Week 11 - Application Assignment - Kristina Quinn

“I don’t motivate my players. You cannot motivate someone, all you can do is provide a motivating environment and the players will motivate themselves.” 

Phil Jackson, coach of the L.A. Lakers

This quote by Phil Jackson is by far the best I have seen on motivation.  In most business it’s difficult to come up with a formula to motivate someone.  You can use the HR benefits as a tool for extrinsic motivation but the offer of a paycheck and bonus doesn’t always motivate people.  As we learned in the article by Ryan and Deci, Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions, extrinsic motivation is something that is done “because it leads to a separable outcome” (p.1).  And this can be done because the person wants to or has to.  I found this out first hand when I owned my own business.

When I owned my own business and had drivers who worked for me I found it very difficult to motivate them.  Most were high school educated and lacked ambition to further their education.  During the interview process, they would answer all the interview questions with the right answers so they sounded like they were self-motivators, but once they got on the job their motivation went out the window.  I offered a very good hourly pay (much higher than competition), health insurance and weekly bonuses.  I realized that the job (of delivering products) was not going to be fulfilling or intrinsically motivating but I thought by providing a good compensation package I could make up for it.  What I was hoping for was to find employees that would be motivated by extrinsic factors like “introjection (approval of self or others)” and “identification (goal oriented)” (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 61).   What I found were employees that were motivated for the first couple of weeks and then quickly weaned.   They would call in sick, do a bad job, steal, or just not show up.  The job was too tedious and there was no room for mobility so they had no real motivation to do a good job. 

After reading this week’s articles I found some really good information that I can use in my new business venture.  My husband and I are building another distribution business and I am excited to use the tools I am learning in this USC program to good use. In the article, Engaging Employees in the Company’s profits, I like the idea of the open-book management approach (Heymann & Barrera, 2010, p.5).  Although owning a small business makes it difficult to offer profit sharing, just sharing the sales and relevant metrics once a month is a very good way to keep people interested in the company.  It is also good because it allows for the employees to offer suggestions for improvement (Heymann & Barrera, 2010, p.13).  Also I will have to be mindful that employees want to feel like their ideas matter and may be used (Heymann & Barrera, 2010, p.24) so I will have to develop a formal mechanism to put ideas to work.  

I think by implementing these 2 things right away can go a long way to motivate others to work hard.  

Application Assignment - David Ebmeier

After having spent some time going over the benefits of my current job for our group application assignment, I thought that I would compare and contrast the benefits that I receive and the culture of which I currently work in, with that at my previous job, a boutique celebrity talent agency in Beverly Hills.  My mother always told me that if I don’t have anything nice to say, I should say nothing at all.  In recognition of that advice, (and the fact that our posts go out the universe,) I will not mention the Agency by name but will heretofore refer to it as the Agency.

At my previous job at the Agency, the employers were notorious for hiring employee using subterfuge and leading the new hires to believe that they were being hired for a certain title at a certain rate.  After I was hired I was told that I would be trained as a project coordinator and shown how to start my job.  In reality I was left alone in an office for two weeks. After the two weeks passed, despite my intrinsic desire to learn more about the company and how I could be of use; I was told that the company did not want to use me for the position that I was hired and wanted know if I would consider being an Executive Assistant to the Senior Vice President.  They quickly fired the current assistant in front of me and waited for my answer.  The newly opened position made it impossible for me to refuse.

After I acquiesced to becoming an Assistant – I was then subjected to the worst treatment since boot camp and expected to work a minimum of two hours of unpaid overtime each day.  In addition to the unpaid overtime, since I was now “just an assistant,” I was told that I “was not worth” the salary of a coordinator, (the job I was hired for and not allowed to begin), so I should have no problem accepting the three pay-cuts imposed on me until I told finally told them no.  I was not alone in my misery.  Coworkers were constantly being fired.  The workers who could or would hack it had physical problems and cried openly on a daily basis.  The culture was comprised of a stressed out and very fearful staff struggling to meet the needs of an ever crazier and demanding corporate staff who were in turn trying to placate some of the biggest divas in Hollywood.  It was a never-ending cycle of bitter disappointment and mistrust. 

