Motivate Your Staff to Be Self-Motivated

Motivate Your Staff to Be Self-Motivated
(Adapted from Managing the Staff of the Local Church by David R. Pollock, Alston-Kline, 2003, p. 150-155)

 One of the challenges facing managers and leaders of faith-based organizations is how to motivate the nonprofit staff. How do you get people to work well together and do what you want them to do at the same time?  Business organizations often combine two standard approaches to motivation:

•  A system of reward, ranging from recognition to monetary compensation, and punishment, ranging from loss of esteem to loss of pay.
•   A hierarchical system in which individuals of higher authority motivate those with lesser authority to meet certain quantifiable standards or tangible objectives.

While these two motivational approaches are effective to a point, they are largely inadequate for the average FBO. For example, monetary compensation or withholding is appropriate in an organization that develops, markets and sells a product for financial gain: the more money the organization takes in, the more it can reward its employees for their profit-making efforts. Similarly, the hierarchical system works well when an organization has a production deadline or quota that provides an actual measurable goal. In a nonprofit organization whose goal is to provide resources, not products, and to improve the community, not increase profit margins, you may need to look beyond profit-oriented organizational models to find ways of motivating your staff.

Ultimately, the most effective team efforts stem not from an imposed motivational system, but from motivation initiated in the individual; in other words, from self-motivation. How does a manager or leader impose self-motivation—on a group of people employed to assist and motivate others? The following steps will help you guide your staff members toward developing their own intrinsic motivation.

1. Ask questions, and pay attention to the responses. A staff member will respond sincerely if you ask sincere questions about what motivates him or her to work enthusiastically and effectively in your organization. The fact that you actively show interest in motivating your staff members may, in turn, be a self-motivator.

2. Get real about your organization’s goals. The expectations you set for your staff should be realistic—“do-able”—and should support the organization’s mission statement.

3. Bring staff members on board by inviting them to determine which objectives must be established and met in order to accomplish each goal. This exercise accomplishes two tasks: First, it gives every staff member an applicable understanding of how his or her own staff position is valuable and necessary in the organizational structure. Second, participating in the organization’s strategic planning gives the staff a “big-picture” view of the organization’s mission and purpose. Together, these results can energize the staff and help them to get moving in the right direction.