Episode 25: Team Motivation
Who would you pick to create a resource that has become a part of our digital, cultural fabric? Seventy non-employees or a tech stalwart with resources up the wazoo on the same mission? Join Doug and Glenn as they talk about that epic battle and about the critical role meaning, momentum and making sure each player on your team knows their role in winning your battles in this behemoth episode of Conversations on Startups.
Transcript
Glenn Suart 0:00
But they’ll take less if they know there’s some long term aspect to this or fulfills these other intrinsic needs that they have. So the challenge for any startup is to understand what you’re really doing and what motivates your employees or the employees you want to have.
Doug Ross 0:29
Welcome to Conversations on Startups, a podcast brought to you by Douglas Ross, author of the book, Spark Click Go: How to Bring Your Creative Business Idea to Life, and Glenn Suart, of Today’s Great Idea, a radio series featuring over 300 origin stories of businesses, brands and inventions that have changed the culture. Welcome to today’s conversation.
Glenn Suart 0:52
Hi and welcome to Conversations on Startups. I’m Glenn Suart, and my partner in crime, Doug.
Doug Ross 0:58
Hey, Glenn. Doug here, Doug Ross. Glad to be here. So Glenn, we’re going to talk about team motivation today for startups – obviously critical. How do we make sure that everybody is motivated?
Glenn Suart 1:16
It’s a great question. The first thing is you just pay the money. That’s all you need to do.
Doug Ross 1:21
Yes, just pay them money. Yeah, that’ll do it.
Glenn Suart 1:24
That is the wrong answer. You gotta really understand how people individually react to stuff. And you have to think about what matters to them both intrinsically, inside, and extrinsically. And when I say that, extrinsic motivation – outside motivation – is exactly that. You get paid a commission, you do something… something to… to motivate you to do something. But intrinsic motivation is about the inside. You’re doing it because you love doing it. Or you’re getting something else – personal satisfaction – out of what you’re doing. The trick is figuring out how to use BOTH effectively and not to use it the wrong way such that you use the wrong extrinsic motivation. You pay people commission to do one thing, but it’s actually not the thing you need them to do, unintentionally. Those are the some of my initial thoughts. What do you think about when it comes to team motivation?
Doug Ross 2:23
Well, are you saying that if you paid people double what the guy around the corner paid that wouldn’t work for motivation? If we… if we push you to the extreme.
Glenn Suart 2:33
I say, yeah, it may not work. You might not get the results you’re looking for. You might get somebody who might do something well, in the short term, because they’re getting paid extra but they might suddenly jump ship if they get something else to do. So you got to be very careful in understanding what motivates people. Because it’s not just one thing.
Doug Ross 2:57
Well, and I love that you said motivates people because there are the sort of… the two levels. One being the team level or everybody that’s working in the company and that’s what we were focusing on today. So if we were to do that, that kind of implies there are certain things that we’ve gotta make sure are right over and above the compensation. And we did have a prior episode on how to pay people which included the cash plus some kind of [yep] maybe a stock incentive or something else, or bonus or profit sharing. But on those other factors that really bring people to want to be a part of your mission and hit that inside-out – that intrinsic part that you talked about – what are the levers? What can we do to make sure that we are providing the right things, the right kind of motivations to people.
Glenn Suart 3:52
One of the easiest thing is to understand right off the bat whether you’re doing it already or not. And by knowing for example, Are you attracting people to your operation? Or are you finding that you’re having people leave your operation? That tells you right there whether you have the kind of motivation for people that they’re looking for. If you’ve got a lot of people leaving your operation, something’s wrong.
Doug Ross 4:18
Great idea. And I like the… the flip side of that, that you just mentioned as well, recruitment. If you put an ad in for your… your startup, do people flock to you or not? Do you really have to go the extra mile to recruit. Could be that you’re just not known at all [Yep]… could be that you’re not messaging correctly, or you’re not getting out to people in the right way whether that be [thru a] simple ad on Craigslist, or… or something on Reddit or somewhere else, and you’re not getting the response. I love that, Glen, that’s a great place to start. And of course, you’ve got a good idea of that… just sort of… most startups are pretty small, not all, but most are pretty small, and you’ve got a good idea of what your inflow and outflow is.