I feel that the Agency most likely made every mistake listed in the readings from this week.  One mistake in particular that resonated with me was the sixth mistake written about by Martin & Schmidt from their article How to Keep Your Top Talent.  In addition to being treated as subhuman interchangeable wet nurses, management never let us know anything about their corporate strategy or the direction of that the company was taking.  “An organization that goes “radio silent” with respect to its strategy—or, even worse, explicitly or implicitly signals a strategy freeze in the midst of economic uncertainty—runs the risk of disengaging its rising stars just when they are needed most” (Martin & Schmidt, 2012, p. 7)

At my current place of employment, Beachbody, my work life could not be more different as I have entered to not only into a place of refuge, but also a place of growth and support, the kind of job you only read about in Details magazine, where impossibly good looking people are impossibly productive and supportive in every possible way.   Working for a company whose core values include “helping people achieve their goals, and lead healthy fulfilling lives,” versus "making more money for people that already have a more money than they know what to do with" provides a very different approach to doing business and looking at life.  Within their approach towards helping others, Beachbody helps keep their employees informed and engaged by updates through the CEO’s blog, HR updates, and quarterly or biannual town hall meetings.    

Martin, J., & Schmidt, C., (2010). How to Keep Your Top Talent Harvard Business Review, 1-9.

Week 11-Application Assignment-Lauren Y. Walker

       This week, I interviewed my homer supervisor, Lydia Lee, who, while she was my supervisor, was the Director of Operations for College Advancement.  Since that time, she has moved on and now serves as a manager in the Provost's office.
         She expressed her frustration in being a manager in a bureaucracy because limitations exists within the structure that prevented her from being able to reward employees and motivate employees in a manner that she knew would better ensure engagement and retention of top talent.  Lydia believed that the standard reward system of the university, which is to offer a 1-3% raise every year for "services rendered" for most employees and faculty, with no formal systems in place to encourage development or implementation of efficiency procedures, emphasized a 'culture' or environment of 'robots' wiling away the hours just to collect a check.  She believed, as was stated in the article by Nohria, Groysberg, & Lee
(2008), that this was no way to motivate employees.  Her inability to put formal systems in place(due to the structure of the university and administrative layers she had to get through to gain permission to implement something formally, she was left with allowing staff to engage in several informal social means that were not considered professional office decorum, yet, they kept staff with something to look forward to and was an "informal' reward, for work well done.
         Lydia admitted to the fact that she is the worst kind of manager in that she doesn't like to hand hold employees and works better with subordinates who are self-motivated and get intrinsic value out of working like she does, rather than being motivated extrinsically.  This, in an environment where compensation is knowingly unfair and unfortunately those who do the least, make the most, is a recipe for an environment where employees have low morale.
          To date, there is now new management in the office who has made some corrections with regard to better aligning employees in positions and titles for which they are better suited, whether it is a promotion or demotion of sorts, however, the believe and subsequent behavior that employees are but cogs in a wheel of a machine does not address the motivation that employees need in the area of bonding, culture or defense.

Reference:

Nohria, N., Groysberg, B. and Lee, L. E. (2008).  Employee motivation: A powerful new model,


           Harvard Business Review, pp. 1-8.

Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L. (2000).  Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new

            directions, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, pp. 54-67.

Week 11 Application Assignment - Dawn Whitaker

After completing this week’s readings on employee motivation and rewards systems, I decided to take full advantage of the family functions surrounding the holiday weekend, by interviewing my dad.

Brian Whitaker, Esq. is the owner of Lifeline Legal, a law firm in San Diego, California, and we sat down for an interview to discuss the current employee motivation and rewards system at his company. As Heymann and Barrera (2010) stress that employee engagement is essential for a company’s overall importance, my first question was, “how do you keep your employees engaged?” When he replied with, “I don’t let them get married”, I knew that we needed to switch into a more serious gear:

"I operate my business a little differently than most companies", he starts (B. Whitaker, personal communication, April 7, 2012). Whitaker went on to express that he tries to provide employees with a “meaningful rewards system” (B. Whitaker, personal communication, April 7, 2012).  Martin and Schmidt (2010) stress that in order to keep your top talent, it is important to “pay special attention to [employees’] satisfaction” (p.3). At Lifeline Legal, Whitaker tries to keep employees satisfied by building the rewards system around both monetary and non-monetary motivation. (B. Whitaker, personal communication, April 7, 2012). An example of non-monetary motivation at Lifeline Legal, is that employees have the freedom to set their own hours and are not restricted when they need time off to run errands or pick up children -- a motivation that I would personally find benefit in, as I am required to use vacation time if I need to take an extended lunch or leave early to run an errand. Heymann and Barrera (2010) assert that a “profit sharing program [is] designed to foster a sense of shared ownership” (p.7). For monetary motivation, Lifeline Legal employs a task-based profit-sharing system, which is available to all employees, from receptionist to other attorneys; if an employee refers someone who becomes a client, they get a bonus (B. Whitaker, personal communication, April 7, 2012).

