ICEinLAVA's Domain

Editor’s Note: this is the second half of a two-series installment. Last month we looked at hiring and training issues.

Bill Robison, president of Great Lakes Sound, is passionate about his people.”Our people are everything,” he asserts emphatically. It’s something we hear all the time in this business, and those who are successful know that it’s true. So once we hire the right people, we have to keep them motivated, and we have to keep them from leaving the nest.

The Big "Mo"

How motivated our people are in the field, in the warehouse, on the phone and at the client meetings determines our success. So how do you do it? If you think it’s cold, hard cash, you’re wrong. By a lot. Frederick Herzberg, a professor of psychology who studied motivation for decades, found that achievement, recognition, work itself and responsibility are the top four motivators. Even with the list of factors that lead to extreme dissatisfaction, salary is fifth. “Cash will always be a major factor in employee motivation and a solid compensation plan is absolutely critical to attract and keep good personnel,” says Dave Worman, author of Motivating Without Money. “But the point to remember is that money is not the only answer and in many cases is not even the best solution for keeping your employees motivated.”

Todd Mitchell, VP of Great Lakes Sound, says that they make a conscious effort to keep their employees happy. “We work a lot of hours—we have to—but we give our employees the tools they need to complete the job. They get to have input, they contribute to designing a system, and we give them perks whenever we can.” This can mean if a gig involves a long drive, paying for a hotel so their co-worker can relax and get a good night’s rest rather than drive all morning, work all day and night, and drive back into the wee hours of the next day.

Yet the first step to creating a highly motivated workforce is taking a look in the proverbial mirror. Are you highly motivated? “Our employees know we’re willing to do anything we are asking them to do,” Robison says. “We’re in the trenches with them.

And I’m above board—they know I can’t pay them UAW union wages, but by being honest about it and direct, people respond to that, and respect it.”

Show your motivation by talking about your vision. If you’re excited about a new line array you’re investing in, make sure everyone else in the organization knows why it’s great. If you’re excited about a new segment of the market you’re trying to break into, make sure everyone from your second-in-command to the person who answers the phone part-time is equally enthused. Bill Schwartz, a frequent lecturer on this topic for Fortune 500 companies, stresses that it is consistent, frequent feedback that leads to high-performance employees, but that it must come from a person the employee trusts. It’s not about being liked—that’s as easy as bringing in a box of Krispy Kremes. It’s about being acutely aware that when your authority, respect and position as coach, mentor, team leader and benevolent dictator is compromised in any way, so is your ability to fire up the troops.

“It’s important to remember that, one way or the other, you’re going to affect your employees’ motivation to perform,” say Anne Bruce and James Pepitone, authors of Motivating Employees and consultants to Disney and Southwest Airlines, among other very motivated places known for lean salaries. “Often managers are nearly oblivious to this fact. But if you understand and acknowledge this reality, then you can act in ways that positively affect their motivation to perform at higher levels and work more effectively with others.”

More Feedback in the Monitor, Please

This kind of feedback is a good thing. Schwartz’s rules for feedback include:

Feedback must be frequent. When you increase the frequency, you increase the performance. It can’t be once in a while, or just when you think of it, or—worst of all and way too prevalent—that dreadful once-a-year salary review.

Feedback must be consistent. Inconsistent feedback is confusing and leads to frustration and lower performance, while consistent feedback leads to trust and integrity.

Feedback must focus on behavior. Let’s not get personal. Focus on what the employee is working toward accomplishing.

Feedback must be specific. A “great job, keep it up,” muttered haphazardly as you’re walking out the door is not going to cut it. In fact, that sort of general comment can make things worse. It must be, “I liked how you let the client blow off steam at you without you arguing back, and then quickly took care of the problem by doing X, Y and Z.”

For Bruce and Pepitone, motivation is first and foremost “intrinsic—it’s inside of us. We feel a desire to drive to do something, and we behave in ways to accomplish that.” Our motivation is affected by external factors, factors that include rewards, recognition, bonuses, promotions and most of all, praise. We’re lucky in that many employees are also musicians who would rather be around guitars and amps than pushing paper in some Dilbert-esque cubicle. (Or as Robison puts it, they have been “bit by the bug.”)

So when we talk about motivating employees, we’re really trying to help them make that connection between their inner drives to fulfill their personal needs and what that might mean in terms of working hard and smart on the job. When employees identify their own welfare with that of their employer, they’ll naturally work harder. And they will stay around longer—hopefully for the entire life of your company. But that’s not to say that money isn’t important, something Robison is crystal clear on: “This is my philosophy, and most business people would disagree with it,” he says. “The conventional wisdom is pay yourself first. I don’t believe that. Take the best care of your employees and pay them first. They are crucial and I want them to know that.” He also provides them health insurance (increasingly difficult in these times), vacation and even a retirement plan, something that it too often lacking in this industry.

Robison and Mitchell also wisely look |for opportunities to do what the experts might call “team building” activities—although to them, it’s just shutting down the joint and taking everybody to a theme park and riding roller coasters. But it’s all part of the mix. “I’m not easy to work for—I’m a pain in the ass sometimes,” Robison admits. “I’m very demanding. But they respect that, and there’s mutual respect.”

“You’re Fired”

Despite the glee a certain New Yorker with bad hair seems to have while firing people on his unscripted show, letting an employee go, no matter what the circumstances are, is emotional and legally very dirty work. “I’ve had to fire about three people in my life and it’s not fun,” Robison understates. In one instance it was because of the ugly issue of theft, and it was a major problem. Another was grayer: “One person worked in our office for a number of years, was very nice, very generous, but did not grow with the company and was laid off.

Professional HR people say that not only did Robison do the right thing for his company, but he did the right thing for the person in question: if he’s not growing with the company, then it’s likely he’s just in the wrong place. In other words, if you’re having heartache about letting a kind, decent person go, take solace in that you’re likely holding him (or her) back by keeping him on in a position where he can’t reach his potential.

These times, though, it’s serious business to fire someone. “You better get a file on them, review them on a quarterly basis, cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i,’” Robison sighs. “Do I do all that? Not right now. I don’t have an HR department. We do so much, yet there is so much more to do.”

Alluding to a situation where he wished he had done more, Robison says only: “I will simply say that I had no thoughts about it until the papers arrived, and I’ll leave it at that.”

“In this day, there are a lot of lawyers out there looking to make an easy buck,” Mitchell adds. “But as long as you’re above board, you’re fine.”

Mitchell points out that early in his career, he felt he was certainly a candidate for termination: “I’ve made mistakes estimating a job, and not just a few dollars—I’m talking $5,000, $6,000 off,” he admits. “Robison could have fired me right then but he didn’t.”

That know-when-to-hold-’em, know-when-to-fold-’em instinct is crucial, and obviously in this case, it certainly worked out in the long run for Great Lakes.