I often hear managers asking how they can best motivate their employees to do better work, be more productive or have better attitudes. What most managers (and maybe people in general) don’t understand is that they are asking the wrong questions.
Employee engagement is not about motivation. Employee engagement is about TRANSFORMATION.
What’s the difference you ask? Motivation is a short term solution. Motivation yields you greater productivity (towards whatever your goals are) for a limited space and time. To truly realize a permanent shift in how your employees act, think, do, and desire, you must transform them.
Think about change management and who this applies to your employees. I’ve often talked about change management and how most people focus on all the wrong things. Most people think change is about training people and sending a few communications out to tell them what’s going on. As I’ve said before, change management is about fundamental behavioral change. Without it, all changes are fleeting.
There is a place for motivation. We generally see it in sales goals and other types of activities where are truly short term goal and short term actions are needed. But for those of you looking for real changes in your employee base, look towards transformation.
7 responses to “Motivation versus Transformation”
Motivation versus Transformation
I agree wholeheartedly. This can be said for just about anything one does in life, work, love, marriage, etc.
A total transformation is required. I had a conversation yesterday that reiterates this perfectly. It had to do with General Motors vs Toyota. An insurance person told me he sat in on a meeting at a Toyota plant and the building was spotless, the meeting had an agenda that was followed to the exact time, etc.
Yet when sitting in at a General Motors meeting, the building wasn’t very clean, there were many department heads at this meeting and they argued throughout – concerned about what was “best” for their department only and not the company as a whole.
I relay this story because I feel it applies to the topic at hand, motivation vs. transformation. In America we truly are fighting an egocentric mentality of what’s best for me society. If we could only look at the whole picture and transform our thoughts and actions, what a wonderful place this could be.
[…] Friday, January 19, 2007 […]
Thanks David:
As I may have mentioned recently, I’ve been reading “The Toyota Way” which has some interesting comparisons between Toyota and other American car companies. There are very specific stories where Toyota employees not only do what’s best for the company, but often Toyota will do what they feel is best for the environment or society as a whole, often with disregard for profits. An example of this is when they believe their production method is so much better that they are willing to partner with a GM to teach them the system and process. (GM never really got it though).
Another example about motivation and transformation is with GM or Ford managers who would get a job in a Toyota plant. The initial approach to their jobs were very production oriented, and Toyota needed to transform their entire belief system to forget about volume and focus on quality.
Great stories and great comparison. Thanks David.
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