Motivating People: A Psychologist’s Perspective Richard Kwiatkowski Steve Macaulay The state of morale and motivation in many companies is giving managers cause for concern. Has psychology anything to add and contribute to getting out of this? Today Richard Kwiatkowski is in the studio and we are going to ask a psychologist what he thinks. Now, Richard, let’s look at this situation from a morale, from a motivation point of view. How do you see it? Richard Kwiatkowski Well it’s a difficult time and it is an anxiety provoking time for a lot of managers and for a lot of people in organisations, particularly if the downturn has hit their sector or hit their organisation. So there is a lot of stuff going on in people across the organisation, and as leadership is distributed across organisations more, so more people are affected. Steve Macaulay So, they are affected by it; what is your diagnosis from a psychologist’s perspective? Richard Kwiatkowski If you are feeling anxious yourself, it is very difficult to provide some of the leadership that people want. And it is very important in difficult times to keep employees engaged, to keep people understanding what the organisation is about, what you are doing, what the direction is. And you really can’t over‐communicate, particularly for people who are senior and the people who know about the strategy, who know about the plans, who have an idea about the way forward. Sometimes they forget that other people don’t know; they are not privy to some of those things and so actually providing that information, providing a sense of integrity and openness so that we are in this together – some sense of solidarity – is very important. Steve Macaulay Some people would say, look we are in the middle of recession, it’s a crisis; we have all got to shoulder this. Richard Kwiatkowski Well, to some extent that’s right. The evidence is that people acquire some meaning from work; people will identify themselves with the sort of jobs they do and the professions they are in and even the organisations that they belong to. And if someone is proud to work for an organisation and that’s a powerful brand say, it makes a difference to how engaged they are with that organisation. But again, it means that the loss of that identity can be more frightening. Knowledge Interchange Online© Cranfield University December 2009 1 Richard Kwiatkowski
Steve Macaulay So the worry is that people are saying budgets are reduced, the future looks uncertain, maybe there is redundancies on the horizon; and the managers are saying, look I understand all these things, I know people are anxious, but what do you expect me to do about it? Now, I think you have suggested one area, which is communication, is there anything else that you can suggest from your perspective? Richard Kwiatkowski People like to be engaged at work, they like to be challenged, they like to be rewarded and in times when you can’t reward people financially – you can’t give bonuses and so forth with a lot of organisations – just acknowledging their contribution, treating them with respect, helping them to know that what they are doing matters is extremely helpful. So on one hand that is one side of it. The other side of it is that a lot of managers will need to try to contain some of that anxiety to stop it from being debilitating, while at the same time acknowledging that it is actually going on. And so for people in organisations, peer support becomes important; somewhere to talk about those things, somewhere to get a perspective and think about what is really going on. And in the case of the worst case scenario, to plan that such that people aren’t damaged too much. Obviously giving bad news or making redundancies is difficult for anybody. Steve Macaulay Is there any way that you can put some energy back into an organisation, if you are a psychologist? If you are seeing things and you have got that background and insight, what could you do? Richard Kwiatkowski I think it is very much about the organisation working together, and actually there is quite a bit of evidence that if there is an external enemy or something is threatening a group of people, that group will combine together with a feeling of solidarity, with a feeling of energy and will work hard in order to stave off that threat. And if as a manager you are able to do that, to get that sense of we are in this together, rather than an us and them, that can very much help people as though they are engaged, that their contribution is valued and there is some hope there, rather than the sort of learned helplessness of listening to the headlines or media views. Because we know that actually some organisations continue to do quite well; some sectors are more badly hit than others. © Cranfield University December 2009 2 Richard Kwiatkowski
And yes, there is a recession, and that is a reality, but nevertheless on the whole most people still have some way of making a living and a livelihood and most organisations are still functioning, albeit it in a difficult context. And so that contact with reality is also important. Steve Macaulay © Cranfield University Richard, thank you. December 2009 3