Motivational Methods Paper
Joel Val Piguing
HCS/325
April 19, 2012
HCS/325 Health Care Management
Mary Eacott

Motivational Methods
Building a successful team in the workplace is not an easy thing to do. It takes time, effort, understanding, compromise and patience by leaders and employees alike. In order to build and sustain a successful coalition, team building concepts must be introduced and practiced by all those involved. It is important to understand your team’s goals to develop incentives to help motivate team members and build camaraderie. Team building involves leading; facilitating and a level of independence of allow the team to operate on its own. As important as it may be for a manager to have involvement with the team, it is also vital for those on the outside to step back and let the team work on its own. According to www.HumanResource.about.com, there are 12 Cs for team building, one of which is culture. Team building is something that needs to be built into your company’s culture. Employees need to see team building ad something that is enjoyable, and not a mandatory inconvenience. Some companies designate a team culture captain that helps facilitate the direction the company wants employees to view team building as a priority in the organization. A key ingredient in getting this mindset accomplished is to make it fun and get everyone involved. Communication is another one of the 12 Cs. It cannot be stressed enough that communication is key in all instances personal and professional life. It is important to ensure that employees have clear and concise direction in what needs to be accomplished in these team building sessions. Clear and obtainable goals need to be outlined with defined expectations of what is needed and is asked of the employees. The last of the 12 Cs that is important is creative innovation. Allowing employees to work in a “creative chaos” allows them to tap into their creative side. Many ideas and process improvements can come from the freedom in the work environment. If this work environment is encouraged, it is important to follow up and follow through with employees to make sure the set goals are still being worked towards and eventually obtained. Leaders who are committed to achieving common goals will have their team members’ support and commitment as well. In Caitlin Friedman’s and Kimberly Yorio’s book The Girl’s Guide to Being a Boss, they interviewed Dianne Nolan, the women’s head basketball coach at Fairfield University in Connecticut on how she establishes trust in her team. Dianne explained that she has “an open door policy, and the players know when they are in my office and I close the door, the following discussion is important and confidential.” She then proceeds to say that she will “cite specific examples of behavior that lead her to believe the team is not coming first in the player’s mind and will then outline steps to take so that she can improve her behavior and begin to shoe her support of teams goals” (Friedman & Yorio, 2006, p. 65). Another great example of this is quoted from Geoff Colvin’s book Talent is Overrated. Colvin writes about the US Olympic 1980 hockey team that beat the Soviets at Lake Placid. He quotes from the movie Miracle “Brook’s assistant looks at the coach’s roster and objects that he has left out many of the country’s greatest college players. To which Brooks response with the essential mix is critical philosophy: I’m not looking for the best players, Craig. I am looking for the right players” (Colvin, 2008, p. 138). Recognizing team members’ involvement and rewarding those when necessary to help building trust, which will lead to a strong commitment of the team as a whole. Another aspect of team building is actually having team building events for your employees and staff. Team building events can include happy hours, team picnics, off site events such as sporting events, dinner cruises, camping trips and even company trips for high performers. This is a great way to keep people involved outside of the office where the environment is a little more relaxed. These types of events provide a great way to network with other people in the company and can help open doors for future positions or a different career path. Another way to create team building is to hold performance productivity contests within departments or the company as a whole. This helps create competition and team camaraderie. It encourages people to work as a team and outperform the others, which demonstrates team trust, commitment and reaching a common goal. Having contests like this allows management to recognize who is out performing the rest of the group and potentially offer a chance for that employee to be promoted. Once you have a group of highly talented people, one can also offer career development support. Many companies has a program similar to this called the MIT or “Manager in Training” program. The Four Season Hotels and Resorts offers this program and has built it into their company culture. When creating these contests, again it is important to make sure you are setting your team up for success with the correct tools to achieve the common goal. Building the team building environment into the culture of your people is just as important as having them build trust in their leaders. Motivation is paramount to the success of every company. Motivation helps drive employees to produce at higher levels and can come in many forms. One that is extremely prevalent amongst the latest generation to enter the workforce is recognition. When people do a great job, they want to be recognized for it. Recognition can be awards like Employee/Team of the Quarter, Employee/Team of the Year, Mentor of the Year, Highest Revenue Generating Producer and any departmental awards. It is important to praise your employees when they are doing well in public and provide constructive criticize or further guidance in private. Rewards are an important part of motivation as well. Rewards can be a parking pass at the front of the building, additional paid time off, free lunch, the ability to wear jeans to work or given praise from the president of the company in an email to everyone in the office. These are great ways to boost employees’ confidence and motivation. Incentives that are tied to money always helps motivates employees. An additional $50 or $100 gift card can help motivate people to work later to be the highest producer. Another incentive to motivate people to make sure they hit their weekly key performance indicator is to have early release from work on Fridays. If an employee has met or exceed their goal for the week, they can be released at 2pm instead of 5pm. In addition to that incentive, the hours they left work early will be paid to them as well.
These forms of incentives are likely to motivate employees and teams to go above and beyond their normal duties. Heathfield (n.d.), “No matter what you call your team-based improvement effort: continuous improvement, total quality, lean manufacturing or self-directed work teams, you are striving to improve results for customers”. While there is no set method or training mechanism to develop and motivate employees to become perfect team players, the need to have productive teams within an organization is vital. To help ensure a team’s success, it’s essential to develop clearly defined goals and objectives for the team as a whole as well as the responsibilities of its individual members. The role of management in helping to coordinate and provide incentives for the team to operate is as equally as important as giving the team the autonomy to meet its goals. Recognizing teams for their accomplishments will bolster overall team building and will help to ensure a successful and collaborative work environment.

References
Heathfield, S. M. (n.d.). How to Make Teams Effective. Retrieved from http://humanresources.about.com/od/involvementteams/a/twelve_tip_team.htm Colvin, Geoff. (2008). Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else. New York: Penguin Group. Friedman, Caitlin & Yorio, Kimberly. (2006). The Girl’s Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being a Bitch). New York: Broadway Books.