Motivating With More Than Cash
The old adage still holds true - people do not care how much you know until they understand how much you care.
Sheryl was good mortgage processor - mind you good, not great. Sheryl's evaluations demonstrated merely this. She got the job done with minimal error rates and in a timely manner. She was great.
In the mortgage banking industry it's not unusual for the ending of the month to eventually become hectic especially when the marketplace is good. November can prove to be especially challenging. With Thanksgiving and Sheryl's company closing both Thursday and Friday it was a four day weekend. Regrettably the following Monday was just the 29th of the month and there was a lot to do by the end of the month. Most of the staff arrived in by 8:30 AM and were prepared for a long day. After all, the bulk were not new to the business.
About 2:30 PM in the day the office manager Patty went to the Vice President, Elliott, and said, What should we do about Sheryl? He looked perplexed and said, it is not her birthday, or business anniversary. Patty then went on to tell him that Sheryl's daughter was in her elementary school play that night. Elliott instantly said lets find a solution. In an issue of minutes they went out to the bull pen thanked everyone for their hard work and dedication. He then made the statement, "We are in the midst of greatness. Among us today is a Stage Mother, Sheryl's daughter Danielle is in her school play tonight and Mom has to get home early so she can get ready and be front row in the crowd."
Sheryl looked up and said, I have discussed this with Danielle and she knows I've plenty of work to do today and will likely not be there tonight. It's not a big deal Sheryl has been in school plays in the past and this isn't a huge deal. Everyone looked at Sheryl and said to go home that Elliott never gives anyone time off at the ending of the month. She grinned and said she was remaining.
After a very long day, Sheryl and Elliott were the last to leave and walked out together that evening at 10:45 PM. On the way home Elliott stopped by a 24 hour drugstore and purchased a thank you card. He went home and wrote out the card and sent it early the following
morning on his way into the office. This was another long day but not nearly as feverish.
As tough as Elliott is on workers at the end of the month, he's just a little pussycat at the beginning of the month. Wednesday the workload was much lighter and that morning Elliott went to Sheryl and told her to take off about 1:00 PM for the rest of the day.
When Sheryl got home that afternoon Danielle was already home from school and came down the hall running hollering Mommy, Mommy, I got a card from your manager. Sheryl sat down and read the card that was sent to a nine year old little girl. The card read,
Dear Danielle,
Thank you for sharing your Mama with us. We all know how much she loves you and needed to be with you Monday night at your school play. We love your Mama very much and we love you also. Elliott and also the staff at&hellip
Elliott sent this card to a sweet nine year old little girl not because he was attempting to motivate his employee but because it was the correct thing to do. During the the next couple of months Sheryl's quality of work improved drastically. Her error ratio dropped by almost 5%. Her first time approvals increased by nearly 15%. Was this because she was better trained? She now recognized she meant something to the entire team. The added motivation was nothing more than a by product of a great leader recognizing the essential matters in an employee's life.
The old adage still holds true - people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. Do you know the first names of every one of your team member's spouse partner or significant other? How about their children's names? Now what about their pet's name's? These really are the matters that are essential to the success of any team whatever the level or business.
This really is a classic example of intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivators are those motivators that hit the heart, head, and spirit. They are generally remembered for a long time. Extrinsic motivators work - they simply do not possess the staying power. The most common extrinsic motivator is cash, and as Zig Ziglar says, Money might not be the most essential matter on the planet, but it ranks up there close to oxygen. When an employee is not making enough money to satisfy their basic survival needs then cash is the only motivator. So long as they are meeting their basic survival needs, then cash really isn't the most essential motivator.
Think about this one. If you've an employee working significant overtime, think about sending a note home to his or her partner. At least the partner will understand they were really working.
Now is the time to express my final words for this short article.Regardless of what is your current stage in life i want you to focus and devote the following 1 minute for thinking what you wish to improve in your life today.Not tomorrow,not the next week but right today,because the second you understand how extremely important it is to make decisions day after day you'll find out that you and only you can have 100 % control of your own life.Exactly how you'll live,where you will live,who you will meet up with is depending on You!
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