Concerning Management and the problem of motivation—part 1

Jim,

As usual an interesting article.

I have been through numerous training sessions that contained the "flavor of the month" management tool for motivating employees. Most have failed because someone thought that it was the only right tool. My most successful employee motivation efforts came about when I studied the individual employee and found what motivated them and then used that to achieve the needed goals.

The one that most often worked best was the honest recognition that they had done a good job. Sometimes that recognition was dollars, but more often in a fair pay for work environment it takes the form of a verbal thanks in front of their fellow employees (both peers and supervisors). I have also been known to bring in 150 Klondike bars to the back shift of an outage (and had my day shift supervisors provide them for their shift) when they had shown the initiative to far exceed expectations. A small celebration when people deserve it goes a long way.

Michael E. Higgins

St. Petersburg, Florida
USA

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Jim,

Doesn't it seem that "measurement" is synonymous with "management"?

Growing up as a farm-boy we had to learn to do everything from feeding the chickens to fixing the tractor. The ultimate manager (guess who he was) was able to measure performance and mete out appropriate praise or criticism and decide on suitable rewards or successive "promotions" because he himself had learned each process along the way. As you note, at one time this concept existed also in the paper industry. (Actually, it existed in all industries at one time.)

You are absolutely correct; to a large extent in today's world we "manage" inconsequential things like time and attendance because we lack one critical thing that allows proper "measurement" of performance: job knowledge. One of the worst things we ever did as a society 30 years ago was to teach people that you didn't need to know anything about a business in order to "manage" it. One result was a generation of accountants managing nothing but the next-quarter P&L in order to satisfy Wall-Street. We know how smart they are, don't we?

Laurence L Coulson

Knoxville, Tennessee
USA

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Concerning The Cellulose Community