Discovering what truly motivates people

- Part of your role as a business owner and the small business as a whole is to be a motivational factor in the lives of your employees. Now when I talk about motivation I'm not talking about you necessarily becoming a motivational speaker and giving people a rah-rah speech. There's nothing wrong with that, but when I talk about motivation I'm defining it a little differently. I define motivation as something that people have inside of them already. All you need to do is help them uncover what they already have and connect their day to day activities with what they want most.

Now many business owners lean almost exclusively on money as a motivator. Money can be motivational but giving people raises, and bonuses and profit sharing is only motivational to a point. And that point is usually once their basic needs are taken care of. After that point we want to use other things to help motivate and drive employees to be excited about working in your business. Let's talk about a few documents that you can use to help people become more motivated.

First, our company vision and company values. By company vision I mean that you describe, in as much detail as possible, a destination in the future where your business is headed. What will your business look like five years from now? This company vision is a motivational document because it lets people see that they're a part of something. That this business is going places. And everyone wants to be a part of something that's becoming bigger, becoming greater every single day.

On the other side we have company values. Company values are statements of principle. The way in which you as a business owner and the individuals that work in the business operate. Company values are motivational because they provide principles and guiding factors that allow your people to become a team. It helps create culture within your small business. Now we also have personal vision and personal values. These are documents that your employees will want to create individually.

You don't necessarily tell them what those are but you can encourage them to create those documents. A personal vision statement is essentially saying where I want my life to be five years from now. It doesn't need to be as detailed as a company vision. Just a few sentences will do. And personal values are the things in which I believe. They're the principles that guide me as an individual. When you as a manager can help people identify those and make connections between the work they're doing day in and day out with what they really believe in and want most, that's extremely motivational.

It's also motivational when people can see progress day in and day out toward achieving those visions and living those values. Now there's one more document that we can look at which is a company cause. This is a statement of the cause that we believe in and support. I'm speaking in particular about charitable causes or other projects that we work in that do good things in the world. For instance, we may choose a cause that's related directly to our business.

Like a dentist providing free dental service in a third world country. Or it may be something that we're passionate about and we just want to support such as donating to breast cancer. Regardless of the cause that you choose having a cause is incredibly motivational. Not only that, but it builds a sense of teamwork and closeness amongst your employees when they work and serve that cause together. I recommend that you take a little bit of time and schedule it in your calendar to work on these documents.

To sketch out a company vision and values and to think about what your company cause might be. Just get a first rough draft and then over time refine it and move it closer toward a completed document that you're comfortable sharing with your employees and sharing with the world. These documents can help become a motivational factor for the business as a whole and in the individual lives of the employees who get to work for you.