When it comes to recruiting talent, Whitaker states that he looks for three primary traits in employees; honesty, intelligence and loyalty (B. Whitaker, personal communication, April 7, 2012). When asked how he assesses those traits, he replied that for measuring intelligence, he administers a standard aptitude test, where employees are required to score above average. After being embezzled by a previous partner many years ago, Whitaker gauges honesty primarily by "gut feeling", however he randomly checks things such as reporting of hours, which employees have the opportunity to be dishonest about, but they are not (B. Whitaker, personal communication, April 7, 2012). Although he indicated loyalty as important, Whitaker was not certain how to measure it, outside of his employees’ apparent dedication on the job.

Whitaker states that overall, he is satisfied with the performance of his employees and that they appear to be happy in their working environment; by his own admission, he consistently hears, “you’re the best boss I’ve ever worked for” (B. Whitaker, personal communication, April 7, 2012).  Perhaps they just want a raise?

References

Heymann, J., Barrera, M. (2010) Engaging Employees in the Company's Profits and Their Own, Harvard Business School, pp. 1-28

Martin, J., and Schmidt, C. (2010). How to Keep Your Top Talent. Harvard Business Review, pp. 3-9

Week 11 Application Assignment - Xiomara J. Moncada

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This week I interviewed Mario Gonzalez who works at a construction company where he feels that his work is appreciated and valued by his boss, the owner of the construction company.  As I interviewed Mario I remember reading the article by Nohria, Groysber, & Lee (2008) in which they describe the four drives that dictate all that we do and motivate us.  I asked Luis if he thought that his boss knew about them and he said that for the most part, his boss did.  His boss "acquire" the best employees, he "comprehends" their needs, he "bonds" with them by treating them to lunch on their lunch break to show appreciation for their hard work and his boss also "defends" them when a job is going bad and the client is blaming the workers for the mess (Nohria, Groysber, & Lee, 2008, p. 1).   


I must admit that talking to Mario made me a bit jealous I as do not have a boss that understands or cares to understand the four drives to consider when dealing with his direct reports and our motivation.  During the interview Mario also said that it isn't enough to just get paid, sometimes you need a pad on the back, a kind word or appreciation, or a phrase like, "great job Mario".  All these things are important and is why he like going to work and working for his boss.  Although construction is hard labor, Mario feels that is is manageable because he not only gets paid well, but is also appreciated.  I asked Mario, what his thoughts were on being appreciated it, and what did that mean to him?  He said, I feel appreciated every time my boss tells me I am doing a good job, or when he brings us coffee in the morning or buys us lunch.  It is the little things that make the job easier and manageable. 


I also asked Mario if his boss rewarded them for their hard work and he said yes, that in the 3 years that he has been working for his boss, his boss has always given all of the employees small bonuses for the holidays and always makes them feel wanted.  Mario made an interesting comment, he said, most of the workers have been with his boss for a long time because he treats them well and is fair.  What more can you asked for, if not more money.  Often more money is not a possibility and so the kindness, appreciation and treatment is more than enough reward.  This comment brought me back to the article by Nohria, Groysber, & Lee (2008) again, where the topic of fairness and trust is address.  Both fairness and trust are things necessary for good performance by employees.  If you are not fair, and do not trust your employees they pick up on that and they turn bitter and the morale changes from good to poor.  


I am glad that I interviewed Mario because he had different opinions about employee motivation.  Since his experiences with his boss are great, he is a highly motivated employee, where I lack motivation because my boss is the total opposite of Mario's boss.  Although I am not in a motivated work culture, I hope that it improves.  Improvements will come only if my boss and the leadership team does something to strengthens the morale by paying attention to the different drives each employee has.   This interview made me things, that although Mario has a hard job in construction, he enjoys it, while I have a desk job and at times I am miserable.  I had to express to Mario my deepest happiness for waiting and sticking it out and that is why he is where he is with a great boss. 






Nohria, N., Groysberg, B., and Lee, L. (2008) Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model,Harvard Business Review, pp. 1-7.

Week 11 Application Assignment - Ken Hagihara

The article titled “Employee Motivation”, (Nohria, Groysberg & Lee, 2008) brought to mind the challenges of keeping employees motivated in my position as a work center manager for the California Air National Guard.

As members of the military, the amount of pay that an airman receives is based upon rank and time in service, so financial incentives, outside of permanent promotions, are not options that can be used for motivating employees (Gordon, Smith, Gutierrez, & Gordon, 2010).  In lieu of financial incentives, the military system utilizes a system of tools and resources that address the four drives to motivate employees: acquire, bond, comprehend, and defend (Nohria, Groysberg, & Lee, p. 2-3).

