Motivates your Team

There must be a link between what you want done and what motivates your Team to act. You can align your request with those motivational drivers so that you can have influence without having authority over the individual or the team.
Be well.
Dwika-ExecuTrain




"How do you influence when you have no authority?"
by: Steven Cerry

Here's the situation.
Young engineers often believe that having authority and responsibility are the symbol of "making it" and that authority and responsibility going hand in hand.

Not so. Usually responsibility is easier to get than authority. In fact, managers are always looking for good people to take on tasks, and some of those tasks carry a lot of responsibility.

And yet, getting the authority that seems appropriate and, in some cases, necessary to get the job done is often very difficult to come by.

Many people think that influencing without authority is a rare occurrence. They believe that having authority is the norm. Actually, I'd estimate that at least half of the management and leadership that successful managers and leaders perform is accomplished without explicit hire/fire authority.

Even when one has authority, not exercising it is often the best approach to getting tasks done.

Most people don't want to feel that someone has authority over them, anyway. Most of us want to feel that we have some control over our own destiny. So exercising authority can often be a double-edged sword, so to speak. My approach is often to not use my authority except when I must.

In fact, there are certain positions that are completely devoid of authority and yet, are loaded with responsibility. I've held several such positions. One had the title of "Product Manager".

I was product manager at a printer company. I had a product line that was my responsibility and yet, all the components necessary for the product from printer, software, firmware, packaging, marketing, etc. were ultimately provided by people who were there to "support" me but didn't "report" to me.

Now sure, you can say, "Well come on Steven. All these people understood that there responsibility was to support you and your products. You didn't need "authority" to influence them. They knew if they didn't help you they'd be out of a job".

Fair enough. But suppose there were four product managers in the company. Which there were. And suppose that all four of us had products that needed the services of the various departments... which we did. And suppose that our schedules were independent of each other and we were all "competing" for the same services against competing schedules... which we were.

Now what do you do? How do you get your firmware, software, product at the head of the schedule when you need it there?

Do you just get in line and wait for your firmware, software, printers, etc. to get done? Do you just wait your turn? Or...

Do you "fight" for your product? Do you upset the various departments by "demanding" that your printer be supported first? (One of the product managers used this tactic.) Or...

Do you ask nicely for your product to get preferential treatment? (One of the product managers used this tactic.)

It seems like a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation. If you push too hard the people you depend on will be upset and then resist. If you don't push hard enough the people you depend on will support the other product managers first.

It's the old "Catch 22".

My approach.
I used a different approach. The fundamental premise of my approach is threefold.

First, everyone has a motivational structure that motivates and energizes them to do whatever it is they do. In this case, a motivational structure that will motivate them to do what I want them to do.

The second is that to motivate someone we must understand their unique motivational structure.

And third, if I want to motivate someone (i.e., influence them) I must align my request with their motivational structure. There must be a link between what I want done and what motivates them to act.

That's it!

It is relatively easy, when you know what to look for and what to ask, to determine the motivational drivers for an individual.

Once I understand those drivers, if it makes sense to me, I can align my request with those motivational drivers so that I can have influence without having authority over the individual or the team.

What I did.
I'll give you a specific example.

My printers were dependent upon firmware that had to be written specifically for my printer line. The manager of firmware development was responsible for supplying firmware for all the printer lines in our company.

There were many times when, for various reasons, I required special firmware, and I needed it soon or even "yesterday". By understanding the motivational drivers of the firmware manager I was consistently able to move my firmware to the top of the list to satisfy my schedule requirements. I consistently got my firmware ahead of the other product managers.

The other product managers often had difficulty with their products and schedules. One product manager consistently upset the people he depended on, and one of the other product managers was left to depend on the good will of those supporting our printers. I consistently got what I wanted.

This was just one example of influencing without authority.

The Bottom Line.
Once we understand that, 1) everyone has a motivational structure, 2) we can understand that motivational structure, and 3) we can align our request with that motivational structure, influencing without authority becomes as easy as a casual conversation. In fact, the way I teach it, it does take the form of a casual conversation.

Therefore, the determining factor regarding whether we will have influence is our ability to understand the communication dynamics and the motivational forces of the people we are attempting to influence. For many people this process remains a mystery. In my world it's no mystery at all.

What would you have done?
Do you have any experiences like this? Email me with your experiences or suggestions or ideas. I'm very interested in your thoughts.


Good luck and be well,

Steven