It’s Not the Money

Ty is a work management evangelist; "accidental" project manager and marketing veteran with over 25 years of experience.

  Communications Management   Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

What is the most important factor in motivating your teams? Foster a sense of making progress on meaningful work. It doesn’t require a monumental breakthrough; in fact, small wins have the biggest impact. Here are four steps that can help create a more productive, happy and profitable work environment.

Andrew Nusca, reporting on IBM’s Think global leadership summit held a couple of months ago in New York, cites Joichi Ito of MIT who suggested, “We believe enlightened self-interest is what makes the work go around. It’s not. It’s collaboration.”

I was talking to a friend of mine who received an “informal” promotion a month or so back. I say “informal” because although the particular job he was asked to do needed to be started right away, the formal promotion wasn’t to take place for a few weeks (some Human Resource hoops needed to be jumped through first). As of my last conversation with him, nothing had been formalized yet, prompting him to say, “There had better be a substantial boost in pay associated with this ‘promotion’ because I’m starting to wonder if it’s really worth it.”

He’s a gray-hair like I am, 50-something, a very capable analyst for his company, and frustrated at many of the non-financial, corporate hurdles associated with performing his new role …

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