Motivating people to take action….

Why is it so hard to keep people motivated in delivering actions that achieve an outcome?  I am finding that it is extremely easy for people to get lost in the land of task management and lose sight of the purpose of the tasks.

I am an activist so it is extremely frustrating for me, but I understand that people have different approaches and styles, I also know that we need the difference to exist in order to achieve.

I would welcome suggestions on how you have successfully motivated people to achieve successful outcomes.  What is the secret?

All the best

Shelley

Comments

[JamesH]

"People to get lost in the land of task management" hmmmm - doesn't SharePoint and the like have a lot to answer for :)

A methodology that I have been involved with over the last year is 'Agile'. It is primarily for software development environments but having been exposed to all types of management styles and initiatives over the last 20 years I believe there is a lot of substance in these techniques for other management challenges.

Wikipedia provides a good overview here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development

The adaptive, self-organising, trust-based approaches are a welcome antidote to the bureaucratic, patronising and micro-management styles I have witnessed all too often over the years.

[J]

It sounds like you need to understand why and what you are trying to motivate. Unmotivated staff can be attributed to high attrition, leading to everything from understanding how leaders and managers, recruitment and development are regarded within a business. In a task oriented business, you could coach small workshops, teams or even just each other in achieving those small tasks which lead to something bigger. HR plays a key in partnering with the business and understanding truly how individuals and teams tick. Sounds hypothetical, but it can work.