Ben 4:24
You’re listening to Conversations on Startups with Doug and Glenn, thanks for joining us.
Glenn Suart 5:15
Lots of companies think that, especially small startups, that… that culture is [so] important. So for example, they have beer on Friday or ping pong tables in the office that type of thing – that makes sense. [Sure]. But if you are not living what you’re saying, if you actually discourage people from using the ping pong table because they should be working, it’s a big problem right there. You gotta think about all these things together. It doesn’t have to be some huge analysis but it’s gotta feel right. And I think most employees would tell you whether… what they like about your place, what they don’t like, if you really ask them. And it’s easy to study some good companies as well because there’s lots of good examples out there about how people – how companies do exactly what you’re talking about. What attracts people, make sure they feel comfortable, you don’t have to pay them a lot of money if they want to be there for other reasons. Like, it’s hard to remember but Google started out and one of the things that they started out with was a mantra as part of their core values which they shared with people, was, Don’t be evil. So they were positioning themselves as the anti-Microsoft at that point ’cause Microsoft was so big. And that was part of the motivation to join Google. Plus it was very successful and going places. But they really talked about stuff that mattered to them. And that’s what I think any small startup can do, is share the values you want. Because people want to work with a company they’re proud of no matter how much they get paid.
Doug Ross 6:46
Yeah, I love that. The values and anything you can do to talk about the benefits that you’re bringing to the end user… just benefits in general of your company existing – make sure you’re articulating that. It’s the… that old, sort of, story, which is, What are you doing here? You ask the stonemason, and he could say, oh, God, I’m lugging X number of stones over here, I’m having to cut them, shape them before I lug them over here and another guy cements them in place. Versus, Oh, yeah, actually I’m building a cathedral. And I think that’s the kind of thing you need to do as a startup founder… is, you need to paint that picture, why you exist? What is it that you’re trying to build and how is it going to benefit people going forward. So it could be, They’re gonna have a longer, better life – if you work in healthcare, which I do a lot. It could be, people are going to enjoy their life more if you work in an area… like… that sells recreational equipment or something like that, or if you’ve got entertainment. Whatever it is, you just kind of have to get them beyond feeling like a cog in the wheel. Nobody wants to feel that way.
Glenn Suart 8:03
Exactly. Okay. So I’ve got an example for you. You guess which businesses I’m talking about here?
Doug Ross 8:11
Okay.
Glenn Suart 8:11
Think back to the mid 2000s and who would you have bet on? Would you have bet on Microsoft, which had a new division that had a billion dollars behind it? Of course. They had people everywhere, they had networks everywhere to distribute this particular product. Or on the flip side, would you’ve bet on seventy volunteers who worked together to create something very similar to what Microsoft was trying to create? I think, you know, it’s kind of a leading question so you know what the story is probably. Any idea what I’m talking about first, before I… there’s no clues there… there are very few clues there.
Doug Ross 8:50
Yeah. So well, as far as who I would pick in that I would pick the smaller group, for a lot of reasons. I just think smaller teams are… tend to be better at innovation. So I think that’s one thing. And as far as what this actually was, I should have a decent insight because I just heard the… the new or the current CEO of Microsoft was talking about something like this on Scale UP by Reid Hoffman, which is a podcast. [Masters of Scale is the correct name of the podcast] [Yeah] What the hell was he talking about? It might have been a search engine. It might have been like a cloud… putting all of their programs in the cloud. [No] Either of those, Glenn?
Doug Ross 8:50
No, it’s something… no, but it’s something that virtually everyone uses – you and I – virtually every day.
Doug Ross 9:03
Smartphone?
