The definition of motivation; the reason or reasons one has for acting in a particular way; providing a reason to act in a certain way; a desire to do: interest or drive.
Therefore, providing an incentive; and/or, reward should motivate an individual to excel. After all, all these contests can’t be wrong. Can they? Incentives like:
· Win a trip to Tahiti for you and your family and dine with the CEO;
· Win a complete entertainment system valued at $25,000.00 for your home, and
· Win a car along with an extra 2 week vacation.
Those are just a few of the ones that I have seen, or, have actually been involved in. All one has to do to collect these rewards is attain a certain level in sales, (or other measurable matrix depending on your profession) and this alone will motivate you to reach those levels. After all, they (whoever they may be), are providing a reason to act in a certain way. In other words, their reward/incentive will motivate you.
There has been a great deal written about goals and goal setting. There are personal, as well as professional goals, but ALL goals should follow the SMART criteria. That is they must be: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound. Geniuses out there, (with my tongue firmly planted in cheek), try to somehow tie goals to motivation and come up with incentives in an attempt to make it work. What happens in the majority of cases is that this attempt is a complete failure. But why?
Let us analyze one particular one that I was involved in; a sales scenario. A goal was established for me at the beginning of the year, it was Specific, and Time-Bound, a year and of course, it was Measurable. The goal that you have agreed to, (see my article titled Who Is Accountable for that discussion), is not only Achievable, but also Realistic, as all parties including myself had agreed to it. There you go, a SMART goal.
Now along comes someone who decides that the number should be tripled. But as a reward for reaching it, they will give you and your family a trip to Tahiti to dine with the CEO. This should be no problem because they have provided you with an incentive, trip, dinner, Tahiti, to motivate you to go for it. Really? I had a better shot getting a date with Angelina Jolie.
Even though the goal is still Specific and Time-Bound; (triple what was agreed to for the year), and Measurable, how is it in any way shape or form Achievable and/or Realistic. Further, if by some miracle I should be able to attain this Unachievable and Unrealistic number and get to Tahiti, why would I want to have dinner with the CEO?
What happens is that one looks at the unrealistic unattainable number and instead of being motivated to reach for it, one instead gets demotivated because even the possibility of remotely coming close to that goal is “pie in the sky” thinking. In my particular case, to go to Tahiti I would need to have achieve a six million dollar threshold whereas, the mutually agreed upon goal of two million would be difficult enough to attain. You are defeated before you even start. With that feeling of defeat, even being motivated to reach the original goal may now become an issue as a feeling of “no matter what I do, it is obviously not good enough!” creeps in.
If you want to motivate your staff to do more, make the incentives reasonable and thresholds realistic to attain those rewards? So instead of giving the “keys to the kingdom” for doing the impossible, how about making it achievable? A gift certificate for $250.00 to a five star restaurant for a 20% over goal achievement. A weekend at a resort; Whistler/Vegas/Phoenix Spa etc. for going 50% over goal. An extra week of holidays for a 75% increase. A trip to Mexico or Hawaii for a week (without the dinner with the CEO) for 100%. Here are achievable goals that would make someone at the very least give it the “good old College try.” You see if one can actually see the ring, one will actually stretch just a little further to reach it.
By the way, the CEO, surprise, still went, but had a very lonely dinner in Tahiti. Nobody got remotely close to reaching the threshold!