I was at a business development meeting for a group of salespeople the other day. Never mind what an HR consultant was doing at a sales meeting — it's a long story — but it was an interesting experience. It made me realize a thing or two about employee motivation.
The first hour was more or less inspirational. A story was told about a young man who could neither see nor walk. Despite these disabilities, he had graduated from college with an advanced degree and met a sales goal that I didn't quite follow due to my unfamiliarity with the system, but was evidently quite an accomplishment.
What struck me about the telling of this story was how it was presented as, "Look what can be done when you have the drive to do it," rather than in a, "Why can't you accomplish what he's done?" format. By the end of that part of the presentation, most of the room was in tears. It did a lot more to inspire people to reach a little harder than a negative comparison would have done.
The last session opened with recognition of those attending who had met a long list of sales goals. I was particularly impressed by the format of this session because someone had gone to a lot of trouble to set a series of goals that could be accomplished by anyone. I'm not talking about like at summer camp or in junior high when they deliberately make sure that each child has an award of some kind. These goals were set in such a way that a salesperson of only a week could (and did!) meet some of them. Naturally, some of them could only have been reached by someone with a long time in sales and a well-established client base, but no matter how new to the sales force you were, there were significant goals within reach.
We need to remember this when looking to motivate employees:
- Set reachable goals, and make sure there is some reward when they are reached.
- Make comparisons as something to aspire to ("Look what you can do"), not as a put down ("Why can't you be more like that?").
I was ready to go out and sell myself when the meeting was over, and I've never thought of myself as a salesperson. But if we can "sell" our employees on whatever behavior we're trying to get them to emulate, it will be that much better for all involved.
Catherine Bannon is an HR consultant in Marshfield, MA (catherine.bannon@gmail.com). Bannon worked for 10 years in HR management before starting her consulting practice.
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