How to Motivate Others

When you’re managing a team, one of the big challenges is learning how to motivate the people you manage.

While not everyone can be motivated, many can… if you know what to do and what not to do.

One aspect of motivating managers is being extremely effective as a manager and leader. Have you ever worked for a terrible boss? If you have, you know how demotivating it is to work for someone that’s unclear, arbitrary, doesn’t communicate, lacks people skills, doesn’t have a plan, and can’t lead.

The flip side is true. If you’re good at managing people, you make it easy, and even enjoyable, for your direct reports to be successful and do a good job. Very few people inherently want to do a bad job. Nobody intentionally wants to join a losing team. Everyone wants to win. It is your job as a leader to create a winning team environment.

Motivating and managing other people is its own skill, separate from being a competent engineer, marketer, customer service team member, or supply chain expert. Being good at a functional skill does not automatically give you the skills to manage people. It’s a distinctly different skill that must be learned somehow.

Here’s one tip for how to manage others. Be clear in terms of what you want and what you expect.

When my kids were younger, they loved archery — using a bow and arrow to hit a target. Archery is a very simple (but not easy) sport. There is a target made up of multiple circles of different sizes. The goal is to hit the target in the dead center or “bullseye.”

It takes young children all of two minutes to learn the objective of the sport. It is very clear what you’re supposed to accomplish: hit the target in the smallest innermost circle.

Very simple.

Now hitting that target isn’t always easy… but at least you know what you’re striving for.

In many jobs, people don’t always know what you want them to do. That’s a problem. That’s demotivating. That demonstrates poor people management skills. Don’t make this mistake.

To learn more about how to motivate and manage other people effectively, you might consider my upcoming class on How to Manage People Effectively. To be notified about its release, complete the form below.