How and why does motivation get destroyed

What you'll learn

Understanding the Challenge Zone

Frustration Zone Indicators

Comfort Zone Indicators

Addressing Motivational Risks and Concerns

As an engineering manager it is our job to motivate our employees so that they can succeed at their tasks. Often we approach this challenge from the perspective of finding new ways to motivate and excite our employees. While this is beneficial we often forget to look at the items that hurt or destroy the motivation within our teams. This article will strive to identify the reasons that destroy motivation our teams.

Understanding the Challenge Zone

Before we dive in  and analyze the items that destroy our motivation, we have to first do an analysis of what the challenge zone is for our employees. The challenge zone is a particular area that we want to place our employees in.

On one side we have the frustration zone and on the opposite side we have the comfort zone. If an employee stays within the comfort zone they are never challenged and don’t gain new skills. If an employee stays in the frustrations out on then they don’t experience success and will not enjoy their career. Our goal then is to balance our employees between the frustration and comfort zones and give them adequate challenges.

As we go through this article it is important to determine whether an employee is in the challenge zone or whether they are being pushed to the frustration zone or comfort zone.  Take a few minutes and plot out for all of your employees where you feel that they reside.

Frustration Zone

In the following situations, an employee may feel overly frustrated and thus lose motivation.

1) When an employee does not believe that they are capable of completing the task. This could because either from an inability such as not having the knowledge or skills or an incapacity such as not having the needed time or resources. These may surface as complaints such as “I don’t know how to do that…” or “I don’t have the needed tools to do that…”

2) When an employee does not feel that they have a choice in performing the task. This may surface as complaints such as “I have no choice, I have to do this…” Or “Why do we have to do this?” Or “I don’t understand why this is important?"

3) When an employee does not feel like a valued part of the team or that they do not feel like they belong to the organization. This may surface as complaints such as “no one ever listens to me...” or “why do I even bother to try hard?” Or “management does not care about my opinion…"

When a negative attitude exists on a team member that attitude slowly brings the entire team down. Not only is that dangerous for other team members but it can cause issues to slip to the cracks and problems to not be addressed.

Comfort Zone

in the following situations, an employee may feel overly comfortable and lose motivation due to lack of challenge.

1) When an employee lacks excitement about work that they used to enjoy. This might because by feeling like they are not being challenged and that they are just doing daily routine. This employee might say “I’ve perfected this process and I can finish it very quickly.” Or “we have an identified process - why do we need to change it?"

2) When an employee is more concerned about managerial approval or even approval from other team members. This may surface through  comments such as “I will do it as long as nobody gets mad at me.” Or “I’m doing it this way because my manager told me to."

The biggest problem with an employee who is stuck in the comfort zone is that they are no longer looking to improve their job or responsibility. They accept things as they are and are only focused on how much effort they have to contribute. They are not willing to take risks to improve their product or team.

Risks and Concerns

When you are evaluating your team members identify those who lack motivation. Try to identify whether this team member lacks motivation due to being stuck in a comfort zone or any frustrations out. Identify the reasons for being within that specific zone. Find ways to address each of the specific concerns for that employee.

In some cases it might be a training issue or a resource issue. In other cases it might be a lack of ownership issue. Regardless of the cause, identify the problem early and worked to address it as quickly as possible.