Motivation is key in any organization and its needed across all areas of the organization. The more important question is how to motivate employees. Many firms do this through systems of incentive based pay either through bonuses based on performance metrics and or profit related pay. However, a recent study published in the Harvard Business Review seems to suggest that incentive based pay comes with a lot of baggage.

These motivational tools have been seen to affect motivation negatively as they can promote contentious behaviour amongst employees and increased complaints over overtime and stress. These are outcomes that no organization desires and through the study it is clear that these payment motivators are not as effective as people make out them to be. Incentive based payment methods often lead to people chasing results which only comes in useful for certain jobs, these may include sales workers. However, these schemes may not be effective in other scenarios.

I personally believe that these schemes are not the way forward towards intrinsic motivation of employees which I think should be the desired outcome of any organization. Any motivational tool solely based on extrinsic factors will lead some level of dissatisfaction because people will never be satisfied with the stuff they get. For an organization to sustain long term sustainability and motivation of its employees they need to provide employees with intrinsic motivators by giving them a purpose to look up to and to provide an environment that caters towards that purpose. Motivated employees should not give up their jobs even though they might get better extrinsic rewards elsewhere. The only way to achieve that is to obtain loyalty and trust with your employees. An example of this would be Apple, I have spoken to so many apple employees and I ask them will you move to Microsoft if I offer you better pay and perks and the answer I always get is why should I, I am perfectly happy here. The reason for this is because Apple hires employees who believe in their purpose, breaking the status quo of industries.

Therefore, I do not advocate for incentive based pay as a motivational tool as I personally think it will not lead to long term sustainability and motivation of employees as those I believe can only be achieved through intrinsic motivation tools.

Article Link: – https://hbr.org/2017/03/research-how-incentive-pay-affects-employee-engagement-satisfaction-and-trust

Picture: – From the article

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Power and politics are within most large organizations and can be useful towards the sustainability of an organization however, only when used effectively. Leadership plays a key role in the realm of power and politics and great leaders recognize their power however do not allow politics and ego to affect their decision making. A recent article posted on Forbes written by Roger Trapp discusses how two leaders realized this important realization the hard way. In fact one of them, Brandon Black the CEO of Encore Capital who took the reigns when the company was facing a crisis and was tasked to turnaround the situation looks back on his experience towards his realization.

Black recalls that when he took over the organizational executive leadership went into extreme conflict with one another and ego was playing a big role towards the conflict. Things got so bad that the team was not just fighting on issues of the organization however, were personally attacking each other. Black got so sick and tired of the fighting and the team loosing their focus and unable to get out of the storming phase that he decided to go to the begin, the norming stage by organizing leadership seminars to resolve the conflict. However, he soon realized that this was ineffective and organization’s crisis was worsening. He kept scratching his head on how to make the team work together and through that he came to the important realization “when you see everybody else as the problem maybe its you who has the problem” This is when he realized that maybe its his own ego that is causing the problem.

Through this he realized the evil of ego and he decided to try and fix this problem by changing the way he leads the team. To do this he decided to work on his ego and to try and accept responsibility instead of blame others to maintain his ego and status to set an example to his team that acceptance and moving on towards fixing the crisis is the only way towards the turnarounds success. This eventually worked with his team coming back on track and getting out of the storming stage and onto to the performing stage and the turnaround was successful.

In my opinion, I think this is a powerful lesson that all leaders can learn from. Power and politics do not limit an organization success however when ego takes over and power is miss used then the consequences can be devastating. I truly believe that great leaders acknowledge their power however, when they exert it they do so without their own ego getting in the way and only use it when thinking of the organizations long term sustainability. As the article ends, ” Working on yourself is the highest act of leadership” showing that when leaders acknowledge their power and their mistakes they will lead an organization towards success and sustainability.

Article Link: – https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogertrapp/2017/03/27/why-your-organization-needs-you-to-check-your-ego-at-the-door/#7b187b161bb6

Picture:  – Taken from the Article

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A recent Forbes article discusses how improved organizational structure is linked to values based leadership. The article discusses recent studies that suggest almost all organizational culture shifts or changes fail however, the ones that succeed are those where the leaders of the organizations stay true to the values of the organization and seek not to compromise them while undergoing the change. I find this interesting because I believe that the organizational culture of organization is one of the most important part towards that companies success.

Throughout the article, the author uses his military background as a former navy SEAL in the United States Military as an example of an organization that went through rapid change over four wars but what kept them at the best of their capabilities was the SEALs ethos. He states as a navy SEAL he was clear on the purpose, what and who the organization is and the people that are in it. I found this interesting because when I think of the military i think of an organization that only ares about results considering the life and death nature of their work. However, here the author suggests that the reason for the unparalleled success of the SEAL corp was because their ethos was so clearly defined.

I found this extreamly compelling as I personally believe the bedrock towards an organization succeeding or failing heavily depends on the environment the organization’s leadership provides because thats what drives trust and loyalty amongst the members of the organization. With trust and loyalty people will give blood sweat and tears towards the organizations success without expecting anything in return meaning they are solely doing this from intrinsic motivators. This is the reason I believe that only 1 navy seal has been killed in the line of duty since the founding of the organization, its because these men and women have such trust and loyalty towards each other and the people they serve. Therefore, values based leadership in my opinion is extreamly powerful towards providing the right environment for an organization and in my opinion if leaders provide the right environment the results will follow as demonstrated by  the track record of the navy SEALs.

Finally the reason why I advocate for this is because when you take care of people majority of them will reciprocate the gesture in return when an organization goes through a rough patch and when organizations can develop that level of loyalty they will see long term success and sustainability of that success. Another, great organization that achieved this was South West Airlines who was the only airline to not make losses after the horrific 9/11 attacks because they took care of their customers through providing the right environment and the customers took care of them during hardship. Therefore, I think values based leadership is a style of leadership that is extreamly underrated but has some powerful implications when it comes to the long term sustainability of an organization.

Article Link: – https://www.forbes.com/sites/brentgleeson/2017/03/10/how-values-based-leadership-transforms-organizational-cultures/#d6aa09a1fbd6

Picture from the article.

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