Our friends Harry Paul (co-author of Fish!) and Ross Reck (of Revved!) share some great insights in their new book, Instant Turnaround. Their finding is that people regulate their effort based on how well they believe they are being treated at work. We can corroborate that with our research for the second edition of The Carrot Principle. We found globally that a sense of “well-being” at work was on the top two drivers of employee engagement. In other words, when employees believe their manager and company cares about them, they’ll put in more discretionary effort—which is exactly what you need in this economy.
Harry and Ross say that you can tell if you are using fear as a motivator—which is actually de-motivating in the long term. Ask yourself these four questions:
- Do my employees look like they are glad to see me?
- Do my employees smile most of the time?
- Do my employees eagerly make eye contact with me?
- Do I feel my employees have my best interests at heart?
If you answer no to one or more of these questions, it means you are using fear as a motivator. And that means your department is underachieving, which is costing you on your performance review.
Instant Turnaround is a fun, quick read—great for an airplane ride—and will give you plenty of fuel to keep you motivating in these difficult times.
Chester Elton and I felt good enough about the book to give it a nice endorsement on the back.
Update:Check out the video Harry and Ross produced to promote the book.
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