How to Motivate your Employees

The podcast, hosted by Dan, marks the relaunch of the show after a break, announcing that future episodes will feature solo content, interviews with business leaders, and segments with "Becky," focusing on business growth, professional development, and leadership. The core belief driving the show is that everyone is a leader with a purpose, even if they don't realize it. The show is also expanding from audio to full video production.

The main topic of this episode is addressing a common concern among business owners: employee retention and motivation. Dan argues that businesses should strive for employees who "buy in" to the company's vision, as this leads to above-and-beyond work, citing Walt Disney's ability to cast a big vision as an example.

The host then presents a list of seven key strategies for motivating employees and encouraging greater participation:

7 Ways to Motivate Your Employees

1. Recognize Employee Achievements: Go beyond simple gestures like a pizza party. Praise and encourage good work specifically and personally. Consistently pointing out flaws (as one of Dan's past managers did) leads to discouragement; acknowledging success is vital to making employees feel noticed and valuable.
2. Provide Opportunities for Growth: Business owners, especially small business owners, cannot afford not to invest in their people's growth. Citing the "Law of the Lid" (from John Maxwell), the leader must grow first to be able to elevate those beneath them. Offering growth opportunities shows care, acknowledges talent, and enables the business to grow through its people.
3. Create a Positive Work Environment: A positive environment is achieved through both emotional and physical means. Emotionally, it means being supportive even when times are tough. Physically, it requires a clean, tidy, and well-maintained workspace (no broken equipment or clutter), as a messy environment automatically spikes stress.
4. Promote a Healthy Work-Life Balance: While employers don't have to "babysit," providing adequate time off, vacation, and sick leave is a powerful motivator and shows the business cares for the individual. Burning out employees with excessive hours and minimal time off will destroy morale and lead to high turnover.
5. Provide Autonomy: Avoid micromanaging, which increases mistakes and frustration. Once an employee is properly trained, a leader should let them do their job. Granting autonomy is an acknowledgment of their competence.
6. Foster a Culture of Collaboration: Move away from a top-down structure and involve employees in the process. The key is to teach them to be problem-solvers, not complainers. Leaders should initially present a small problem with a pre-prepared solution, opening it up for discussion and buy-in. By repeating this process, teams learn to offer solutions instead of merely complaining, which builds a collaborative and motivating culture.
7. Be Respectful and Honest: Leaders must be honest about their own mistakes (i.e., admitting when a business decision didn't work). When coaching employees, be honest about facts ("You were late 5 out of the last 10 days") rather than using generalizations ("You're always late"). Treat employees, who are the helpers and the backbone of the business, with respect.

The episode concludes by encouraging listeners to use these strategies to lift up their people, who will, in turn, lift up the business.

