Inner Work Life: Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance

This is an amazing bit of research - not so much for what it says, but for what it implies.

Consider this:

It may stun you, if you are a manager, to learn what power you hold. Your behavior as a manager dramatically shapes your employees’ inner work lives. But the key levers in your hands for driving motivation and performance may not be the ones you’d suspect.

At the same time, so many managers feel powerless to affect their people. So what are these "key levers...for driving motivation and performance"?

It's not mere praise. Rather - and here I'm going beyond the authors of the study - it's a combination of attention and conditional praise.

Consider these employee behaviors and manager-supplied consequences.

Behavior 1 - employee does what he believes is a good job
Behavior 2 - employee does what he believes is a mediocre job
Behavior 3 - employee does what he believes is a poor job

Consequence 1 - manager praises employee behavior
Consequence 2 - manager ignores employee behavior
Consequence 3 - manager criticizes or corrects employee behavior
Consequence 4 - manager pays neutral attention (no praise or criticism)

Here's the resulting grid:

Employee Behaviors, Manager Consequence, and Effect on Employee Motivation

	B1 Good Job	B2 OK Job	B3 Bad Job
C1 Praise	Higher motivation and performance	Lower motivation; feels manipulated	Lower motivation; feels alienated, cynical
C2 Ignore	Lower motivation; Feels neglected	Lower motivation; Feels neglected	Management are idiots; nothing I do matters
C3 Criticize or Correct	Strongly alienated; may become detached, angry	Alienated	Fair enough
C4 Neutral Attention	Okay	Positive	Management are idiots

You begin to get the idea - as a manager you can do the exact same thing, and have wildly different consequences.

In other words, praise alone is not a Golden Ticket.