{"id":4638,"date":"2019-09-06T21:33:34","date_gmt":"2019-09-07T04:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knowyourteam.com\/blog\/?p=4638"},"modified":"2025-01-10T10:07:05","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T18:07:05","slug":"how-to-motivate-employees-dont-do-this-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canopy.is\/blog\/2019\/09\/06\/how-to-motivate-employees-dont-do-this-instead\/","title":{"rendered":"How to motivate employees? Don’t."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do this instead. Here are 6 ways to motivate your team that doesn’t undermine intrinsic employee motivation that they already have.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Employee<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI need to figure out how to motivate my employees.\u201d <\/em> When was the last time thought that to yourself? It could\u2019ve been the other week when you noticed one of your direct reports dragging his feet on a project that\u2019s critical to the company. Or, perhaps it was the other month when you felt frustrated that your team wasn\u2019t being proactive about addressing customer issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If either of these situations feels even remotely familiar, you\u2019re not alone. I hear this sentiment of \u201chow to motivate employees\u201d frequently from managers we work with who use Canopy<\/a>, and I often am asked countless questions about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We, as leaders, are not the only ones thinking this. Employees themselves<\/em> admit that they don\u2019t feel as motivated at work as they\u2019d like. According to Gallup<\/a>, only 2 in 10 employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this question of, \u201cHow to motivate my employees as a manager?\u201d is a misguided one. It implies that motivation<\/a> is something we give<\/em> another person. That\u2019s patently false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Motivation is not a thing we give to people\u200a\u2014\u200amotivation is a thing people already<\/em> have. Employees inherently have energy, ideas, gifts, and talents that are worth being shared with the world. We, as leaders, simply need to get out of their way and create a space for that energy, ideas, gifts, and talents to thrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question we should ask ourselves isn\u2019t, \u201cHow can I motivate my team?\u201d but rather, \u201cHow can I create an environment for my team members to motivate themselves?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about the answer to this question for the past almost ten years\u00a0:-). From research we\u2019ve gathered across the years, conversations with leaders who we admire on our podcast<\/a>, and insights from 1,000+ managers from our online community, here are six things we can do as leaders to create the conditions for employees to motivate themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immerse yourself in discovery.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t enable another person\u2019s motivation to flourish if you don\u2019t know what motivates them, to begin with. As a result, a key part of effectively creating the conditions for strong employee motivation in your team is to figure out: Well, what motivates them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopefully, you\u2019ve got a sense of this when you were hiring them\u200a\u2014\u200aas the interview process<\/a> is very much about understanding what drives a person. However, if it still remains fuzzy, here are some questions you\u2019ll want to ask during your next one-on-one meeting<\/a> to figure out, at their core, what your team member is motivated by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n