Staff Performance: 5 Questions For Motivation Magic

Introduction

The building blocks of staff performance – performance standards, clear goals, great rewards and incentives – are very important. But what’s the mortar that holds them together? It’s one thing to know the answers you need. It’s another to know the right questions to ask.

Simple Words

These five questions contain no big words, no jargon, no management speak. They contain only simple words, readily understood that would create valuable answers.

1. What Do You Think We Should Do?

“Hey, Boss. We’ve a problem with Noone and Noone. They want a full refund and a replacement part. What do we do?” You could say, “Well I think ….” Or “Tell me more about it” or make a lot of perfectly acceptable responses. But there’s one response that will make your life easier and develop your employees confidence. Instead of devising a solution say, “What do you think we should do?” Your employee knows about the situation. They have the background. They’re in the best position to suggest a response.

2. What Are We Trying To Achieve?

Remind employees that your course of action must achieve a desirable result: what you’re trying to achieve. There must be a specific goal that guides your efforts.

3. How Will We Know We’ve Been Successful?

You need to know what you’re trying to achieve. But you also need to know how you’ll measure success. For instance, you may want to increase sales by 30%. But is that the only measure you’ll use? What about current/new customer balance? What about product profitability? What about time frames? Won’t they be part of measuring success?

4. What Will the Consequences Be?

Some years ago a multinational company asked me to oversee a project to recover unpaid and overdue accounts. They’d put together a special taskforce. The taskforce had recovered 80% of the overdue amounts. But in the 3 months since, none of the clients who had paid overdue accounts had reordered any product. My client got their money. They lost a stack of clients, many of whom were “long standing and loyal”. No one had considered that before the project began.

5. What’s The Most Important Thing We Should Do Right Now?

You have to start somewhere. What should be done first? What’s really important right now? You may fix the problem eventually. Maybe there’s something you need to do right now to relieve the situation. Decide if there’s something that needs to be done immediately. Work out what it is and do it.

Why Bother?

You want your employees to “be part of the answer not part of the problem”. You want them to “think things through” before they approach you. Most importantly, you don’t want them to see you as a person they can “dump” their problems on. You also want to build their confidence in themselves and their expertise. That will happen only if you provide that opportunity. That’s a cornerstone of staff motivation.

No Interrogation

The questions are simple, straightforward and unthreatening. There’s no interrogation: no judgements: no blaming. If the employee doesn’t have satisfactory suggestions, they can go away, think through their recommendations and return.

Enhance Positive Discussion

Because the questions concentrate on positives, you’ll be discussing what can be done to right the situation: not “what went wrong” and “whose fault it is”.

Conclusion

You’re not paid to do the work of your employees. Make sure they do what they’re paid for. Use the five magic questions.

What To Do Now

Next time an employee comes to you with a problem, run through the five questions. You may be surprised at how effective they can be.