Motivate People by Environment and Not Just Money

Dan McCarthy at Great Leadership always has great insight on leadership principles and makes them easy to understand.  He did it again with How to Create Motivating Work.

Here is Dan’s Top 10 list on How to Create a Positive Working environment:

1. Create motivating work.
2. Hire A players and get rid of C players.

3. Don’t micromanage – get out of the way.

4. Promote your team’s work.
5. Loosen up the rules and bureaucracy.

6. Don’t be a jerk.

7. Get personal.

8. Set a good example.

9. Encourage camaraderie during work hours.

10. Pay people for what they are worth.

One of the biggest challenges I have at work is how to motivate others without using money as the key driver.

Many businesses will put in bonus systems by doing certain things.  I am not saying you shouldn’t reward people.  I just think you should be a little more creative and spontaneous when rewarding people.

Don’t always just do it with money.  Do it by creating a great work environment with the list Dan gave us above.  If you create an environment like this the money for the employees and the revenue for the business will take care of themselves.   Just make sure when you have success you make sure to reward your employees in one form or another.

All of the list is harder to measure than sales and other numbers goals.  But if you find a way to work on these continually and try to measure them you will find the DNA and personality of your company.  With numbers you are just getting the height and weight of your company.  We all know that height and weight don’t tell the true story.  Find out what your company is really about.