Introduction
One of the reasons of why a project may fail or employers cannot achieve success is poor motivation (Kerzner, 2013). People become unable to understand all aspects of the work that they should do because they do not know how to create the environment, meet all project objectives, and be satisfied with the work done. Poor motivation means a poor explanation of the project details or inability to involve employees in work. The idea to support the Office 2010 transition is interesting and beneficial indeed. It is hard to clarify why so many workers what to know why they have to change something at the moment.
Still, the problem, or even a kind of misunderstanding, takes place and has to be solved. Increased motivation is a chance to make the change from Office 2007 to Office 2010 without losses or discontents. The staff should know how to accept the required change in the most appropriate way. Communication and the description of the activities, benefits of the offered software, and the expected outcomes should be used to motivate people and provide them with the necessary amount of hope, understanding, and confidence.
Importance of Motivation
Flannes and Levin (2005) admit that motivation is not just science, but a kind of art that has to be accepted by every person individually regarding the environment, workers’ intentions and attitudes, and abilities of a motivator. The motivation of employees is a crucial part of any working process. As soon as people get the necessary portion of motivation and explanation, they are ready to work hard, introduce good ideas, and think about some extraordinary approaches to ordinary tasks.
Though radical innovations are not always accepted by people, the managerial role should include the enlarged possibilities of the team and its opponents and the guidelines that can help to take the right steps (Kelley, O’Connor, Neck, & Peters, 2011). Managers may demonstrate different approaches to motivating the team, various strategies for motivation, as well as make different motivational mistakes and achieve various results. The necessity to make the change from Office 2007 to Office 2010 serves as the basis for the development of new ideas. Several strategies, approaches, and mistakes will be discussed in this paper to comprehend the essence of the art of motivation.
Strategies and Approaches for Motivating Team Members
To explain the staff that it is necessary to support the idea of transformation from Office 2007 to Office 2010, it is possible to rely on several strategies. For example, Flannes and Levin (2005) offer four main strategies or styles to rely on while working with employees:
- Use personal styles;
- Use career stages;
- Use career values;
- Use situational considerations.
Each strategy has its peculiar features can be used by the manager to convince the team accepting the Office 2007-Office 2010 change.
Personal styles can be identified with the help of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. As soon as a manager gets to know more about his/her abilities and preferences, it is possible to think about the most appropriate approaches to working with the team of workers. In this project, it is necessary for the manager to motivate the staff to accept a particular change.
The manager is extrovert by nature; therefore, according to Flannes and Levin (2005), the manager should focus on the relations between people and their possibilities to improve the communication with stakeholders. It is also possible to explain the necessity of transformation as a chance to improve the quality and results of meetings. People of the introverted type can be motivated by the explanation of how it is possible to work alone and achieve good results, choose the most appropriate environment and meet the working expectations.
The identification of the career stages can be also used as the strategy to motivate people. There are ten main stages a team member may pass through (Flannes & Levin, 2005):
- Career exploration;
- Career preparation;
- Actual entry into the workplace;
- Experience in certain organizations;
- Full admission with properly demonstrated competency;
- Permanent membership in a profession field;
- Mid-career crisis;
- Momentum when a career starts moving toward the end;
- Disengagement;
- Retirement.
For example, if the team workers are at the momentum when a career seems to move toward the end, it is very important to help such team members to focus on work and find the sources of excitement. A project manager can rely on some educational resources or even competitions to make people work and accept the changes as something crucial. It is wrong to explain the importance of the change or the decision concerning the time frames. The team should understand that they have to accept the change in order to have appropriate working conditions in future.
Another strategy for motivating team member can be based on the career values. Project managers have to understand work-related values and use them while motivating people. They can perform the function of different anchors to choose the most suitable approach to motivate people. Schein identifies several types of anchors such as technical-functional, security-stability, autonomy-independence, service, etc. In the project under consideration, it is reasonable to use the lifestyle anchor with the help of which the team can be motivated by providing the opportunities to work and identify its starting and ending points (Flannes & Levin, 2005).
The motivation of the staff can be based on the balance between personal life and work life. The necessity to change one program to another may be compared with the current technological, informational, or even medical achievements. People have to move on and accept changes. One of the options to involve the team in work is to identify the boundaries of the tasks that should be performed, to clarify the goals that have to be achieved, and to explain people the importance of their actions.
This strategy is usually effective in many situations: the promotion of change, the creation of new requirements, the development of new skills, etc. People have to understand that they can achieve more in case they make correct decisions, and the idea to change one type of Office to another is not that challenging or harmful. It is just a new option to use while working in a team.
Finally, there is a strategy that is based on situational consideration. It is suggested to satisfy some needs of a team in order to make this team work under new conditions. For example, it is possible to pay more attention to security and safety needs and provide employees and stakeholders with some guarantees. With time, it is possible to ask for something in return: to accept the Office 2010 transition project. People, who have guarantees and explanation of their future, are better motivated. They are ready to work and follow new instructions.
Motivational Mistakes
At the same time, managers should realize that they are always under a threat of making some motivational mistakes. It is better for a manager to experiment with various approaches and ideas on how to motivate employees because some insignificant motivational errors can frustrate plans and decrease the quality of outcomes. For example, a good manager should remember that not everything that can motivate one person can be used to motivate others. It is better to ask a person about the factors that can motivate people and use them in a working process. Besides, managers should remember that financial motivation is not always the only best option.
Even if many people believe in the power of money, motivation should not be based on this particular aspect. Motivation has to be more spiritual or even supportive. At the same time, managers have to understand that even the best team workers are not always professionals that do not need some motivation and inspiration. Sometimes, increased motivation is necessary for mature employees.
All these errors are crucial in the work of project managers. Even if managers do not make such mistakes, they have to know about them, try to avoid them, and take some preventive approaches to improve their work.
Conclusion
In general, increased motivation will never spoil the project. Managers need to know how to motivate and inspire their employees and explain why different changes and new requirements are crucial. Team members may want to ask such questions like “Why now?”, “Why we?”, or “What next?”. Managers may not know the answers to all of them. Still, they can always choose the right motivational strategy and use the best approach to motivate people.
References
Flannes, S. & Levin, G. (2005). Essential people skills for project managers. Vienna, VA: Management Concepts. Web.
Kelley, D.J., O’Connor, G.C., Neck, H., & Peters, L. (2011). Building an organizational capability for radical innovation: The direct managerial role. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 28(4), 249-267. Web.
Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. New York City, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Web.