On motivation theory and achieving excellence in projects

There are two groups of employees or project team members based on their attitudes towards achieving organisational or team goals. There is a group of employees who are interested in the success of the organisation as a ‘going concern’. These are the ‘positive’ employees. Positive employees are committed to their organisations and have the interest of the organisation at heart. They see the growth of the organisation and positive development in the organisation as a personal growth and believe that stagnancy or death of the organisation will affect them. Positive employees have long-term plans for their organisation and cherish promotion, ‘welfare package’ more than awards and rewards. Most start-ups that grew to become unicorns are lucky to have committed and longstanding employees. These employees are aware of the organisation culture, goals and knowledgeable enough in the industry to pass through the storm.

There is another group of employees who are only working in the organisation to achieve their personal goals. They are ‘nomadic’ in nature and do not have long term plans concerning the organisation. They are negative employees who are ready to change work because of higher salaries. Negative employees are not committed to the growth of the organisation and are only interested in the organisation as far as it can pay their salaries and wages. They are more interested in rewards, awards, salaries and wages increment than retained earnings, organisation turnover, company welfare package, profit and organisation overall growth. Some of the organisations with short lives are those that are unfortunate to have negative employees. These groups cut across both senior and junior members of staff, all departments of the organisation and it does organisations’ managers good to identify these two groups as early as possible.

Leadership experience shows that the best way to spur ‘positive’ employees to their highest performance level is to state what they are to do (set goal/s), give them the tools to do it and say what they will get as compensation for achieving their goal/s. Employees who are fully aware of their roles and who have freedom to perform their tasks achieve more than employees who are driven to navigate the process of achieving tasks. Over time, it has been discovered that extraordinary achievers are those who chose what they enjoy doing most as a career. Organisations who value employees’ innovativeness, intuition and freedom to work on their own are achieving better results. After the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more organisations have decided to allow their employees who are not ‘group-workers’ to work from home.

Taking the lead, some well-respected technology CEOs started making the harsh decisions of allowing their workers to work from home. Since the ‘work-from-home’ trend started, it has not cooled off. Jack Dorsey, the dual CEO of both Twitter and Square, informed his employees at both companies that they can continue working from home “forever.” Cool Group of Companies, Coalition Technologies, Tutorme, LinkedIn, Cisco System, SAP and Intuit are among the many organisations that have realised ‘well-motivated’ workers can achieve from home. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, followed with the trend by announcing that his employees may also work from home. People are working from home because they are aware of what to do and how to do it without close supervision and monitoring from senior managers.

Austen Allred, CEO of Lambda School, an online classroom that uses interactive technology to teach people the tech skills they need to launch a new career, said that the school has rolled out a permanent “work from anywhere” policy. Allred tweeted that employees are free to work from home, from an office or from anywhere within the United States. What really matters in the life of work is not where one is working from but the result that one is achieving from working ‘collectively’ or ‘privately’. A well informed and fully kitted worker who is given freedom to work at his own pace will achieve more than a strictly supervised worker who has no room to laugh and relax within work hours. Most organisations are now giving realistic and achievable targets to their workers and careless on how and where they achieve these targets. Fame Oyster & Co Nigeria is a real estate brokerage firm in Nigeria that teaches its remote brokers how to achieve their goals and allow them to work from anywhere. These brokers are on monthly stipends and depend more on commission on sales. Seventy to eighty percent of them achieve their targets because they are armed with the essentials of achieving!

At its core, Microsoft’s strength lies in its talented people and a culture grounded in a growth mindset. “This means anyone can change, learn, and grow”. Microsoft believes potential can be nurtured and is not predetermined, and that employees should always be learning and curious – trying new things without fear of failure. It identified four attributes that allow a growth mindset to flourish. Obsessing over what matters to its customers, becoming more diverse and inclusive in everything it does, operating as one company instead of multiple siloed businesses and lastly, making a difference in the lives of each other, our customers and the world around us. Employees are well tutored about the culture and goals of the business, and are allowed to contribute their quota as a talented and valued individual.

Organisations like Apple and Levi’s posited that there is power in having office hubs where in-person communities, mentorship, networking, and creativity can happen, but the power of employees contributing voluntarily to the development of an organisation without coercion or superior influence is greater. This is why the future of rapidly growing organisations is a hybrid one. The theory of motivation to achieve excellence in projects is that all employees must be aware of what they are employed for, they must be provided adequate tools to do their work, and irrespective of where they work from and how they work (whether remotely or in a physical office), they must be given freedom to innovate.

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