Mind Tools for Managers

Chapter 9Understand and Motivate Other People

An increasingly popular way of defining management is “enabling people to do their best work.” According to this worldview, a good boss is someone who creates a work environment where people feel highly motivated and contribute to the best of their ability.

How do you create this type of positive, high-energy work environment? The starting point is to put yourself in the shoes of your employees – so that you can understand their fears and concerns, their interests and needs. Most people want to do a good job in the workplace, and to a large extent, your role as their boss is to take obstacles out of the way and give them the space they need. Of course, as a boss, you also have to manage poor performance and bad behavior, but managing these types of difficult situations is the focus of a later chapter. In this chapter, we emphasize the positive – and even inspiring – ways you can help your people to do their best work.

Unfortunately, it's quite hard to create this type of positive working environment. Managers often find it difficult to get their team members to open up about their challenges and concerns. Often, they are so overwhelmed with tasks and with trying to keep their own bosses happy that they struggle to give their own people the attention they need. Another mistake is to adopt a “one-size-fits-all” approach to managing people, which works well for some but not for others.

This chapter provides several techniques and frameworks ...