Glenn Suart 9:10
No. What Microsoft was trying to create was an online encyclopedia called Encarta. Oh, and they spent a billion dollars etc, etc. And it was the seventy volunteers who started Wikipedia to create the same thing but better and, you know, of course, after a few years, Microsoft packed it in… after billions spent… and they incented their people, they did all the right things, you know, they were trying to do something cool. But they didn’t understand team motivation. With Wikipedia, you had evangelists essentially working together to create something – not without conflict, I’m sure – but they were able to create and build something and get people excited to contribute. And it costs money to run Wikipedia, it’s not for free. But they do it through donations and others… but they get most of their manpower from volunteers who want to be participating in something spectacular and helping the world be a better place. And when you were in Encarta division, and you were in the smallest of all the Microsoft divisions, it was probably looked on as being the dead end of Microsoft. So that from a motivation point of view, you weren’t too excited, – you’re getting paid well, I’m sure – but they weren’t doing it for the right reasons, necessarily. They were doing it to make money. And the people there. Yeah, it was a challenge. And they couldn’t get this volunteer model together very well. Long story short, to me, that’s the classic story of motivation and team motivation… at an extreme. If you could get your people to be excited about where you’re going, what you’re doing, and they want to get paid well, as best as possible, for sure. But they’ll take less if they know there’s some long term aspect to this or fulfills these other intrinsic needs that they have. So the challenge for any startup is to understand what you’re really doing and what motivates your employees or the employees you want to have.
Doug Ross 11:40
Hey podcast listeners, we’re gonna take a short break now. If you’re enjoying the show, feel free to invite your friends, remember to subscribe, and if you want to help spread the word leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Each episode of Conversations on Startups focuses on a single topic. If you want to comment on something you’ve heard on the podcast, or suggest a topic for us to cover in a future episode, send an email to: go@todaysgreatidea.com or douglas@sparkclickgo.com. Glenn and I appreciate you and hope you find our uncut and unrehearsed stories, perspectives, and tips helpful. Speaking of helpful stuff-let’s pick up where we left off.
Doug Ross 12:26
I love that, Glenn, that’s really a good overview… figuring out what people want and you just described a lot of things there in terms of a sense of belonging… is something that you brought up there. And people definitely want to feel that if you look around so many people are expressing that in different ways. But they want to belong to something that they feel a kinship with. So no question.
Glenn Suart 12:51
Very much so.
Doug Ross 12:52
We did these exercises recently – this was with the consulting work that I do with a… with a company – and we asked people [to] Think about a time you were on a team that you enjoyed, that you really enjoyed – could be a sports team, could be a team at business, any kind of team that you were on. And some of the answers we heard were things like: I felt like my voice was heard. I felt valued. I knew what my job was. Everybody knew what their job was, we had each other’s back. This kind of thing came up from people reflecting on the kind of team experiences they had had. That they really thought were fantastic. And these teams were successful, of course, so… [yeah] so there’s that element too. So I think if you are the business leader here you have got to be asking yourself, Are you creating that type of environment, where people are the right people, which you also mentioned, Glenn – you had a lot in that last sort of section – [yep] but the right people are feeling all of these things? Are you creating an environment for success? And then people want to feel that you’ve got some momentum going. So how do you do that? If I think back to a startup that I was part of in California, one of the best things to hear was… – and it was usually from the founder but not always – was some kind of good news. We would have weekly check-ins. It’s kind of a standard pattern for startups, especially agile startups. And it would be just so great to have these good news stories. They didn’t have to be big – obviously the bigger the better – but if they were in the direction of something we were aiming toward, these things were like gold. Oh, we just signed on a new partner as an example. Oh, we just were accepted at such and such accelerator, whatever the things were… little indicators that we’re building success. Golden. Just fantastic.
