Tips for Your Motivational Message

 

Putting together an effective message to motivate project workers is difficult. In the last post I showed how you can simplify your messaging by targeting individuals in one of two groups:  Promotion-focused and prevention-focused. (Recall that these tips are based on this webinarby Heidi Grant Halvorson provided by the Harvard Business Review. Check it out.)

You should use different points and phrasing strategies for each group. Here are tips on how to motivate (and de-motivate) each group.

How to Motivate Promotion-focused Individuals

Do

• Speak in optimistic language and in a tone to build eagerness
• Give praise
• Associate rewards w/goals
• Allow workers to make their own decisions and give feedback

 Don’t

• Don’t dwell on past mistakes
• Be a “downer” in tone of language

How to Motivate Prevention-focused Individuals

Do

• Emphasize being vigilant to avoid costs, losses, errors and noncompliance
• Emphasize the importance of planning in the project to identify and avoid what can go wrong
• Talk in terms of safety (of assets), security, cost avoidance, accuracy
• Provide honest feedback to see how to avoid mistakes (dwell on past mistakes before moving on)
• Frame rewards in such a way that the individual gets an award unless they perform in such a way that they lose it.

Don’t

• Give praise or say “things will be fine” because this can lower vigilance
• Motivate by expressing your gut feelings

You might think now that these groups should be in separate meetings so that you can use correct language for each and discuss success factors for each. Do this if you can! Separate out those who are trying to acheive more goals from legal specilaists and maintainers. Unfortunately, that might be impractical, so it may be better for you to have distinct language for each group to show you care about their priorities.

For example, you are making a presentation to a broad project workforce, including promotion-focused creatives and prevention-focused compliance specialists. In this case you can have one slide or section of your presentation talking optimistically to the promotion-focused about achieving results by the deadline. Next, you transition by saying something like “None of this means that we are going to sacrifice security or compliance! We will institute best practice controls to make sure we avoid a wide range of problems when operational. Here’s more about our controls.”

Using these tips, getting your motivational message across can be more effective.