Are YOU Ready for Success?

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Are YOU really ready?

Having been involved with many people and many teams that were being inspired to “turn it up” and “go the extra mile” I noticed a range of responses from “let’s do it” to “go for it” and “I don’t think so” - “yeah right” and “why bother.”

After thinking about the responses, I identified several key factors:

There are Grinders, Finders and Minders in every organizations. The grinders grind out the work. The finders are middle management and sales people - they find new work and manage the grinders by finding ways to get it done. The minders are the top level, CEO, President. V.P.’s and owners. They are the strategists and risk takers. If they are good they think outside of the box.

1) Internal motivation: There are some people are go getters, they love the work and think about it all the time. You love to have them on your team, treat them well, empower them and listen to them.

2) Internal ambivalence: I have labeled them “GRINDERS” some people just don’t have that drive. They just grind out the work be it with a keyboard, or preverbal “shovel” for them it is a grind to work “it’s the job.” These people do a good job while they are at work, but when they are not at work - they could care less. Motivating this type of person is more difficult since your have to convince them that the extra effort and hours are worth it to them. The typical example for internal ambivalence are the grinder who don’t read instruction manual, employee handbook, know the rules and read the technical material, and complain about going to conferences or training. They expect to pick up everything they need to know between 9 and 5.

3) External personal distraction: There are those who may have the internal drive, but because of various personal/external reasons choose to place other priorities in front of work. Motivating this person is not likely to succeed without significant effort because they have consciously prioritized their work life at a lower level. An example here is the grinder who just bought a new motorcycle. Attempting to get this person to spend more time at work boarders on malfeasance. There are also a couple of factors the motivator brings to the table:

A) Trustworthiness: in several jobs I have seen otherwise motivated individuals who don’t respond to motivators because the individual has determined that the motivator is not trustworthy. Thus any promise in the world will not help because the individual doesn’t believe the messenger.

B) Disagreement: Closely related to trustworthiness is when the individual doesn’t agree with the path the motivator is proposing. This one is trickier since this could just be resistance to change.

C) Approach: People are usually motivated by four things, 1) Money. 2) Time off or flex time. 3) Recognition and rewards. 4) Perks like better technology, better office environment, and the like. When the individual is not being motivated correctly, the carrot is offensive, or the individual is just not interested in that particular carrot. Typically money is used as a motivator, but money is not equally important to everyone. A great example here is the “employee of the month” award, for some it means everything and for others it means nothing. It depends on the environment the leader has created in the organization.
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In conclusion: Success requires leadership every day - this includes vision, strategy, focus, desire, exicution and even a little luck to make “IT” happen and be successful.

Frank Candy