Primed to perform

The correlation between a high Total Motivation (ToMo) and an organization's capacity for adaptive performance is quite fascinating. Adaptive performance is often the cornerstone of fostering innovation, sparking creativity, and providing exceptional customer experiences. When ToMo is embraced by an entire organization, its power is magnified.

At first glance, the concept of organizational performance might appear straightforward to articulate, yet it is more intricate than one might initially presume. Performance transcends the mere completion of tasks (tactical execution); it involves accomplishing the correct tasks with maximum efficiency. Moreover, it is crucial for personnel to proactively seek innovative methods to enhance their work (adaptive performance). In the context of today's interconnected global economy, creativity and innovation are not just beneficial but essential for economic success. To truly excel, an organization must optimize both its tactical and adaptive performance.

Neel Doshi and Linda McGregor have insightfully observed that tactical and adaptive performance are inherently contradictory, existing in a state of tension. While businesses are adept at constructing systems for tactical performance, they often inadvertently undermine their adaptive performance. However, exceptional organizational cultures maintain a balance between these two conflicting forces.

Three phenomena can adversely affect an organization's tactical performance levels: Firstly, the distraction effect occurs when employees, despite their intentions to perform well, become preoccupied with concerns about compensation or promotion prospects. This diversion of focus can lead to a decrease in productivity as they fail to return to their primary tasks. Secondly, the cancellation effect arises when employees become so engrossed in meeting their own short-term objectives that they cease to assist their colleagues or collaborate on complex customer issues, ultimately neglecting customers who are challenging to serve. Thirdly, the "cobra" effect is named after a historical incident in Delhi where the British government's strategy to control the cobra population backfired. In a modern organizational context, this effect describes the unintended consequences of incentivizing narrow metrics, which can lead to the neglect of more valuable long-term initiatives.

In many organizations, the systems in place such as dashboards, performance evaluations, and compensation programs are meticulously designed to optimize and reward tactical performance exclusively.

This approach inadvertently allows our biases and reflexes to obstruct the measurement and rewarding of Total Motivation (ToMo). Consequently, in moments when flexibility is most crucial, organizations tend to become rigid instead of adaptable.

A prevalent "blame bias" among business managers illustrates this point well: when we achieve success, we often attribute the victory to our own superior skills. Conversely, in the face of defeat, our first instinct is to search for someone else to blame, or in the absence of a scapegoat, to attribute our failure to bad luck. Furthermore, when we emerge victorious in a direct competition, we hastily conclude that our opponent was less skilled and thus deserved their loss.

This blame bias significantly influences how organizations are run. Leaders, constrained by time, prioritize improving performance by focusing on the individual players rather than examining and modifying the game itself. The most straightforward method to prod individuals towards better performance involves leveraging indirect motivators.

This bias manifests in various organizational settings: if an individual fails to meet their sales target, the immediate assumption is a lack of effort; if work is subpar, it's attributed to a lack of intelligence; and if a manager is caught in unethical behavior, their upbringing is blamed. Essentially, quick judgments at work tend to blame the individuals involved rather than considering the systemic issues within the organization. This leads leaders to concentrate on pushing individuals to perform better rather than addressing and modifying the organization's foundational systems that may be at fault.

Once you have grasped the essence of Total Motivation (ToMo) and the methodology for its assessment, you are well-equipped to harness ToMo as the quintessential instrument for cultivating a robust organizational culture. ToMo transcends traditional anecdotal approaches, offering empirical, data-driven insights.

The initial step in fostering a high ToMo environment involves a thorough analysis of your current standing on the ToMo continuum. This is achieved by conducting a comprehensive ToMo survey across your enterprise, soliciting responses to six pivotal questions from all members and subsequently calculating their individual ToMo scores. These scores can then be aggregated to ascertain an average that reflects the entire company's ToMo.

Embarking on the journey to elevate your ToMo begins with a clear understanding of your baseline. The sole objective of this initial phase is to gather actionable data. With this information at your disposal, you can delve into an analysis to identify which motivators are instrumental in driving peak performance within your context. Additionally, you can establish an aspirational ToMo target to strive towards, such as aspiring to cultivate a corporate culture that surpasses the industry average by a minimum of twelve points, or formulating a business strategy with a defined return on investment for augmenting your ToMo score by ten percent within the forthcoming year.

Leaders within any organization typically adopt one of four distinct leadership styles: quid-pro-quo leaders who incentivize good behavior and penalize poor performance, hands-off leaders who intervene primarily in problematic situations, enthusiast leaders who employ a broad spectrum of both direct and indirect motivators, and fire-starter leaders who focus exclusively on direct motivators. The ideal scenario is to transform all your leaders into fire-starters, thereby enhancing your ToMo and, consequently, your organization's performance. Leaders are pivotal in maintaining an equilibrium between tactical execution and adaptive performance.