In addition to receiving promotions, which can be few and far between, the military boosts employees’ sense of well-being (Nohria, Groysberg, & Lee, p. 2) by offering personal awards, such as medals and certificates, as well as time-off and other non-monetary incentives that raise the visibility of the individual and his accomplishments in relation to his peers.  Military members typically share unusually close bonds with each other and most often work in close-knit teams that create an environment of trust and friendships.  This unique work environment addresses the needs of the employees to bond with their co-workers (Nohria, Groysberg, & Lee, p. 2).  Members of the military are given well-defined jobs that enable them to become specialists and to progress into positions of management based upon their knowledge and performance in their particular jobs.  By being able to fully comprehend and take responsibility for their job responsibilities, the employees feel that their jobs are important and that they are contributing positively to the accomplishment of the mission (Nohria, Groysberg, & Lee, p. 4).  To ensure the fairness of recognition programs, and maintain the transparency of the processes (Nohria, Groysberg, & Lee, p. 4), the military uses a sometimes overwhelming array of regulations and processes that define how an individual can qualify for a particular form of recognition and how it is awarded.

The well-structured and time-proven processes for managing military personnel provides a good, not perfect, model of how employees can be motivated and driven to high performance with resources other than financial rewards.

Gordon, D., Smith, D., Gutierrez, H., & Gordon, S. (eds.). (2010). 2010 Reserve Forces Almanac.  Falls Church, NY: Uniformed Services Almanac, Inc.

Nohria, N., Groysberg, B., & Lee, L. (2008, July-August). Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model, Harvard Business Review, pp. 1-7 (full article)

Week 11 Application Assignment - Felipe Camacho

This week I had the chance to spend some time Bill Baquet, owner of the company I work for, CSI Fullmer. Bill is a 36 year veteran of the contract furniture industry having started as a salesman when he was only 28. In that time he has started and or purchased half a dozen companies. This, he says, will be his last. I took the opportunity to ask him about the tools he has used over the years to motivate employees of all sorts.

To begin, I briefly explained the concepts of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). He needed no explanation and immediately proceeded to give me examples of how he measures his employees’ desires. In my case he pointed out he knew that because I had voluntarily pursued a position selling financial products that he could begin training me for an account management position. He saw on my resume a varied skill set that he could take advantage of for the benefit of the company but that at the same time he could challenge with new responsibilities.

I’ve been with the company now seven years and in that time two other team members have been promoted to account management, one other designer from my department and a former customer service representative. I asked Bill why he would promote account managers, who are paid a base plus commission, versus simply hiring outside sales people, who are commission only. He answered that, besides affording both the company and the employees a way of increasing their income, the company can retain personnel who are seeking to move up instead of losing them and the training already invested in them. In addition, the newly promoted account managers have a transition period in which they train their replacements while training for sales skills themselves. Note that in our company training is on the job, there are no formal training programs in place.

Having learned the above I asked Bill about how he maintains a level reward system, being that not every employee gets a chance to promote to account manager. We talked a little bit about Martin and Schmidt’s (2010) notion that employees who feel aren’t getting an equitable part of the rewards may balk. Bill quickly pointed out that people are aware, and respect the fact, that bonuses are a perk the company offers voluntarily. Bill related that bonuses are effective as a reward for employees when they work hard, doing their job, to keep the company moving forward profitably. There is no expectation that employees go above and beyond fulfilling their job descriptions, for which a different reward system, like equal profit sharing, would probably be better. This made sense to me; I have noticed that my coworkers are always happy, and genuinely appreciative of the semi-annual bonuses the owners have given out almost without fail in my seven years working for them.

Lastly, we talked about how the company keeps employees engaged in the daily operations of the business. In the course of a day, small company as we are and as busy as we get, it’s not unusual for staff to get into a rhythm of simply trying to keep up with the workload, let alone have time to engage in thoughtful execution of tasks with a mind towards process improvement. We do have weekly staff meetings that are informational with regards to the operations and business opportunities on hand, but they stop short of consistently sharing pertinent financial information. I shared with Bill that some companies have found that “an open-book” management philosophy helps engage employees (Heymann & Barrera, 2010), and asked if this something he’d ever considered. To this he had a very simple and short response, that that information is on a “need to know basis”. He explained that the small size of our industry requires a higher level of discretion with such competitive information. Again, this is an understandable position, I have been in this industry 12 years myself, and it is no exaggeration that everybody knows everybody.

It was a very enlightening conversation with Bill about how he runs a small business. The reading this week offered some great concepts about employee engagement, remuneration, and motivation. In talking with Bill though, the practical applications of these became acutely clear. These are all good concepts but, like so many others, have to be considered on a case by case basis.

References

Heymann, J., Barrera, M. (2010) Engaging Employees in the Company's Profits and Their Own, Harvard Business School, pp. 1-28

Ryan, R., and Deci, E. (2000). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology. No. 25, pp. 54-67

Martin, J., and Schmidt, C. (2010). How to Keep Your Top Talent. Harvard Business Review, pp. 3-9