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INSPIRING & MOTIVATING, 2.6a Reading: How Customers Can Rally Your Troops Part 1

2.6a Reading: How Customers Can Rally Your Troops Part 1

How Customers Can Rally Your Troops How did a five-minute meeting motivate university fundraisers to increase their weekly productivity by 400%? How did a photograph drive radiologists to improve the accuracy of their diagnostic findings by 46%? Was it managers who inspired such enormous results? Perhaps they gave an amazing speech or set clearer goals or tracked performance more carefully. In fact, in both situations, managers were not the catalysts. They did not assume that they alone had to bear the burden of motivating employees with inspiring messages. Instead, they tapped in to a powerful force that encouraged workers to go the extra mile. They outsourced inspiration to those who were better suited to the job. A growing body of research shows that end users—customers, clients, patients, and others who benefit from a company's products and services—are surprisingly effective in motivating people to work harder, smarter, and more productively. A brief visit from a student who had received a scholarship motivated the fundraisers to increase their efforts. A photograph of a patient they had never met inspired the radiologists to read X-rays more accurately. By serving as tangible proof of the consequences and value of employees' efforts, end users such as these can be important allies for leaders in motivating and inspiring their workforces. Outsourcing inspiration to end users focuses employees' attention squarely on the ultimate impact of their products and services. At Wells Fargo, for instance, managers show bankers videos of people describing how low-interest loans rescued them from severe debt—a vivid reminder to the bankers that they are striving to serve their customers, not their managers. But the power of end users goes beyond their ability to put a name and a face to employees' efforts. Organizational psychologist David Hofmann and I have found that employees generally see end users as more credible than leaders as sources of inspiration. When leaders attempt to deliver inspiring messages, many employees react with skepticism, questioning whether leaders are just trying to get them to work harder. Indeed, researchers Phil Mirvis and Donald Kanter have found that in many companies, the majority of frontline employees are cynical about leaders' motives and intentions. End users, however, can deliver convincing testimonials of their experiences with the company's products and services, showing that leaders' messages are more than rhetoric. Outsourcing inspiration to end users can also keep the content fresh: Leaders can call on multiple customers to deliver distinct messages. For these reasons, leaders should abandon the notion—popularized in the mainstream business press—of themselves as lone heroes who must rally their employees to do great things. Leaders need help bringing their visions to life, and end users are uniquely suited to this task. In this article, I show how leaders can take full advantage of opportunities for connecting employees to the people affected by their work. Outsourcing inspiration is not about eliminating leaders from the picture; it's about creating a partnership that can enhance the meaning employees derive from their jobs and move them to do their best work. Employees Without a Cause The most powerful evidence I've gathered that connecting employees with end users yields motivational benefits comes from a series of experiments with university fundraising callers. These callers, whose sole responsibility is to convince alumni to donate money, face motivational challenges common in many sales and service jobs: repetitive work, low autonomy, and rude customers. A large portion of the donated money is used to fund scholarships, but the callers don't see or meet the recipients. One caller had posted a telling sign on his wall: “Doing a good job here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit. You get a warm feeling, but no one else notices.” Annual turnover rates in this field can exceed 400%: In a typical three-month period, the entire staff quits, creating exorbitant hiring and training costs. As part of my research, I have invited several thousand executives to propose ways to motivate the callers to increase their efforts to bring in donations. Most executives start from the assumption that employees are ultimately self-interested, proposing performance incentives such as pay increases, promotions, recognition, food, and breaks—interventions that the fundraising managers had already tried, to no avail. Rarely do executives suggest imbuing the work with greater meaning and purpose. In fact, fewer than 1% say that managers should show the callers how their work makes a difference. This is consistent with the attitudes of the managers themselves: They give the callers no information about how the donations are used or who benefits from them. Like the executives, they assume the callers are driven by self-interest and simply don't care. But there's a wealth of evidence that people want to do meaningful work: In national surveys over the past three decades, the vast majority of Americans have identified meaningful work as the single most important feature that they seek in a job. And numerous researchers have found that people are concerned not only about themselves but also about doing work that benefits others and contributes to society. Once they are armed with this knowledge, executives often suggest that managers deliver inspiring speeches about how the donations are used. But are such messages more powerful coming from a person who benefited from the donations? To test this idea, I invited one scholarship recipient to visit a group of fundraisers who worked in an office filled only with telephones and fellow callers. The student spent five minutes describing how the callers' work had funded his scholarship, how it had made a difference in his life, and how much he appreciated their effort. One month after this visit, the callers showed average increases of 142% in weekly time spent on the phone and 171% in money raised. Callers in two control groups, who did not meet the scholarship student, showed no significant changes in performance. In a second study of callers contacting alumni who donated more frequently to the university, the performance effects following a visit from a scholarship recipient were even more striking: A month later, the callers had on average more than doubled their calls per hour and had achieved average weekly revenue increases of more than 400%, from $411.74 to $2,083.52. In a third study, one group of callers met with a scholarship recipient, another met with a manager who described a student who had benefited from the callers' efforts, and a third group had no intervention. Only the first group experienced any performance improvement. The Art of Motivation Maintenance The high-burnout field of fundraising might feel like an extreme example, but my research suggests that outsourcing inspiration is effective in a wide range of settings. Three basic mechanisms are at work. The first is impact: Employees see for themselves how their work benefits others. This is readily apparent in companies whose products save lives. At Medtronic's annual holiday party, for instance, patients are invited to share their stories about how the company's medical technologies helped them. The stories humanize the work for the engineers and technicians behind the scenes. But employees who make less dramatic contributions can also be inspired by real-life examples of the impact of their work. At Wells Fargo, when bankers hear a customer describe how a loan has enabled her to buy a house or pay off major debts, they gain a richer understanding of how their work makes a lasting difference. The second mechanism is appreciation: Employees come to feel valued by end users. At Let's Go Publications, where teams of editors revise travel books, managers circulate letters from readers who have relied on the company's advice to navigate foreign countries and experience new cultures. These signs of gratitude let editors know their efforts are appreciated. Similarly, at Olive Garden, leaders share with staff members letters from customers describing how they chose to celebrate meaningful events at the company's restaurants. Even though employees know intellectually that their contributions make a difference, gratitude from end users is a powerful reminder of the value of continued quality improvements and innovation. The third mechanism is empathy: Employees develop a deeper understanding of end users' problems and needs and thereby become more committed to helping them. For example, researchers Rajesh Sethi and Carolyn Nicholson recently found that when product development teams had contact with customers, they were more likely to create offerings that exceeded projections for sales and market share. And at Microsoft, leaders learned that a personal connection can help software developers adopt the perspectives of end users. A Microsoft lab manager interviewed by researchers Michael Cusumano and Richard Selby explains that after seeing an end user, developers “immediately empathize with the person. The usual nonsense answer—‘Well, they can just look in the manual if they don't know how to use it,' or ‘My idea is brilliant; you just found ten stupid people'—that kind of stuff just goes out the door.” A face-to-face connection with end users appears to elicit empathy among the developers, motivating them to design software with users in mind. Even simple reminders of the existence of end users can increase employee motivation. Consider an experiment that David Hofmann and I recently conducted in a hospital. Medical professionals are aware of the importance of hygiene, yet many studies suggest that they wash their hands only about a third as often as they should. We placed signs on units around the hospital near soap and gel dispensers available to doctor and nurses. The first sign read, “Hand hygiene prevents you from catching diseases.” The second sign replaced “you” with “patients.” We then tracked soap and gel usage for two weeks after the signs were introduced. We were surprised to find that the second sign yielded average increases of 33% in soap and gel usage, whereas the first sign had no effect. Why? Research shows that medical professionals are overconfident about their immunity to disease but are much more realistic when evaluating the risk to patients, who are often highly vulnerable. This study suggests that a mere mention of end users can make the consequences of one's work more vivid and produce an increase in beneficial behaviors.

