motivated by learning). People generally value their own freedom. There is a lot of life outside of your job, and these projects. Living a life where I can afford to do whatever I want in my spare time might be extremely important to me. A good manager knows how to understand their team’s desire for freedom, and give them the space to live their life. This can look like anything from letting them be in charge of what they work on next, to pretending not to notice when they take fridays off to go skiing.
Generally motivating a team has a lot to do with understanding the individual motivation of your team members, and creating an environment for them where they feel the most energized to do the work you desperately need them to do. It’s not easy to do. But when done right I think attention to these details is part of what makes a team work well.
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