Cost of de-motivation - the ignored value

The value of motivation we know is high and that it has a direct impact on your business. But do you know how to measure it? Some may say yes, but have you ever measured it? You may have heard the phrase that "what gets measured - gets done". The time has come to start measuring this aspect as a potential solution to overcome the never- ending challenges and competitive pressure.

There are many reasons for employees to be de-motivated.

Business or market-related issues, mainly at middle and senior level, organisational culture, work conditions or policy issues, personal factors or leadership gaps covering all levels to name a few.

Whatever the conclusion maybe - Leaders cannot motivate people but can create conducive conditions for better performance.

As a leader, how ever much you try to prevent your staff from being de-motivated, you will not always succeed.

The cause for some de-motivating factors are external and theoretically your business cannot provide solutions to these issues. It's not possible for leaders to be behind every employee every time there is an issue.

In the real world, your role should be to create the conditions where people motivate themselves.

The most effective leaders create conditions for high performance through support and challenge.

Assess the reasons for de-motivation, before considering any action. This is no easy management task.

Expert HR support is needed to ascertain this and then it should be analysed for potential action.

Strategy can be bought, not execution; hence motivation is critical. If you want, strategy can be purchased from external consultants. It's just a matter of paying the price.

There is no argument that your strategy provides competitive advantage but the execution is equally or more important.

The level of execution is determined by the level of motivation of your people.

And it's intrinsic; meaning internal, so the change has to happen within the individuals.

All you can do as a leader is to provide the right conditions for employees to be self-motivated.

Under the right conditions and if leaders support the process with focused regular communication the necessary results could be achieved.

Make the workplace the best sanctuary to help deal with external factors.

Factors outside the workplace can lead to de-motivation. Remember though, that it's always a good thing to deal positively. If it's a work reason; great because you can get to the bottom of it and solve it together.

If it's outside work, you can make the work place the best sanctuary for them.

May be signposting them to specialist help and finally demonstrating that you care about them might be the answer.

Either way, know that a de-motivated employee can be like a wounded animal.

They can sometimes be wild, emotionally driven, out of focus and most times direct energy towards unproductive activities.

The cost of de-motivation in short is huge.

Support and challenge for results

The effective leader uses support and challenge with team members, one without the other is ineffective. Dealing with people's motivation is not about being a counsellor or a tyrant.

The most inspirational leaders offer support and challenge to become a role model leader.So seek expert support on this issue externally if the expertise is not available internally.

You may be surprised with the results, thus the opportunity is there for improvement.

Single differentiator

When knowledge and skills are at the same level, then this would be the level of motivation.

The level of motivation dictates the rate of execution success. You know what it means to a business.