Turning A Sloth Into A Racecar - Motivating the Unmotivated

Is your team member about as motivated as a sloth on a Monday morning? Are they missing deadlines, ignoring tasks, and not meeting the needs of the position? Fear not, because below you will learn some tips on how to motivate your slacker employee.

Why Might Someone Be Underperforming?

There are multiple reasons a person may be unmotivated. Understanding the root cause may help you find the magic key to unlocking their true potential. WARNING: Don’t take this part lightly and it may get personal. The root cause may be due to your management of the person, the team, or a situation. Let’s explore some causes from the easiest to unpack to the hardest.

First Step - Be Curious

The first thing you should always do for all the potential root causes is to start by being curious. Notice that the work hasn’t been getting done and ask what is going on. Don’t be aggressive. Don’t be accusatory. Just be curious. You’d be surprised how honest people can be if they feel you care and want to help. A simple question like “tell me what you think may be impeding your progress?” or “what do you think we can do to get this done?” goes miles in getting to the root cause. Radical Candor, covered in this blog post, is important here. Also guidance from the book "Change Your Questions, Change Your Life" by Marilee Adams is immeasurably helpful.

Root Causes and Solutions

Your curiosity may uncover a number of root causes, all listed below with possible solutions. Let's start with,...

They Don’t Know How And Are Afraid To Ask For Help

It is possible that they were assigned a task outside of their comfort zone and due to their own saboteurs, they are afraid to ask for help. They may be an overachiever and feel that admitting they don’t know something makes them look bad. Or maybe they are a people pleaser and said yes, but don’t want to burden you with needless questions.

Solution: If, in your curiosity, you found a lack of knowledge to be the cause, the solution is likely some mentoring, whether from you or partnering them up with someone who has done this type of task or project before.

They Are In The Wrong Role

We’ve all seen it. Somebody does a good job in one role and you move them to another where they flounder. The likely explanation is that they aren’t a good match for that role. Did you put a highly driven, less detailed oriented person in a role where patience and attention to detail are important? If so, their morale quickly declines, their performance falters, and everyone is disappointed.

Solution: Evaluate the person’s strengths against the requirements of the role. If they are a mis-match, consider finding a way to support them with assistance from you or others. In sales, some people are lead generators and others are closers. Pairing a lead generator with a closer can be a perfect match.

If this doesn’t work, appeal to their larger purpose. Sometimes, employees lose motivation because they don't see the point in what they're doing. So, give them a purpose! Explain how their work fits into the bigger picture and why it matters. Let them know how their contributions are making a difference in the company or in the lives of others. It's amazing how motivating it can be to know that your work is making an impact.

They Don’t Understand Their Purpose

Sometimes, employees lose motivation because they don't see the point in what they're doing. With a lack of purpose, they will find other things to do that are seemingly more important.

Solution: Give them a purpose! Explain how their work fits into the bigger picture and why it matters. Let them know how their contributions are making a difference in the company or in the lives of others. It's amazing how motivating it can be to know that your work is making an impact.

They Are Distracted By A Stressful Situation

This is the hardest one and probably the most common. A well oiled team requires everyone to be working at their optimal levels without undue stress. The causes of this stress may be any of the following:

• Frustrated by their manager (which is you)

• Some troubles at home or in their personal life

• Difficulty with a peer

• A new policy that negatively impacts them

• Overworked / Burnt Out

This is where being a good leader is essential. If you start with being curious, you can uncover which of these may be at the root - and don’t be naive, there may be more than one. Stress causes people to behave differently than a normal good day. For some stress sends people into a low level of energy characterized by apathy. They may feel a victim to their circumstances and act accordingly. In all cases, your job is to help them get out of this stressful situation and see the world through a different lens.

Frustrated By Their Manager

This one is so multi-layered. Are you too busy to give them any guidance? Are you controlling and not giving them the freedom to do the work as they see fit? Are you setting unrealistic deadlines? Are they making assumptions about your behavior that are incorrect? In your curiosity, you can uncover these and recognize that the problem may be as much you as it is them.