Transcript

Hello again and welcome back to the Trim the Wick podcast. I'm Dan and we are with you live um out in the open enjoying our beautiful beautiful uh Florida afternoon and you know you just can't beat it. So we are excited to be relaunching Trim the Wick podcast. We took a little bit of a break and we are back. So, I'm going to be bringing you some solo content. I will be also doing some interviews. I will be also spending some time with Becky and we'll be talking about um business growth, business planning. We'll talk about professional development, leadership, all those things. I'm also excited about doing these interviews with you uh where I'm going to be interviewing different business owners and different business leaders as well as focusing on you know helping you grow not just um personally or spiritually but growing in your business and growing as a leader. Uh, one of the things I believe wholeheartedly is that as people who have been created and put on this planet that you know what, we have a purpose. We have a meaning. And we're also all leaders. And you might not think that you're a leader. You might not think that you know how to lead people. But guess what? You do. You just don't know that you're doing it. So, we're going to talk about that in this podcast. We're going to kind of be expanding some new things and different things. So, u so glad that you're with me. So glad that you're here to enjoy this beautiful day. Uh, not only are we an audio podcast is we are now launching off into the video realm and we tried it a little bit back in the day with uh Becky and I um but we're now going to go full force in the video and we hope you enjoy um especially this beautiful beautiful day and uh and occasion. All right, so enough of all of that. My goodness, I've been talking for two minutes and I haven't really even said anything. But here's the big thing. Welcome back. I'm glad you're here with us on the Trim the Wick podcast. Well, here's the thing is that I've talked to a lot of different business owners and leaders. And one of the things that I hear a lot is there's a there's an issue with um keeping employees, retention. Uh there's also this issue with motivating employees and and how do you get people to do the work that they're supposed to be doing? And I kind of came up with a quick little list here and I and I want to kind of go through these with you uh today as our podcast and this is going to be a more of a as a a leader or business owner trying to help just motivate your people just to get them to to not not only do the work but also participate in the business, be a part of the business that you're doing. Because here's the thing is that, you know, it's great that you have people that are great workers and do the work and show up on time and everything, but really what you really want are those people who buy in to what your company's doing, what your business is doing. Cuz when you get that buy in, when they get that vision, when they start adapting and kind of making it their own and really getting hold of it, that's when you get to see some incredible work done. And that's where you get to see those people who just go above and beyond. Now, one of the things that I remember is those years that I was with um Walt Disney Company and I was listening to how, you know, Walt kind of motivated his people. And if you think about it, I hear these stories and he was kind of a jerk a little bit because he would ask these guys to do things that were just well out of the normal nineto-5. But here's the thing is that he motivated his people so well. He helped, you know, cast a vision help um cast a this this idea of something bigger than themselves and that they were of involved in something that was even more than just what they did on a daily uh work basis. So that's what I want to kind of talk to you a little bit today. I want to kind of talk about on motivating your employees on a bigger basis. And I'm going to talk a little bit here in the next few weeks about how to understand people's style and communication style, motivation styles, and how you can put them in the right position so that they succeed. But today, I just wanted to give you some quick things on how to how to just motivate your people. And this is a a list that was put together by a bunch of different uh business owners plus it's some of the things that I've uh talked to some different individuals. And so let's let's look at this list together. And the first thing that they they mention on this list is that number one, you need to recognize your employees achievements. This is a big one. Um you know I hear so often that oh you know what we got? We got a pizza party. Well, yeah. Okay. So, that that seems simple. It seems plain. It seems boring, maybe. But you need to be doing more than just providing them a pizza party. You need to recognize when your employees do well. Recognize when your workers do well. If they do something that's good, praise them. Encourage them. Tell them, "Listen, this is fantastic work. I am so glad that you're a part of this program. I'm so glad that you're doing this. One of the things I I worked with a manager years ago. And um he said, "Never let your people know that they've done a great job. Tell them they've done a good job, but there was always something that you can correct." Now, I understand that in some ways that, okay, I see you're wanting to help them get better. But the thing is is that with our society the way it is right now, it it really will lead into discouragement if you're always picking out the negative. If you're always pointing out the flaws and not really elevating the good stuff. So, one of the big things that we need to be doing nowadays is making sure that we're recognizing our employees achievements. It's huge when you just say, "Hey, listen. Sally did a great job on this, you know, or going to them personally and say, "Hey, Sally, you did an amazing job on this. This is fantastic work." Celebrating accomplishments, number one, helps people know that you notice them, you're acknowledging them, but it also lets them know that what they're doing is valuable. Because a lot of times people think they're just punching the clock and they're just doing what the boss tells them to do. Well, when you start showing, hey, you're doing really good at this or you've done something that's above and beyond. Recognize that, tell them that, and that kind of helps them pull them in, draw them um to being more uh involved with what's going on in the company, and it helps them give they're going to do better work because they're going to realize that people are acknowledging my better work, right? So, that's number one. Number two, provide opportunities for growth. Now, this is something that I see a lot with bigger companies is that they already, you know, they'll have things for training or things for personal development. And then a lot of your smaller companies seem to struggle with this. They don't have the the money for training. They don't have the money to um to go through a process of personal development, of personal growth. But can I just tell you as a small business owner and looking at other small business owners and talking with them, you cannot afford not to provide opportunities for growth for your people. Here's the thing. You've got people who are very talented, who are eager, who are excited, who needed help, who need a hand up, who need that opportunity, who need that encouragement to grow more. and those things that you already have as a business owner so that you can then pour into them. You know, John Maxwell talks about the the law of the lid. And the law of the lid basically says this is that I as a leader, if I'm an eight, that everyone under me is only going to reach where my lid is because I can't give what I don't have. I can't go to a nine or a 10 for them because that's not where I'm at. I'm at an eight. So personally as the business owner and the business leader I need to be growing right but we need to be elevating those people behind underneath us to go to five six seven bring them up as far as we can get them and then continue to elevate oursel to a nine to a 10 and then bring them up even farther. You know when we give opportunities for growth okay again that draws people in that shows them that you care. It's an acknowledgment of who they are as a an employee of your business or one of your workers. And it it just it just opens the door for them to start excelling, for them to start stepping out and growing and and taking those next steps, which is something that, believe it or not, all business owners, we really want our people to take those next steps because our business is only going to grow as big, is only going to be as strong as the people that are doing the business. So number three, let's do this. Let's create a positive work environment. Now, I worked in a place one time and I had a a boss who literally said that I want to make one day miserable

