How to achieve organizational effectiveness, build group cohesion, and establish trust through understanding Individual and group motivationS.
Throughout my career, I have led countless planning meetings or debriefings to help determine what could go, or what went, “wrong,” and how we could guard against common pitfalls such as lack of clarity, defensiveness, and making assumptions. These meetings have addressed a range of issues, including donor solicitations, employee and parent conflicts, directors’ plans having been rejected by their team--you name it. These meetings became an opportunity to help educate, guide, and support a greater institutional awareness of the various motivations of the stakeholders involved. Acknowledging, understanding, and accounting for motivations is an essential step in crafting effective strategic action and will result in greater organizational alignment and interpersonal success.
Every conversation, action and decision is motivated by something. Motivations influence how individuals present themselves and how they interact with others. They also reveal what concerns an individual may have and why this individual makes the actions that they do. Yet despite the strong influence that motivations have, we often neglect to identify and acknowledge that these motivations play a significant role in interpersonal relationships and organizational dynamics.
It is essential to ask:
What are you, the client, or your colleagues motivated by?
How can we account for these these motivations and communicate in ways that will increase understanding and create greater alignment for you and your organization?
Through understanding and accounting for individual motivations, we can increase organizational effectiveness, build group cohesion, and establish trust— all leading to a more effective organization.
Motivational research
Self-determination theory instructs us that humans have the psychological needs to be competent, autonomous, and related to others. An individual’s need for competence is reflected in their underlying desire to feel that they are being effective and seen as capable. Autonomy comes from a sense of agency and freedom. Feeling connected to others refers to a sense of belonging and being seen as part of a whole. The full scope of understanding the psychological needs of our employees or constituents is nuanced beyond the scope of this discussion but, at the very least, we can acknowledge its affects on the way an individual presents themself in the workplace, or beyond. Using self-determination theory as a starting point we can develop insight into the motivations driving individual behavior.
Let’s take a look at a few examples:
Janet, our school secretary, has been a loyal employee for over ten years. She has built deep relationships with school families and is frequently remembered fondly by alumni and former staff. Over the years, Janet has become more and more insistent on protecting her role and limiting the scope of her work. She regularly rejects requests for help or changes to her role, causing the rest of the overworked staff to be increasingly resentful of her inflexibility and perceived lack of care for others.
After taking the time to listen and ask questions, it was clear that Janet was motivated to protect her position for the following reasons:
She believed her time was being undervalued by the team. Last minute requests were being made to her without acknowledgment of her regular duties (competence).
Changes in the culture had left her feeling disconnected to the school. Emails had replaced phone calls and her day-to-day interactions started to feel less valued and essential to the school community (connectedness).
Finally, after ten years of work, she felt that she deserved a greater degree of respect and appreciation for her work and service (autonomy).
Through understanding Janet’s concerns and motivations, we changed our approach:
All requests were to be sent to Janet in writing 24 hours in advance. This structure acknowledged that Janet’s time and her regular duties were valuable, regardless of any additional service she may be able to provide.
I recommended that, if at all possible, it was essential to take the time to schedule a meeting with Janet in order explain the purpose of the extra work and the timeframe that it was needed by. This demonstrated respect for her and her position and allowed her autonomy in prioritizing her work accordingly.
Janet was invited to weigh in on more topics related to school administration and culture. Her history and experience proved invaluable and she became an unexpected source of innovative solutions—particularly helpful with the logistics related to families arrival, dismissal, and absentee policies.
Todd and Stacy were new parents at our school. Stacy was raised in New York and had developed a strong work ethic and sense of self and family. She found great meaning and purpose in managing her family’s charitable foundation. Todd was a young tech entrepreneur, who was eager to make friends, build a community, and ensure that his son was receiving the best education possible. Todd and the Head of School had recently had an enthusiastic conversation about establishing a new tech lab for the high school but in the follow-up emails with both Todd and Stacy, Stacy seemed to be putting on the breaks.
After a brief discussion with Stacy, several motivations become clear:
Stacy’s top priority was that her family would respect her choices and consider her unbiased in her role as Director of the family foundation (competence).
Stacy’s fears over Todd’s enthusiasm related to her concern that the community might think they were being “showy” as a new family and might not welcome them into the community (connectedness).
Stacy often felt judged that her career and role at the foundation had come too easily and was not hard-earned. She demanded excellence of herself and others and resented that Todd and the Head of School had moved toward their goal without her input (autonomy).
Through understanding Stacy’s concerns and motivations, we changed our approach:
The first priority was to develop a detailed, research-driven proposal. This provided additional legitimacy and clearly demonstrated our school’s commitment to excellence at the highest level.
Stacy and Todd were encouraged to consider donating under the name of their foundation or anonymously with the option to change this choice when they felt more comfortable and established within the community.
The Head of School was advised to proactively reach out to Stacy to hear her thoughts and to schedule future meetings with Stacy and Todd when they were both available to meet.
The results in both of these cases were positive. Janet increased her workload with joy and eagerness, feeling valued and appreciated. Stacy and Todd became proud seed funders for a fantastic new STEM lab and well-regarded members of the school community.
Integrating understanding motivation into your daily practice
There are times when it is appropriate to ask an individual to name the different motivators that impact their behavior and decisions, however, there are also times when an individual’s true motivations remain clouded or you are not in the position to ask them directly to explain their behavior.
Introducing motivational research on an organizational level can help to lay the foundation for employees to engage in deeper self-reflection and can provide the language and opportunity for clarifying conversations about internal and external motivations. However, in my experience, it is rare for these group trainings to produce the deep self-reflection that allow individuals to: (1) accurately articulate their deeper motivations; and, (2) articulate them to a supervisor or group of colleagues.
Because of this, it is critical that leaders take the time to engage with and to listen to your employees, colleagues, and constituents on a personal level. Listening for understanding, as well as honing the skill of asking effective follow-up questions, allows the individual themselves to fill in “the bigger picture.” When a leader does this, they will not only gain information but they will build trust and ensure that they are not making preemptive assumptions or walking away with inaccurate conclusions. Investing in your ability to listen, ask, and understand motivation will pay off in countless ways. Donors will be motivated to invest in the mission, employees will view themselves as integral to the health of the organization, parents, or clients, will feel seen and heard, and your key administrators, or directors, will be empowered to lead.
As leaders, we have the opportunity continually improve the organizations that we lead. This can be done through understanding, acknowledging, and taking account of the various motivations of our stakeholders. When we do this effectively, we cultivate organizational effectiveness, group cohesion, and trust among our community.
If you’d like to know more about how understanding and accounting for individual and group motivations can help you and your organization or if you have any additional questions or thoughts regarding this post, feel free to contact me. I’d love to hear from you!
Carolyn
