Why I Stopped Using Money to Motivate My Team

Your team is not as motivated by money as you think they are. In the beginning of my business journey, I found it hard to understand why someone would do something if it didn't make them a lot of money. And like when you first start hiring, you like why would someone not just do it themselves? Why would they just start their own business? As I started to lead my own team, I came to find out they weren't as motivated by money as I was.

The biggest motivator, the biggest driver that I found of action is they have to want to do it. Now, you can create that through many ways. You can create that through manipulation. You can create that through financial incentive. But the one I found to be most consistent and successful long term is recognition. When people feel proud of the things they've done, I think it creates a strong feedback loop of excellence. I do this with my team through public and private recognition.

Public recognition meaning I talk about it on our monthly meetings, someone's great accomplishments, the things they've done. But private is definitely my favorite one. I try to find as many reasons as possible to praise my team for the great work they've done. And my team has told me that is a big driver of why they enjoy showing up every day is because they feel like their work is valued. And I don't have to pretend like that's the case because it truly is.

I think it comes from the innate feeling of tribe approval, wanting to be seen as valuable by your peers. I mean, I think that's a lot of why capitalism is great in general is because it promotes valuedriven and one person is unequal based on the value they provide to the rest of the group. Now, I have plenty of ways for my team to also achieve financial success. I think it's a good motivator in absence of others.

So maybe if we're going through a rougher time and it's hard to see the vision the the light at the end of the tunnel, I think financial is a good way to keep people keep the fire under them. So I always like give my team ways that they can make more money if they figure out how to do XYZ more valuable to the company. But man, I I just think recognition is the best thing you can do as a leader.

It creates a very strong feedback loop. Especially actually this is like a requirement is if you want to give criticism and feedback you have to be giving them all the praise in the world. I try to like my my rule is to have like a 2 to1 ratio. If you're giving double the amount of praise the feedback seems minuscule in comparison. In a lot of work environments you only hear when you're doing something wrong.

And so every time you receive feedback you're conditioned for it to be negative. And I take the opposite approach. I want to have so many things that I can this person can be proud of. And I've also noticed this of course with my team. My team is all based in the Philippines. But it's also come up in a lot of the interviews we've done for our clients. I've interviewed over 500 candidates from six different countries.

And one of the questions we always ask is why they left their past job. And like the majority answer is that that they didn't feel valued on the team. They didn't feel like they were a part of something bigger. they just felt like a a cog in the machine. As a leader, not a manager, but as a leader, I think if you're able to instill that recognition into your team because you truly are proud of them, I think it does wonders for yourself.

I think it does wonders for them. And I think it creates an organization that is greater than the sum of its parts.