because he felt that it put him in control. Because if everyone was having one bad day or one bad afternoon or one then he was always in control over because he was the one that was making that happen. He was the one and um can I just tell you that that was a miserable miserable place to work. Now I I did a lot of good things while I was there but my working environment in the office it was horrible. It was miserable because it was a very positive work environment. There was not this, hey, we're together to move forward, to do our best, to actually grow, you know, to actually move forward. It was not there. You know, having a positive work environment is being able to say, listen, even though times are hard, even though times are tough, we're still together. We're still working for our best. We're still trying to achieve the best thing we can achieve. The other thing with a positive work environment, and we don't think about this that much as business owners, but having a clean shop or a clean office or a clean area for our employees to work in is huge. Think about it. When you walk into an environment that's a mess, what does it do? It automatically spikes your stress. It already gets you like, "Oh gosh, I what do I do here? I What is the first thing I need to do?" And if you have a work environment that's like that, that's what your employees are walking into every day. It's a high stress. So, you know, stress to keep the area clean, keep it all, you know, tidied up, basically as we what we used to say, right? And the other thing is like, you know, make sure we don't have broken tools or broken printers and broken stuff. You know, if I I understand there are times when something breaks down, you know, the copier machine that keeps breaking down. I I get it, you know, but having an environment where things are broken, things are dirty, things are unkempt, things are cluttered. It's not a very positive work environment. On one hand, we got to keep doing the work. We got to keep doing the stuff. We know what the budget is and what it is. But on the other hand, we really need to keep that positive work environment. And it's not just what we do emotionally and lifting people up with our words, but it's also physically what we're actually doing in the environment and making sure that we're putting a good work environment. So that's number three, a positive work environment. Ready? Here's number four. We need to promote a healthy work life balance. Now, I understand from some employers, most employers, they're like, "Listen, I provide you a job. You do your work. What you do in your off time is your off time. I I get it. I I understand. You don't want to babysit everybody. You're that's not why you're owning your business. But let me say this. If you want to help motivate your employees, giving them time off, giving them sick time so that they can take care of themselves is huge. Is huge. It is an it is a benefit that is just going away. Um, I worked at a place and for an entire year I got uh I got five days off for sick for an entire year and I got 5 days vacation. That was it, you know. So, I was working, you know, all these days for 12 months and I got one week vacation, one week of sick leave. Now, for some people, they' be like, "Oh, man. I would love that." But that shows that the business doesn't care that much about the individual, you know. Now, do I feel like you have to give them 30 days sick leave or 30 days vacation? No, no, no, no. That that's not what I'm saying. You need to find the balance that works for your business and stuff. But make sure that there is balance in what the work life is and what their private life is and their home life. Because if they're working 60, 80 hour weeks and they're only going to get 5 days vacation a year, you're burning them out. You're going to destroy them and they're not going to be happy. They might stick around because you might be paying them good because they're getting great overtime, but they're not going to hang around too long or it's not going to be a great work environment. All right? So, give them some healthy work life balance by giving them time off, vacation time. If you can provide benefits for them, health benefits, things like that. I know not every company can, but if you can, you know, make it a thing, make it important. allow them to have some time off so that they can get away, regenerate their batteries, and come back. You know, it's it's a huge thing to be able to step away from work for a couple days. The next one, we ready? Number five is that you need to provide autonomy. Um, there is nothing worse than working for a micromanager. someone who sits over your shoulder and critiques and criticizes everything you do. Now, I say that and I'm going back as a manager and I've been a manager for years and I've been a leader for years and that, you know, there are some employees you need to help carry them and you need to