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Warning

There are few words of warning offered by the author, i.e. this method requires the use of empathy and it takes time and effort.    You also don't know what you are getting until you have successfully unwrapped a person and you may not be able to transform every unmotivated employee.    The final outcome may disappoint you but at least you and your problem staff will know either that an avenue for improvement has opened up or agree to disagree.    After all it was the managers' judgment that certain employees worth the effort of being motivated.    Now let us look at some actions in greater details.

Step 1: Create a Rich Picture
The use of empathy is in fact putting yourself in other's shoes.    This important first step requires you the manager to ask few questions and collect information to answer them.   The questions are:

• What drives that person?
• What blocks those drives?
• What might happen if the impediments are removed?

Note also that these questions are asked within the context of these problems occurring and you the manager play a key role in most cases.    The article has suggested many ways of collecting information informally and this must be done careful as the manager may be the main cause of the employee's lack of motivation.     You may have to use a proxy in such as case.

A New Approach

The new way is to turn it around, from subject to object and from boss to subordinate.    The problem of motivating problem staff must be looked at from a complete new perspective.   The manager needs to look at the employee (who labeled "problem employee") with the word "problem" removed from his forehead and as a real person to be understood.    This approach is based on 3 principles (or assumptions).

1.    Everyone has motivational energy – this principle or assumption appears fundamental.    That is to say that the employee can be motivated in the first place but his/her drive and commitment was not displayed at work.

2.    The motivational energy is blocked in the workplace – This is a follow on from first principle above.    If the employee has motivational energy it was either not displayed at work or has been blocked in the workplace.    Impediments can be caused by stresses at home, relationship with spouse/partner or peers, or something that has accumulated incrementally over years, e.g. broken promises at work or being misunderstood/ignored by their bosses.

3.    Removing blockages require employee participation – this is easily understood.    Provided principles 1 and 2 above are true then the employee is the only person who knows exactly the way to have the blockages removed.    The author used judo to explain this, i.e. find the locus of energy and leverage it to achieve your goal.    As in judo, if you find the way you could use least effort to do the job.    Forcing your way as in the traditional approach will not work with problem employees.

How to Motivate Your Problem People

HBR 2002 - by Nigel Nicholson

The article starts off by mentioning a very valid fact about theory, i.e. motivation strategy works with only a fraction of employees and a smaller fraction of managers.    Interesting enough that the author used hero like Nelson Mandelas or Winston Churchills to illustrate that exhorting managers to become one of those will get you no where.     The author answered the question in the caption by saying that the question itself was wrongly asked.    The fact is that those so called problem people in an organization that is taking up disproportionate amount of manager's time can't be motivated.    ONLY the problem people THEMSELVES can.

The article used 2 examples to demonstrate typical cases of problem staff and how managers make common mistakes.   Most managers would believe that motivating problem people is like selling his own idea, value and perception.    It's like if I can see he/she should see it the same way and it's just a matter of talking to him/her again or let's find someone who can have friendly dialogue to do the talking for me.     According to the article this approach proved to be wrong and in most cases you'll only get "sure, boss" and the problem keeps repeating itself over time.    It is an impossible goal for the managers because changing people's character is impossible.    Change comes from within.

My experience

It is true that we all use our experience in our decision making.    In our business life things are happening so fast that the circumstances do not allow careful objective and scientific deliberation process to be carried out.     In many cases your success depends on how fast you could make up your mind, e.g. in closing a deal or submitting a proposal or tender.

For reasons just described it is only possible in the perfect world that one could "adjust" their decision making mechanism in their mind by following advices in this article.    Even if you can afford the time and have the discipline to follow the guidance you will be over taken by your competitors.

Some people are born leaders and they are normally smart decision makers.    In my experience the mind of these people operate like a computer and the more decisions they make the smarter they become.     The funniest thing is that the algorithm they used in computing a solution bases on very few principles.    These are normally very fundamental principles in life such as ethics, human value and interaction with personality.

In fact some of the techniques described in this article are not workable.    E.g. decisions for large corporation are not made by individuals but in group.    When you work with others you have to consider hidden agendas of others and very seldom you could analyze a situation with all facts laid out with honest contribution from everybody involved.     Furthermore if your organization does not have a culture to use analytical methods in decision making all these recommendations by the article are useless.    You still have to resort to your political skills trying to persuade people to decide smartly for the benefit of all.

After all it is the result that counts in most cases.    It would be naïve to assume that the boss will even know and appreciate your decision making process if the result does not turn out right.

TEST OF WORD FOR BLOGGER

This is a test of using Blogger for Word.

Does it show different fonts or formatting such as this and that?

I always have trouble with this when doing cut & paste:

• Bullet


• Numbering


• Three


• Two


• One


• Let’s have a look at the results

THE END    

Estimating and Forecasting Traps

We make estimates everyday.     For most of these estimates we don't normally get feedback on their accuracy therefore as a result our minds never become calibrated for better accuracy.     In making big decisions involving estimating under uncertainty we use the basic instinct we have, which is not accurate, which has a distorting effect in uncertain situations.   There are 3 of the most common of these uncertainty traps:-
1.    The overconfidence trap – we tend to be overconfident about our accuracy.     This may due to the fact that anchor has been set in our mind and we are pulled to that anchor therefore being overconfident in our estimates in order to get closer to our goals.    Aggressive people will fall into this trap.
2.    The prudence trap – this takes the form of overcautiousness, i.e. a reverse to the first trap above.    This is actually practiced in many industries where worse case scenarios are required to be examined even though the odds of those circumstances actually coming to pass were infinitesimal.
3.    The recallability trap – even if we could avoid the traps described above we may still fall into this one.    In our mind we forecast based on past events in our memory.    We could be overly influenced by dramatic events that leave a strong impression on our memory.    E.g. a plane crash that killed hundreds but daily killing due to car accidents do not forge as much an impression in one's mind as for a plane crash.    Anything that distorts your ability to recall events in a balanced way will distort your probability assessments.
Ways to avoid these traps:

• To avoid the overconfidence trap in making estimates, always start by considering the extremes, the low and high ends of the possible range of values.    This will avoid being anchored by the initial estimate.
• To avoid the prudence trap, always state the estimates honestly and explain to anyone who will be using them that they have not been adjusted.    Test estimates over a reasonable range to assess their impact.    Do a sensitivity analysis to reassess your estimates.
• To minimize distortion due to your memory, carefully examine all your assumptions.    Invite someone to offer fresh perspectives that do not have those memories that may have affected you.    Get actual statistics if all possible.