Last night's boyz' night out (tm) discussion panel topic over drinks is given all the guys/gals in your shop have the same level of competency, how the manager able to raise the productivity of everyone, to the top performer.

It is acknowledged that the top performer in the case likely is putting more efforts into work such as overtime and etc.

So, the real question seem to be how to motivate your stuff to put in 110% of their effort.....

The discussion brought up the usual suspects; money, woman (ok.... maybe it only works for me), responsibility/ownership, the sense of achievement/pride, etc and blah.

It is agreed that no one factor is able to motivate every person, Money works for this person, may have no effect on others. It is on a person-to-person cases that what ticks him/her will motivate them to work for you.

There might be stretch goal that the manager can put on the people to squeeze that extra performance out of the stuff. But there seem to be no surefire way to do that.

It has been expressed that it may not be realistic/able to raise the productivity in this case, since you will always failed on those that with difference priority in life.

But can we do better in this scenario? My brain is mostly shutdown after 23:00 for this kind of question, so here's my delayed reaction.

One thing should pointed out (and is already did during the discussion) first is no 2 persons are on the same skill level. It makes the question somewhat flawed that it is not recognizing that there are stars in each team, and there are low(er) performers. We may not be able to raise everyone's performance to that level if the star is a smart-ass workaholic that has no life so that he/she can bring that level of performance. So, the level you're trying to raise you team to may not be realistic. All the traditional thinking probably applies if it is not because of this.....

So, back to the question. Can we motivate any one? (I think this is the real question) The answer I believed is a marginal yes.

To some extend, you can motivate any one, at long as you know how they tick. e.g. To someone that just want to fill their 8 hours "shift" and go take care of family or have fun. We might be able to motivate them for a short term that if they see by giving that 110% that they will gain more time/reward/satisfaction to take care their family or fun, might that be more overtime after putting the kids to bed, work like a Einstein so one achieve Zen and Guru performance during their 8 hours work day. In other words, some goal/hope to drive them forward. Simple Psychology.

I still remembered the 40 hours overtime days I did this time last year. Why I put in those hours so I can pull things in and improve that already late progress? more vacation for this year! and I tick on that.

But this is not going to work in the long run. Period. You're basically baiting them and once they realized he/she no longer getting more out of the 110% effort. They stop givng you more. It just human nature. Also, you're risking burning them out. Remember, afterburner makes you go mach 3, but it might also shorten your engine's life.

On the same line, my project is winding down now and I put in zero overtime now. Why? I don't see a reason for doing that. In addition, all the problems that come my way drag me down so I go back to the 100%, not 120% I used to put in.

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[announcer voice on]This boyz' night out event is sponsored by nOoNe. nOoNe, the biggest name in town.[announcer voice off]

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