"How to Motivate Your Problem People"

Nigel Nicholson

Harvard Business Review

January 2003, pp. 57-65

This article argues that successfully dealing with problem employees involves trying a different approach: "It involves shifting responsibility for motivation from subject to object, from boss to subordinate. Crucially, it also involves a shift in perspective: The manager needs to look at the employee not as a problem to be solved but as a person to be understood." The method proposed in the article is based on three motivational principles:

1. Everyone has a motivational energy—"Although many problem employees display a marked lack of drive and commitment in their jobs, these qualities are usually alive and well in other areas of their lives ... Most workers have the potential to engage with their work in a way that furthers managerial goals;"
2. This energy is often blocked in the workplace—"One of the most common blockages occurs when employees feel that their bosses don't really care about them. For this or other reasons, problem employees usually don't much like their managers;"
3. Removing blockages requires employee participation—"To motivate an employee to work toward your goals, you need to take a judolike approach: Find the person's locus of energy and leverage it to achieve your ends."

Three steps are proposed:

1. Create a rich picture—Start with informal conversations which help to understand the person better, and also confer with co-workers or previous bosses; Next look at your own role in the problem; Then analyze what about the current context or situation might be contributing to the difficulties;
2. Reframe your goals—"A willingness to be flexible in your aims can also yield novel and ambitious alternatives you may not have considered." In the end, you may not get exactly what you wanted from the employee, but you'll certainly get more than you did before; and
3. Stage the encounter—"It should be a carefully staged event that underscores its importance." Details on how to stage the encounter are provided in the article.

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