Solution: Lead by example and set the tone for the team. Manage people the way they need to be managed, not the way you want to manage. Your job as a manager is to get the most out of your people. Be positive, encouraging, and supportive. Give constructive feedback and help your employees grow and develop. When employees feel like they have a good leader, they're more likely to be motivated to work hard and succeed.

Something At Home or In Their Personal Life

It’s no surprise that people going through a divorce have poor performance. Human resource professionals and business schools have done studies and crunched the numbers. According to one estimate, employee productivity goes down by 40 percent during the year and a half just before and after your divorce, and it remains lower than usual for several years after. And divorce isn’t the only personal problem. It could be an ailing family member, financial difficulties, a difficult child, etc,...

Solution: Obviously, if the problem is dire enough, a therapeutic referral may be in order. But outside of that, empathy and compassion is key. Having said that, deadlines are deadlines, so figuring out what support they need to get through their personal issues and still get the job done is important. Will taking some projects off their plate help? How about allocating time for some mindfulness or yoga? Would time off to resolve the issue help?

Difficulty With A Peer

When two people who have to work together have conflicting work styles, productivity crashes. The cause is almost always that they are seeing the world through different lenses and haven’t figured out how to explore the other person’s lens - instead judging them as deficient in some way. I worked with two people once, one of whom was an individualist who didn’t see rules in the world. They believed that “right” was what they thought was right. And their peer was someone who saw events or things as right and wrong. Let’s just say that their working relationship was severely impaired and it impacted the rest of the team’s interactions.

Solution: Help people understand the other person’s lens. Many assessments can help with this. The most obvious (but my least favorite) is Myers-Briggs. Instead, I prefer Energy Leadership Index, Predictive Index / DISC, Positive Intelligence, or Strength Finders. Lately, in my coaching practice, I am finding a great synergy between the Energy Leadership Index (ELI) and Positive Intelligence (PQ). Where the PQ helps you understand what may send them into a stressful situation and the ELI helps you understand their typical response to stress and uncover ways to move past it. The key to all of these is that recognizing and naming the root cause helps people get past it.

A New Policy That Negatively Impacts Them

Hybrid work. Remote work. Back to office. We’re all going through it right now. At first it was remote work and people with young children at home were highly stressed. Now that we have all gotten used to remote work, it’s some form of back to the office. This is but one example of a corporate policy that can impact work performance. Others include policies around your appearance such as facial hair or tattoos, that require participation without compensation, switching technology that they depend on, etc,...

Solution: Recognize that change is hard. Do NOT underestimate the importance of thinking through the change management techniques to reduce the stress and resistance to the new policy. Provide transition time. Have grace and empathy. Communicate frequently and openly. Don’t forget about the WIFMs (What’s in it for me). If people can see the benefit of the change, they are more likely to accept it with less stress.

Overworked / Burnout

Usually this occurs because of a personal saboteur. Maybe the employee is a people pleaser and can’t say no. Or perhaps a stickler attempting to achieve perfection thus taking way more time than necessary. Or maybe a controller and can’t delegate. Whatever the cause, the result is stress and over time productivity suffers.

Solution: This is a lengthy topic and I would suggest reading this blog post to learn more about how to set boundaries to avoid burnout.

Some Other Tips

Here are some other tips that could be useful in the right circumstances

Try Bribery

Let's be honest, who doesn't love a good bribe? Offer your employee a reward for completing a task or project. It could be something as simple as a gift card or as extravagant as a company trip to Hawaii (okay, maybe not that extravagant). But whatever it is, make sure it's something they want and that it's worth their effort. After all, if they're going to work harder, they deserve a little something-something.

Make work fun

Work doesn't have to be all boring and serious. Inject some fun into it! Create a friendly competition, have a team building activity, or even just decorate the office with some silly decorations. When employees are having fun, they're more likely to be motivated and engaged.

Get to know them

People are more motivated when they feel like they're a part of something. So, get to know your employees! Learn about their hobbies, their families, and their interests. When they feel like they're part of a team, they're more likely to be motivated to work harder.

In Conclusion

Motivating an unmotivated employee isn't rocket science, it just takes a little diagnosis, effort and creativity. So, get out there and start motivating!