help work with them and make sure they're getting what they're doing right once they reach that point because if they're not, they should not be that way forever. Once they reach a certain point of autonomy, you need to let them do the job. Let them work. Promote that. Give them autonomy so that they can do their work and do their job to the best of their ability without you standing over their shoulders. Because listen, when you have someone standing over your shoulder looking at exactly what you're doing in every level, in every way, you're going to make even more mistakes than when you have autonomy. Now, granted, again, I'm going to say it and I'm throwing it out there again. You've already trained them to do the job. This is not pre-training. This is not an individual who doesn't know what they're doing and you're just going to like throw them the keys and say, "Have fun." No, this is a situation where you've already trained them. You've already put the time into them to make sure that they know what they're doing and then you need to let them have some autonomy. I want to talk about fostering a culture of collaboration. Now, this is a great way to motivate your employees and to keep them coming. Okay, that's the whole thing that we're talking about is how to motivate employees and keep them attached to your business and designed or and and um locked in to what you're doing. is that if you foster a culture of collaboration, in other words, you're not just going everything top down, but you're involving your employees, you're giving them opportunities, you're giving them time to step into what they need to do in their role and take ownership. That's huge. That I'm just going to tell you, if you do that in your business, you're going to see your employees really jump to it. Now, at first they're going to rebel to it. At first, instead of having a collaboration meeting, they're going to have a [ __ ] session. Okay? Why? Because they haven't been trained to be a collaborator yet. They haven't been trained to jump on board to going, "This is to make things better instead of just complaining on it." So, you're going to have to take some time, give some opportunities for your employees to slowly grow into things. Give them opportunities to take ownership of th certain things in the office, certain projects, certain things that are going on before you start giving them big stuff, before you start bringing the main meat to the table basically as it is. Because what you want to do is you want to teach them that they are problem solvers, that they're not complainers. Right now, probably in majority of the businesses that I'm talking to and majority of the the shops and offices and stuff right now, when all the employees when you have your pow-wow meeting, you get everybody together, it all turns into a complaining. This is that, you know, no, there's not one solution that comes. Okay? there's not one solution that's brought and then you leave discouraged, they leave discouraged and instead of having your collaboration culture, what you've done is you've now built a divisive culture because now everybody's complaining to everybody else and it's just going to bring, you know, it's just going to bring morale down and it's not going to motivate your people. Here's how you motivate your people. You know that there's something wrong in your office. It's a small thing. You're not going to start with a big thing. So what you're going to do is you're going to come with the solution already in hand. I have a solution to fix this. So I'm going to bring the solution and then I'm going to now open that solution up for discussion and buy in. Okay? I'm going to bring the solution and say here here's what we're going to do is we're going to start we're having a problem with people, you know, clocking in and doing this on the on the computer, whatever. So, here's what we're going to do is we're going to I um we're going to now put a a five minute pre and post. So, we're supposed to be in at 9:00. So, what we're going to do is we're going to do a five minute. Okay. You can clock in five minute till or five minute after. But you need to clock in. What do you guys think? Well, and and let them let them discuss and say, "Okay." All right. So, what we want to do is the idea is that everybody's here by 9:00, not by 9:05. Okay? So, we're trying to add a solution. We're trying to get some buy in. And then we're suggesting, hey, the goal is we want everybody here by 9:00. So, what you've done now is you're already planting the seed. We're giving grace. We're giving an option. We're giving them some thing. But then what we can do is, hey, hey, you know what? We've been trying this. This is working out great. What we're going to do is we're now going to NYX that extra five minutes. So, we want everybody here at 9:00. That's the thing. Or we just leave it at 5 after because people are now coming in at 9:00. So, I know