Glenn Suart 15:00
When I hear you talking about that, it strikes me that motivation – team motivation – is all about communication. And not just one way communication. But good two way communication from the top down, as it were just like… just like you were talking about, but from the bottom up… that management’s willing to listen, to see how to do things better… and… instead of just telling their employees to do things. So if you… if you can open your communication, that’s your first and foremost, most likely, success point is… to motivate people just listen and communicate both ways. That’s what I heard.
Doug Ross 15:38
Well, we… here’s a source for you. This sort of phrase came up, which is a riff on the startup idea of having a minimally viable product. But it’s not that, it’s best available idea. And this was Mike Myers. So a fellow Canadian. [Yeah] He was referring to this on something I heard recently. I think it was on a podcast as well. Smartless. Anyway, if you had a problem, it wasn’t about the head person coming up with the solution, it’s Let’s brainstorm… hey, what’s the best available idea here in terms of a solution. And that hits on that listening to everybody and then going with some of these on occasion, I think that really helps people to feel part of that team and to feel listened to. I think there’s a few other basics, Glenn, that people need to really feel well prepared to… to perform. So they need to know their role. It’s got to be clear, What is their role? [Yep] They’ve got to be given the tools to do that job. They’ve got to be given feedback on whether they’re reaching that and they also need to see… they want to be held accountable. People don’t want to be part of a place just because it has a pool table and whatever else and they can slack off, no one wants to do that. They want to be held accountable. They want to be doing their part. And they want to see that others [who] are not doing their part are not tolerated.
Glenn Suart 17:08
Excellent. That’s exactly a very good point. One bad apple spoils the bunch. That probably a good analogy right there. Nothing discourages a team or others more than to see that a business tolerating someone who is disrupting… people can be disruptive in a good way – but in a way that’s detrimental to the culture or discourages people from trying their best. Some of the best bosses [I]’ve ever had, the best places I’ve ever been, is where my boss encouraged and supported me to do and make mistakes. We all want… that’s a great environment. If you can create that – and invariably, there will be mistakes – but you want a team, that’s… if they’re motivated to try their best, they’re going to work hard. And if they know they’ve got the support behind them, it’s great.
Doug Ross 17:58
I think you’re going to see innovation rise in the proportion to the degree to which that’s tolerated. If it’s not tolerated, you’re going to end up with a conservative culture and that’s not going to serve you well as a startup. Maybe as an insurance company that kind of culture could be okay. But just coming back, briefly, to your point about the pool tables and the popcorn and the TGIF. I think that stuff is good – and who wouldn’t want to join a company that’s fun? [Yep] But [you] just have to be careful on a couple of fronts. [Well], one is that the other guy down the corner can do that. And a lot of startups just mimic that. But the deeper sort of cultural element is, Am I delivering the types of programs that really meet needs that employees have? So the big one right now is people want to work hard, and they love to be part of something successful, but they don’t want to give over their entire life.
Glenn Suart 19:04
That’s right.
Doug Ross 19:04
And especially Millennials, but it’s hitting everywhere. So if you do not have programs that are going to, again, allow the right types of employees that you want to feel that they can work in the way they want to work with your organization, you’re just going to have a ton of problems on the recruiting side and the retaining side. So you’ve gotta, yeah sure, have the pool table, have the popcorn, but what are your meaningful policies that people truly value?
Glenn Suart 19:38
Yep. 100%. We could go on and on here. One thing… I’m wondering if you thought about it is… because some businesses… ’cause we’re talking about small startups that generally don’t have the ability to create their work environment – like the physical space.
Doug Ross 19:53
True.
Glenn Suart 19:54
But do you think physical space has an impact on motivation.
