The Quarterly Bonus is the Price of Entry

Many companies use bonuses as the carrot to drive performance. It makes sense. Money is the common denominator across society – we need it just about everywhere. It is also easy to compare. If you do twice as much work as I, it’s fair that you get twice the bonus.

But money is not what motivates people. It never has.

Many people take jobs or careers that don’t pay well, but wouldn’t do anything else (think teachers and nurses). At the other extreme are the high paid bankers, lawyers and investment managers that leave because they feel hallow inside. The money is great and motivated them for a while, but they weren’t fulfilled, so they take a massive pay-cut and become much happier.  It’s almost clichéd to say that money isn’t everything. And it’s not.

But it still plays an important role.

Instead of money being the carrot that drives performance it is just the price of entry you must pay to get quality staff. If you want to attract the right people you have to pay the right money. Once the right money has attracted them, it won’t motivate them to perform at a higher level than they already are. That has to come from within.

The problem is, what is within is different for everybody.

When you got out of bed this morning, what was your first thought about work? Was it the money you will earn, or was it about what you will do or achieve? Then, you were either positive, negative or neutral about what lay ahead. This gives you an indication into what does (or doesn’t) drive you within your job. This is what will motivate you.

But what comes from within is different for each person. There is no-one size-fits-all approach that you can take. That’s what makes it tough from a management perspective.

Knowing how to align individual motivators to the core drivers of business (usually profit) is what my Leadership Program is about.

The Leadership Program will show you and your staff how they can align their personal drivers with company drivers so they work together. It will show them how to identify personal goals and how they can drive their KPI’s. It will give them a structured approach to reflect on their personal belief systems so they create a winning mindset that will achieve more.

This program will take a good team and make them great. It will take a great team and make them dominant.

The typical client who brings me in manages good staff. They want to develop their intrinsic motivation so they can do more. They want to create drive that lasts longer than a quarterly bonus. They want to go into the Christmas period with a winning attitude that will last into the New Year and beyond.

If your looking to give your team a lift, to give them that extra boost, or want to deliver something different at the next conference, give me a call on 0422 670 659 and we can discuss it. Or hit reply on this e-mail and let me know.

When we are motivated from within, we lift our performance to a level that money can’t buy. It’s at this level that special things happen.