Distribute a salary to motivate. It's good, but it's limited. Motivate the team by behaving like a visionary leader, that's better! This first article looks at motivating a team by sharing and anchoring its vision of the company.
Motivation usually manifests itself through the deployment of energy in various aspects such as enthusiasm, assiduity, perseverance. In other words, a motivated team is able to raise unsuspected energy to help achieve goals, objectives, pursue a direction.
Motivation through money, in any form whatsoever (salary, commissions, profit-sharing, shares in the company, ...) is a source of motivation. You pay someone in exchange for a job, in return for which you owe nothing to that person, and that person owes you nothing: everyone fulfils the terms of the contract.
This is the classic vision of management.
Now, if you want to move forward much, much faster than others while working with people who are happy to be at home, you can set up other sources of motivation for your team.
The approach is to say: since we spend a lot of time together, since you have talents, since I have a vision and goals, why not share them with you, and why not work better together in order to enrich each other in this adventure?
Share your vision as a business leader or manager
Keep your team informed of your orientation: where do you want to take the ship? It may sound trivial, but many people don't know exactly why they get up every morning... except to get a paycheck at the end of the month.
Provide benchmarks that reflect your vision
If you share your vision and direction, don't forget a second important point. The first is to explain concretely how you intend to do it. The second point is to give some temporal reference points. These benchmarks are not necessarily meant to be precise with dates and other details. Rather, it is to explain the objectives to be achieved one after the other: "First, I count... then, if... then we... after, when..."
Anchoring your vision in time
Finally, over time, regularly come back with your team to the direction you have been talking about, its concrete translation thanks to collective work. Also remind them of the time benchmarks: where does the company stand with regard to the ideas, objectives and benchmarks you talked about?
To help you, imagine that this last manifestation of motivation through sharing is a stopover on your ship before continuing on its way: you drop anchor in a port. You remind everyone why it is here that you are calling. You explain to everyone why you are going this route. And you explain the other ports of call you plan to make.
Small sun-flooded stopovers to explain to your team how they're going to get the moon... how does that make you feel?
