Money, Money
Money is a unique element
that brings its own set of characteristics of motivation. I remember when my
girls were little we would use money as a vice to ensure above standard grades they were rewarded with an allowance. I remember telling them school was your job. I did not tell them it was their responsibility to want to have good grades. With four girls we learned that this was not a good approach as the focus was money, not personal improvement. We had to modify this to only getting a monetary allowance if you had all As, verses an amount allotted for a A or B. The only good rule we had is if you had one C there was no money earned at all. In the end the message was the wrong valuable approach.
My reflection blog is to
reflect on the video by Andy Mulholland’s as he discusses how money is a
motivator, but not one of the three real motivators of why we work, which is to
“expand skills sets, to be recognized and to be valued”. Mulholland also identifies that throwing money
at an unhappy person will not solve problems. As I write this blog I found
myself just focusing on the three motivators he mentioned and self evaluating
my past positions at various company wondering did I have such a versatile
resume of job experiences because I was unhappy. My last 20 years of just job
titles makes me wonder why the sudden changes. I can assure you early in my career it was about the money as I had a family to raise.
Expanding skill sets
Expanding sill sets to me
is about being challenged intellectually. Being a natural overachiever, I have
found myself being bored in my job within the first 3-6 months on the job. Sometimes
I think that is a good thing as my brain and needs are being full filled very
quickly. The negative of this type of behavior is that my leaders have a hard
time keeping me challenged. This is one of the many reasons I went back to
college as it keeps my need to continuous learn fulfilled. To expand on
fulfillment of challenge, I continuously help others in my role on other programs
within the company. The challenge has changed from internal learning of the
skill, to teaching other the art of the skill.
However, even this can get boring after awhile.
I am a firm believer that
expanding skill sets lies within the individuals and leaders. Individuals have
to take ownership in knowing what they want out of their job and career. It’s
very easy to redirect the lack of skills training on a leader, but that leader
may not know all your capabilities. Leaders should meet with their employees
often do understand your needs, and vice versa. Key effort is continuous
communication.
A caveat to training is
going to be the right level of training and return on that investment, with
limited budgets. Example is we don’t want to bring in training that is not
relevant to the type of work that is being done. I would next expect my group
to take Microsoft Access training, when we never use the software. My managers
have asked me to prepare a 1 hour training session every working Friday on
Microsoft Excel for teaching just our group. I think this a value added
approach to improving skill sets due to it can be tailored to the needs of the
group.
Being Recognized
Being
recognized is probably my favorite motivator, but I enjoyed it when I was
younger and less as much as a leader. I know this is an odd statement and one
would ask who doesn’t like being recognized? I feel recognition is over done at
times to the point peers can get jealous of your continued success. Again an
odd comment, but I will give you a personal example. Being that overachiever
who needs to constant learn new things, develop new metrics that leave people
at awe positively, creates this barrier of jealously with other co-workers. Its
nice when your leadership points it out, but you can feel the aroma from some
that makes you feel awkward, because here you go again someone is gloating on
your great invention. I was told once that jealously is a form of flattery, but
it really isn’t . For me personally, I am confident enough on my talent that I
really do not need to personally be recognized in front of my peers.
To change focus
on recognition, I have taken the approach to recognize those who I work with to
rid the aroma of jealousy. I am a very outspoken person who enjoys recognizing
talent that is not mine, and I think it is very important to ensure others
received credit when it is due to them. In the leadership association we
provide recognition form completion of training events, or when an award is
given for Member of the Month (MoM). This year I have changed the rules on how
recognition is done. Instead of sending completions the employee, we send to
their manager. We intentionally attend staff meetings to present the MoM awards
in person. Leaders need to know what their employees are doing. Feedback from
leaders is very good, they appreciate the opportunity to see this.
I think as you
mature in your career, the level of recognition requirement is different. It is
very important when you first enter the workforce as it builds confidence and
adds assurance within oneself. I think too much of it can decrease its value. I
don’t think companies do a good job at recognizing teams verses the individual.
Being Valued
Being values is the most critical factor, according to Mulholland and I agree. If I was not considered a “valued” employee
that would be clearly the vision that I am expendable or not needed. Being
valued is the reason I get up every morning to go to work as there are people
that depend on me. I think being valued reflects on a person’s ability to
perform in the work place. In the textbook material it talks about how ones
ability is assessed when a person receives their job, but it needs to be
continuously “reassessed” and managers
need to be able to “identify when there is a deterioration in ones ability”. To
do this there are five tools managers can do to help with bad performance,
which has the potential ability to increase performance and enhance employee
value. Those key factors are “resupply, retrain, refit, reassign, release”
(p328). (
In my company
we meet monthly in small groups using the five key factors by implementing the
Culture of Accountability focus. There has been a 2-year effort in ridding the
“blaming” of bad performance and re-focus on employees being accountable, not
leadership. When you change the culture, it changes how the game is played. We
come up with out own team corrective actions, even if that is retraining or
re-aligning skill sets to tasks. One major effort last year was every employee
had to learn a new skill that was not their own. For example, I was tagged with
a finance person to learn their tools and processes. Being a scheduler, this
was fun and made me appreciate the value of that person’s skills. We continue
to this, but now we are implementing leadership skills by allowing people to
lead meetings, and everyone provides constructive feedback. These sessions are
talking real business, providing training, and fixing issues on the spot. I
think is providing an excellent opportunity to ensure everyone is valued on the
team. The factor we do not try to do, release. The focus is to never rid
employee of training and refocus on enhancing their value. In my 12 years at
Lockheed, I have never seen anyone fired due to a non-performance, but a zero
tolerance behavior violation. Our culture is not designed that way, but
re-assign is more what they do to keep talent. Just cause a particular talent
is no longer need in one workgroup, doesn’t meet it is not valued in another.
The company has set up high –level coalitions on programs to identify areas of
reduction, and try to reassign within the same program, if possible.
According to the video companies should do job satisfaction surveys. Our
company does this annually, and then they slice and dice the results to find
opportunities to improve. There are many improvement coalitions across the
industry, and break down into various smaller teams to find root cause and
corrective action. Interesting work is variable as our work is very technical
requiring many routine metrics. Some may not find my job interesting, but it is
always a challenge, which is what I like.
Conclusion:
As an employee
I have a very diverse skill set that I have acquired over the years, which I
find keeps my universally able to meet needs of many types of organizational
needs. I enjoyed being recognized, but my need is becoming less and less as I
move up the corporate ladder. I
greatly agree that I still struggle with the need to be valued as an employee
and leader. Money is a motivator to me, but I was offered a job recently that
would double my salary and move to Arizona. Although this is a great nugget to
review, I am very loyal to the company that has challenged me and providing
that formal education, therefore it was a quick rejection. I have
also seen the sense of loyalty decrease due to the new generation changes jobs
very quickly when they are not satisfied, especially when they think they can
make more money with other companies. Within a year we see them groveling to get
back with Lockheed as the grass was not greener on the other side.
Work Cited:
Whetton, D. &. (2011). Developing Management Skills (8th Ed). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Mulholland, A (2011). The three Things We Work for (Money Isn't One of them. video retrieved from http://library.books24x7.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/welcome.asp
