Mistakes Managers Do When Trying To Motivate Their Team

In their attempt to increase employees engagement, Optometrists and practice managers often fall into the trap of numerous wrong motivation practices. The ultimate goal of managers is to be able to make employees work at full potential and ensure maximum productivity and profit. However, it is always difficult to know and understand what motivates employees. Managers have different opinions on what motivates employees best. Some argue it is the experience that employees get in the workplace that motivates them and others argue that salary and financial rewards are what motivates employees the most.

No doubt among the greatest mistakes in trying to motivate employees is micromanaging. If a manager is constantly out of his office if he is leaning on others’ desks and constantly overlooking and advising teammates on how things should be done, he is micromanaging and not trusting his employees. Micromanagement leads to employees burnout, suffers productivity, and increases employee turnover rate.

Another mistake consists of focusing on financial rewards and ignoring what other rewards and experiences employees may need. Employees value job security, interesting jobs, and employer appreciation more than financial rewards. Managers often forget that employees need to be rewarded for their performance, they think of themselves as exceptional leaders who must catch all the attention, and as a result, lose their team’s trust as they appear less competent, lack self-confidence, and aren’t genuine.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner, an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher who was a professor of psychology at Harvard University, introduced a four stepping blocks system to leverage before tapping into your team’s, or an individual’s, motives. These stepping blocks are key in diagnosing individual performance gaps: the gaps that managers often describe as a lack of motivation or something that they think can be solved with “more training”. To close the gap of employees’ motivation the system must clearly identify the right performance requirements, ensure that employees have the right tools and resources to be able to perform, ensure that a feedback system for employees performance is set, and ensure that employees get incentives and rewards for good performance.