What drives employees?

To find the answer, focus on solutions 
As a leader, how great would it be to arrive at the office to a self motivated, inspired team, knowing that each and every employee is giving their all for you and the company?  

At one time this would have been deemed impossible, you can’t please everybody all of the time right?  Wrong.  Recent research and advancements in people management have challenged original methods and ideas, the results speak for themselves.

When faced with the challenge of inspiring employees, many a leader has given up half way through the fight, secretly hoping that the ‘problem’ may get another job, or get promoted.  This is where the difficulty in solving the problem begins.   Many leaders tend to focus on the problem itself rather than the solutions.  

Employee science
Luckily for leaders in this day and age, the science of employee inspiration has arrived.  Leaders, who suffer the frustrations of dealing with difficult employees, often long to fill their heads with the passion that they as leaders possess; to inspire them to reach their dreams and aspirations. 

What do I mean? Let’s use a professional team sport as an example; every player has talent, each bringing something different to the game.  Some are more talented than others, others are more determined or persistent and work harder to succeed; and a very small number are naturally gifted.  If the naturally gifted players relied on talent alone, with no coaching, in time, they would be no better than an average player. 

The same is true of leadership, experience grows daily, which in the long term if you embrace it will make you a better leader as you ‘coach’ your employees towards  becoming a superb team, highly motivated, engaged and producing outstanding results. 

Insight

Award winning Author of “The People Pill”, Ken Wright, explains through his ‘How-to-Guide’, how managers and leaders can gain an insight into what drives employees’.  Ken describes how “Money is no longer always the key motivator.  In today’s society, employees are looking to achieve a sensible work/life balance, looking to be rewarded with recognition and acknowledgement for a good job and constructive feedback or suggested training for an unsuccessful job.

Whilst there is a financial element to most positions, these days it’s more about respect, job satisfaction and achievement.  Employees want to feel a valuable part of something; whether that be part of a team or a company.  Like the sports team scenario, employees who are led well, made to feel they belong and work well together, are more likely to want to perform and achieve their best for themselves, their team and for the company. In short they want to feel engaged”. 

Ken asks us to ponder these two questions: 

“Why does an employee stay when they are offered more money by a competitor? 
Why does an employee leave, going to a similar position for less money?”     

It’s all about feelings! 

Carl Buechner said it all with his quote.....“People will forget what you say, they will forget what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

The book explains that communication is the key, letting employees know what is expected of them, how you feel about them and showing them how they are an integral part of the big picture.  Setting high standards, clear goals and recognising and celebrating the small achievements with employees as they move towards reaching their goals. Seek and listen to their opinions and make them feel that they count.  It’s about trust, believing in your employees and making them believe in you by delivering what you, as their leader, promise to deliver. 

EQ2
This is engagement intelligence. Ken calls engagement intelligence EQ2 as it takes emotional intelligence to another level....a level that produces outstanding bottom line results.

Emotional intelligence and engagement intelligence is about enhancing a leader’s soft skills but it is not about soft leadership. It is about setting high standards, holding yourself and others accountable to these standards, putting in place engagement practices, developing people, managing performance and having the much needed courageous conversations that many leaders shy away from.

Benefits for success
This leaders' guide book clearly sets out the difference between managing and leading and what differentiates positive leaders from the other managers.

Positive leaders are more concerned with investing in everyone that works for them, rather than just what they can get out of their employees.  The leader/employee relationship is an engaging opportunity for both parties to achieve through motivation, education and inspiration, which in turn, benefits the leader, the employee and the company.

We are shown what differentiates a successful company from a failing company, and the book presents seven chapters with prescriptions to cure the most aggravating people problems. From dealing with employees with bad attitudes to managers who can’t lead. The People Pill goes beyond platitudes to provide concrete action steps that bring results. Diagnosis, Lab Work, Your New Health Regime, and other informative sections within each chapter present cutting-edge managerial research, case studies, and pointed calls to action that will teach any manager how to create a people-engagement strategy.

By leading from the head and the heart, Wright demonstrates how managers can turn their people problems into business solutions, while generating increased respect, satisfaction, and results.

Source:  The People Pill, by Ken Wright 
Ken’s biography
www.thepeoplepill.com