To create motivational fit and enhance performance within a team, you must remember that no one can wear both hats at the same time.\u00a0 Hybrids will adopt one focus or the other, often as a function of which motivation is best suited to the task at hand\u2014so let that be your guide.\u00a0 Create fit for tasks involving safety or accuracy by using prevention feedback and incentives, but use the promotion variety for tasks involving creativity or advancement.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t a suggestion to seek out false praise or unwarranted criticism or offer up either one as a manager.\u00a0 But, if you\u2019re promotion-minded, you can look for people who will give you the positive, inspirational message you need.\u00a0 If you\u2019re prevention-minded, you should routinely ask colleagues for constructive criticism.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t be overly effusive with the prevention-focused or overly critical with the promotion-focused.<\/em><\/p>\n As a manager, you should always give honest feedback, but you might want to adjust your emphasis to maximize motivation.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be overly effusive when praising the prevention-focused and don\u2019t gloss over mistakes they\u2019ve made or areas that need improvement.\u00a0 Meanwhile, don\u2019t be overly critical when delivering bad news to the promotion-focused\u2014they need reassurance that you have confidence in their ability and recognize their good work.<\/p>\n Tangible incentives are another way to sustain motivational fit. This is not as simple as \u201crewards are motivating,\u201d because incentives vary according to personality type. You can create your own incentives (\u201cIf I finish this project by Friday, I will treat myself to a spa day,\u201d or \u201cIf I don\u2019t finish this project by Friday, I will spend the weekend cleaning out the garage\u201d) and you can push to make sure your employees\u2019 incentives create fit.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also important to avoid incentives that aren\u2019t aligned with focus, because they can be demotivating.\u00a0 For example, after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the public relations disaster it created for BP, the company\u2019s new CEO, Bob Dudley, changed the rules governing employee bonuses: increasing safety would be the sole criterion on which they were calculated.\u00a0 One well-known shortcoming of this approach is that it can lead to the underreporting of problems rather than to an actual increase in safety.\u00a0 But a second important flaw is probably now also obvious: rewarding people for safety is a poor motivational fit.\u00a0 The thought of a bonus makes people eager and willing to take chances (promotion), which is the opposite of being vigilant and avoiding mistakes (prevention).\u00a0 On the other hand, penalties\u2014such as taking bonus money away\u2014for not meeting new safety standards would provide the right kind of motivational fit.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Promotion focus and prevention focus are two legitimate ways of looking at the same goal.\u00a0 You may think your business should concentrate on creating new opportunities for advancement, while your colleague thinks the emphasis should be on protecting your relationships with existing clients\u2014and you are both right.\u00a0 Promotion-focused and prevention-focused people are crucial for every organization\u2019s success, despite the potential for infighting and poor communication.\u00a0 Businesses (and teams) need to excel at innovation and at maintaining what works, at speed and at accuracy.\u00a0 The key is to understand and embrace our personality types and those of our colleagues and to bring out the best in each of us.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n With acknowledgement to the work of Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. and Jonathan Halvorson, Ph.D<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most people have a dominant focus, but some seem to wear both hats equally often. To create motivational fit and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-820","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seehear.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seehear.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seehear.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seehear.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seehear.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/seehear.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1978,"href":"https:\/\/seehear.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/820\/revisions\/1978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seehear.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}