Doug Ross 19:58
I think it does. Yeah. Once you have a place, a physical place, yes, I do think… I’m a big believer in ergonomics and the way that things are set up. Is it an open environment or not – just physically from the layout? Do you have portioned off, offices? Or do you have more open areas? Do you have… have glass instead of drywall? Things like this. I think areas where people can go and change things up a bit, get away from a desk, be in a comfortable area, some stand up area, some area where people don’t own the space all the time – that sort of hotelling concept. I really do believe in all of that. And then on top of that, if you can put that in a location that people are going to enjoy, that’s even better. You know, you can try and lock them away so that when they’re at work there’s nothing else they can do or get to. But I think people would enjoy an area with a few amenities they can just walk to. Make it sort of part of their work, I think is… [Yeah] is ideal in many cases – not in all cases. But yeah, I’m a big believer on the physical sides of things – architecture and interior space usage. Yes, I’m a big believer in that.
Ali 21:20
You’re listening to Conversations on Startups with Doug and Glenn, merci pour nous avoir joindre.
Glenn Suart 21:29
To me it’s a no brainer. The motivation is understanding all the levers you can push and pull for people to make sure that they feel inspired and want to be there every day. Twenty years ago – doing a lot of work in 3D and other technologies for Hollywood stuff – and we spent a lot of time looking at how some companies were building and doing things. And one company was a disaster, they spent all their money on cars and computers… and they went bankrupt pretty quick. The other company, it was very interesting, was how Pixar… their building in California… and they specifically designed it so that they had… you entered at the main entrance and if you turned right they had this… the cafeteria and they had the mailroom there because they didn’t want to deliver mail internally. And then left, if you went [left], it was a hallway – three stories tall, I believe – and it just went down. And the idea was to force everybody in the company, whether you’re the janitor or the president to funnel through the main entrance on the way to the cafeteria and the mailroom so that people interacted together. And of course, they backed it up with, If you want to learn animation, there’s courses every day, so that people felt they weren’t higher or lower, they were all part of the same team just doing a different role to succeed and create these wonderful movies that they do. So the physical space was very important to them. But of course you have a couple of billion dollars you can do that kind of thing. For small startups, think about where you’re locating and, you know, what kind of space it is and how big is it? Is it airy? Or is it cramped? Little things like that, it all should be part of the vision. But the vision should be coherent, and well thought through.
Doug Ross 23:22
Very nice. Well said, Glenn.
Glenn Suart 23:24
This is a great thing, motivation, I love motivation. It’s… it’s a great thing to think about. Any last thoughts, Doug?
Doug Ross 23:31
I think we covered a lot of items there. You started by saying you should figure out where you are now. I like that thinking… and that makes a hell of a lot of sense. And we can all do better if we’re the founder, if we’re part of that leadership team, whatever it is. There are a lot of levers I think was a theme here in our episode, many more beyond the pay part of it. [Yep] Which is an important part but all of these other extrinsic [and intrinsic] levers that we can pull are extremely important. So I think that’s fantastic, Glenn. What are we going to talk about next time?
Glenn Suart 24:14
Well that’s a great question. I haven’t given any thought at the moment. I’m sure you have though. What did you think about?
Doug Ross 24:20
Well, we have the Great Restart.
Glenn Suart 24:25
Oh, yes, right.
Doug Ross 24:26
It was suggested by one of our listeners and I think it’s really a good topic because for the most part we talk about brand new companies – or fairly early in their lifetime sort of companies – but given what’s happened in the world many companies should be thinking about How do they restart given how different the world is now? So how ’bout we tackle that one?
Glenn Suart 24:54
Sounds good. Basically, how do you restart your business in a world that’s changed and continues to change? So that’s great. I’m looking forward to that. Well, Doug, another great conversation. I’m Glenn Suart in Calgary.
Doug Ross 25:07
And I’m Doug Ross coming from Phoenix, Arizona today. Thanks, Glenn. Talk to you next time.
Glenn Suart 25:13
Bye.
Doug Ross 25:23
Conversations on Startups is a production of Glenn Suart and Douglas Ross. We hope you’re having fun listening but mostly that you take action on your business idea. For more inspiration visit our websites: todaysgreatidea.com and sparkclickgo.com. Another episode of Conversations on Startups will drop soon, or is already available to binge. Thanks for joining us, and remember to subscribe and invite your friends. See ya next time!
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