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Technique 8.1: Tap into Internal Motivators
What Motivates People?
As organizations become excited about KCS, the question often comes up: "How do we incentivize people to use or contribute to the knowledge base?" There is compelling research on what motivates knowledge work - and it is not about tangible incentives. Extensive research done in the area of motivating employees shows that the factors that contribute to job dissatisfaction are different from motivating factors.
One of Harvard Business Review's most requested reprints is One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees? by Frederick Herzberg. Herzberg identified hygiene factors: things that can be a distracter to employee motivation if they are not taken care of, and motivational factors: the things that are actually motivating. While hygiene factors include things like salary, work conditions, company policies, and relationships with co-workers, the four top motivation factors are achievement, recognition, the work itself, and responsibility. Let us consider how Herzberg's motivating factors show up in KCS.
Achievement
Applications in KCS:
- KCS proficiency level, earning the right to publish or becoming a KCS coach
- Creating KCS articles others are using
- Expanding breadth of product knowledge
- Contributing to the goals of the organization in a measurable way
- Collaborating as part of a group that is creating value for the business
Recognition
Applications in KCS
- Reputation based on creation of value in the knowledge base, others know you because of your KCS articles in the knowledge base
- Acknowledged for knowledge contribution through KCS measures and reports that are visible to the group
- Acknowledged by organization leaders as role model for others
The Work Itself
Applications in KCS
- Less redundancy, always working on interesting new things
- Confidence in taking broad range of incidents because the knowledge base complements existing knowledge
Responsibility
Applications in KCS
- Licensed to publish (KCS competency) without review by others (autonomy with accountabiilty)
- Licensed to modify / improve content
- Part of a team
- Collective ownership for content - "flag it or fix it"
New York Times columnist Daniel Pink presents his extensive research on what motivates people in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. (This should be required reading for all managers in a KCS environment; for a great animated summary of the book see his YouTube video.) Pink distills his work into three key motivation factors:
- Mastery
- Autonomy
- Purpose
These three factors are offered in the context of distinguishing physical tasks from intellectual work. Surprisingly, when we are talking about intellectual work - like knowledge work - tangible rewards (like bonuses) are more disruptive than effective.
Both Herzberg and Pink provide compelling evidence that in a knowledge-centered environment, "sticks and carrots," or rewards and punishment, don't work. The prerequisite for motivation is alignment to a purpose. If we care about the value proposition of the organization and we care about the people we work with, it creates the foundation for feeling good about our contribution: a sense of accomplishment is a powerful motivator. We only feel a sense of accomplishment in doing things that we care about.
Leadership is Required
To sustain motivation and maximize KCS benefits over time, executive leadership must prioritize a few key things.
From Managing to Leading
KCS represents a bigger change for the front line managers than it does for the knowledge worker. Successful adoption requires a new way to think about process, measures, and how we assess contribution. As KCS matures, the need for management diminishes and the need for leadership increases. This means a shift from directing and judging to engaging and coaching. The single most common point of failure in a KCS adoption is the front line managers not making the shift and not taking ownership for KCS success.
Executive leadership needs to support the managers in making the transition by changing how the managers are measured and providing them with training and coaching on how to become leaders.
Consortium Members are doing a lot of work on this topic. (See Nurturing an Adaptive Workforce as an example.) Key competencies that have been identified for team leaders in a KCS environment include:
- Strategic agility - understand how tasks relate to the big picture (double loop thinking)
- Innovation leadership - encourage creativity
- Dealing with ambiguity - measuring things we cannot count; there is no one indicator for the creation of value
- Courage - willing to try new things and iterate for improvement
- Motivating others - understand the motivation factors at play in knowledge work
- Customer focus - living the brand promise
Executive leadership must see the investment in leadership development as necessary to sustain the benefits of KCS for the long term. If they don't, all the investment in early phases of adoption will have been wasted.
Knowledge Worker Training and Coaching
Knowledge work requires judgment. The basis for that judgment comes in part from understanding the vision (see Develop and Communicate a Vision) and in part by understanding the benefits of KCS in the context of the bigger picture and how the the Solve Loop feeds the Evolve Loop. This understanding is what enables people to create value, when they work tasks in the context of bigger picture. The keys to establishing this perspective lie in consistent communication, training, and coaching.
Infrastructure Functionality, Integration, and Performance
The organization's infrastructure must support doing the Solve Loop at or near the speed of conversation. While the tooling infrastructure does not have to be perfect in order to start on the KCS journey and realize some of the early benefits. If the knowledge workers are inspired by the benefits they will figure out how to do the Solve Loop even with tools that are lacking. However,
It is extremely difficult to maintain the knowledge workers' interest if they do not see continuous improvement over time in the functionality, integration, and performance of the infrastructure they use to get their work done. Our experience shows that leadership has 9-12 months to move the user interface from crude to obvious and easy.
Visibility to Impact of Contribution
A critical enabler to motivating knowledge workers is providing them with visibility to the impact of their contribution. If people cannot see the value they are creating, they will lose interest. We entice the knowledge workers into KCS with a promise of a better, more interesting work environment. Because these benefits happen slowly over a period of time, their realization may not be obvious to the knowledge worker. If leadership does not have baseline measures established and reporting capabilities in place to help the knowledge worker see the change, it is an opportunity missed.
Often one of the greatest contributions of the collective experience of the organization are the business improvements that come as a result of the Evolve Loop analysis. This is a case of deferred gratification and leaders need to make the effort to help people see that the collective effort over time has lead to specific improvements in products, services, processes, or policies. It takes time for the pattern to emerge, and it takes time for the root cause analysis and corrective actions to be implemented. It is not unusual for the whole process to take 9-18 months. Dramatic improvements may result, but it is far removed from the many well done Solve Loop events that it took to get there. The people who made it happen won't realize it was a result of their effort if leadership doesn't provide that visibility.