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• How to Motivate the Un-Motivatable Employee! by Dave Anderson
• Archived Articles

• In 2 Weeks - Selling At Higher Margins
• In 2 Weeks - Sales Mistakes Managers Make and How to Avoid Them

(Article Archive)

How to Motivate the Un-Motivatable Employee!
by Dave Anderson

Oftentimes an employee seems hopeless. Nothing you do motivates him or her and you convince yourself that the person is simply un-driven and becoming a great waste of your time. Maybe. Maybe not. Before you write off a person as being un-driven or "un-motivatable" consider the following five points. The person may very well be hopeless, but before you give up on him or her, try one last attempt to salvage them with these ideas:

1. Do you de-motivate the person? In other words, take a look in the mirror before you accuse them of having no drive. Do you affirm them when they do well or do they only hear from you when something goes wrong? Do you micromanage him or her…forcing them to live in a box where they never gain the esteem that comes with being able to seize an initiative, make a decision or solve a problem without checking with you? Are you prone to ignore the person because you're so busy with administrative duties that you don't take the time to build a relationship; to listen to them; to coach them with feedback and hands-on instruction? Do you waste their time with useless, boring meetings? Abusing a good employee's time is one of the surest ways to de-motivate him or her.
   
2. Do you train the person? If you're not providing tools for the employee to grow and improve they're very likely to go stale on the job and lose passion for what they do. Lack of training makes people think you don't believe in them; don't see much of a future for them and don't care about them. No wonder they seem de-motivated!
   
3. Have you learned what motivates the person as a unique individual? Have you taken the time to discover and press the employee's hot button? For some people it will be recognition; for others more trust and discretion; for others still it will be opportunity to grow; some are all about the money and more and more family men and women want schedule flexibility so they can have a life away from work. You must know your people to move your people but if you treat each of your employees like another head in a herd of cattle and use an assembly line motivational style then you won't inspire, develop, bring the best out of or retain the person.
   
4. Do you surround them with burdens to bear? If good people are forced to work with under-performers for long they can lose their motivation to excel. There is no peer pressure that brings out their best and your own weak management style causes them to doubt the wisdom of trying to grow under your leadership. They can really lose heart when they are forced to do more work and to carry the struggling employee's load in addition to their own…especially when they compromise their own performance in the process.
   
5. Does your own attitude de-motivate the person and sap their drive? If you are a whiner; a gossip; a complainer; if you bring your personal problems to work; if you are normally negative and routinely say pessimistic things then you are the problem. Before you go into denial, read over this list again and be honest with yourself. If you routinely make excuses; complain about upper management and act as a victim every time the company starts a new initiative or tries to implement change then you have become a corporate liability that should be dealt with quickly and severely. You had better change yourself before your boss changes you! In fact, if most of your employees seem listless and un-driven you need to pay particular attention to the common denominator presiding over the mess: you!

© Copyright 1999 - 2007 The Dave Anderson Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

About The Author: Peak performance author, columnist, trainer, speaker and radio show host for sales, management and leadership, Dave Anderson walks the talk as a leader. He has led some of the most successful retail automotive dealership in the country—the most recent dealer group he led had over $300,000,000 in annual sales—and now gives 150 presentations, workshops and speeches annually on sales and leadership development around the globe.

Dave is author of over 50 training programs on sales, management and leadership including the books, Selling Above The Crowd: 365 Strategies For Sales Excellence and No Nonsense Leadership: Real World Strategies To Maximize Personal & Corporate Potential. Dave authors a monthly leadership column for Dealer magazine, publishes a monthly leadership newsletter and hosts the weekly radio talk show, Dave Anderson’s Learn To Lead Hour. His books, cassettes, videos, newsletter, column, web articles and live presentations pull no punches and provide real world strategies for peak performance in business and in life.

Dave is a member of the National Speaker’s Association and is a featured speaker at conventions worldwide.

Dave is president of the Dave Anderson’s Learn To Lead and LearnToLead.com, a cutting edge web site providing hundreds of free training resources to thousands of subscribers in over 30 countries.

Contact Information:
The Dave Anderson Corporation
P.O. Box 1119
Los Altos CA 94024
Phone: 800-519-8224
www.learntolead.com
dave@learntolead.com

(Article Archive)

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