that's kind of a crazy um scenario there, but it's one that kind of gets you thinking of some problems that you might be having in your office and with your team where you can provide a simple solution, put it out for them to discuss, to buy in, whatever. Put it in place. And then now what you've done is you've taught them, hey, when we come together with a problem, we're looking for a solution. So then now you do it again. You repeat the process. You do this probably three or four times. Now you start going, "Okay, here we got a problem. Does anyone have a solution for this?" Not, "Does anyone want to talk about this? We're not going to have a gab session. We're not going to have a complaint session, but hey, here's something that we've noticed. We here's something that we've heard is going on in the office, in the shop. Does anyone have the solution?" Okay. Now what you've done is you've built a culture of solving things of collaborating. Okay? You brought that solution then you collaborated with them and said hey we want you to be a part of this. Here's what do you guys think? What do you Now it's going to be more natural for your team to start going oh yeah let me let me let's think about some solutions here. Now let's start collaborating. Now let's start talking. Now let's start putting some things in place. And if you do that, it's going to it's going to drastically change your meetings, number one, but it's also going to motivate your employees because now they're going to be looking for solutions, not just complaining because things are going wrong. The last one I want to mention on this is um be respectful and honest. Here's the thing. What a lot of managers do and a lot of owners do is that they're unwilling to mention or bring up when they've made a mistake. You got to be honest when you have made a mistake. When you've done something that doesn't work or hasn't worked, say it. Hey, we tried this thing and you know what? We thought this was going to be a great opportunity, but we realized a month into this, two months into this, it just did not work the way we thought it was going to work. So, we've we're nixing it. You know, so many businesses, so many owners will just hang on to bad decisions and not be honest that it's a bad decision. So, you know, be honest when you make mistake. Um, one of the other motivators is just be honest. You know, when you're talking to an employee and they've made mistakes and you're having to coach them, don't blow things out of proportion. Be honest. You were late five out of the last 10 days. Not you're always late. No, they're not always late because in their mind, they're on time half the time, right? So to connect with them, listen, you were late five out of the last 10 days, okay? That's an honest statement, okay? Not you're always late. So make sure that you're connecting with them honestly. Also, be respectful. I I know certain people like to do their business the way they like to do it, and that's why they own their business. Got it? But just realize that your employees don't have to take your berating and don't have to take that complaining and you know swearing at them and things like that. Um you know be respectful, talk to people honestly. These are these are human beings. These are your helpers. These are the people that are going to rally around your business to make your business great. And if you're respectful to them, if you're honest with them, they're going to be more supportive. So, just want to encourage you with that today. That's kind of what we wanted to do is just make this podcast to be an encouragement to you. I I hope you enjoyed it. Hope you enjoyed what we talked about. I'm going to go through them one more time. How to motivate your employees. Ready? Recognize their achievements. Provide opportunities for growth. Create a positive work environment. promote a healthy work life balance. Provide autonomy for them so that they can um work and run with what you've given them. Foster a culture of collaboration so that people have buy in that they want to be a part of the team of what you're doing. And above all, be respectful. Be honest when you're talking to them. Encourage them. Use those words that are going to lift people up because ultimately they're the ones that are going to lift your business up. Guys, I hope you enjoy this uh time. I enjoy bringing it to you and look for more of this on the Trim the Wick podcast as we try to help you help others as well as help yourself. All right, love you guys. Bye-bye. We'll see you next time. Hi, thanks for hanging out with me all the way to the end. And I hope this was an encouragement to you and you really got something out of this leadership training. Now, if you want to learn more about becoming a great leader or what we do here at Dan James Leadership and Personal Development Solutions, go to www.trimthewick.com.

Thank you so much. We'll see you again soon. Bye-bye.