2.6a Reading: How Customers Can Rally Your Troops Part 1

How Customers Can Rally Your Troops How did a five-minute meeting motivate university fundraisers to increase their weekly productivity by 400%? How did a photograph drive radiologists to improve the accuracy of their diagnostic findings by 46%? Was it managers who inspired such enormous results? Perhaps they gave an amazing speech or set clearer goals or tracked performance more carefully. In fact, in both situations, managers were not the catalysts. They did not assume that they alone had to bear the burden of motivating employees with inspiring messages. Instead, they tapped in to a powerful force that encouraged workers to go the extra mile. They outsourced inspiration to those who were better suited to the job. A growing body of research shows that end users—customers, clients, patients, and others who benefit from a company's products and services—are surprisingly effective in motivating people to work harder, smarter, and more productively. A brief visit from a student who had received a scholarship motivated the fundraisers to increase their efforts. A photograph of a patient they had never met inspired the radiologists to read X-rays more accurately. By serving as tangible proof of the consequences and value of employees' efforts, end users such as these can be important allies for leaders in motivating and inspiring their workforces. Outsourcing inspiration to end users focuses employees' attention squarely on the ultimate impact of their products and services. At Wells Fargo, for instance, managers show bankers videos of people describing how low-interest loans rescued them from severe debt—a vivid reminder to the bankers that they are striving to serve their customers, not their managers. But the power of end users goes beyond their ability to put a name and a face to employees' efforts. Organizational psychologist David Hofmann and I have found that employees generally see end users as more credible than leaders as sources of inspiration. When leaders attempt to deliver inspiring messages, many employees react with skepticism, questioning whether leaders are just trying to get them to work harder. Indeed, researchers Phil Mirvis and Donald Kanter have found that in many companies, the majority of frontline employees are cynical about leaders' motives and intentions. End users, however, can deliver convincing testimonials of their experiences with the company's products and services, showing that leaders' messages are more than rhetoric. Outsourcing inspiration to end users can also keep the content fresh: Leaders can call on multiple customers to deliver distinct messages. For these reasons, leaders should abandon the notion—popularized in the mainstream business press—of themselves as lone heroes who must rally their employees to do great things. Leaders need help bringing their visions to life, and end users are uniquely suited to this task. In this article, I show how leaders can take full advantage of opportunities for connecting employees to the people affected by their work. Outsourcing inspiration is not about eliminating leaders from the picture; it's about creating a partnership that can enhance the meaning employees derive from their jobs and move them to do their best work. Employees Without a Cause The most powerful evidence I've gathered that connecting employees with end users yields motivational benefits comes from a series of experiments with university fundraising callers. These callers, whose sole responsibility is to convince alumni to donate money, face motivational challenges common in many sales and service jobs: repetitive work, low autonomy, and rude customers. A large portion of the donated money is used to fund scholarships, but the callers don't see or meet the recipients. One caller had posted a telling sign on his wall: “Doing a good job here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit. You get a warm feeling, but no one else notices.” Annual turnover rates in this field can exceed 400%: In a typical three-month period, the entire staff quits, creating exorbitant hiring and training costs. As part of my research, I have invited several thousand executives to propose ways to motivate the callers to increase their efforts to bring in donations. Most executives start from the assumption that employees are ultimately self-interested, proposing performance incentives such as pay increases, promotions, recognition, food, and breaks—interventions that the fundraising managers had already tried, to no avail. Rarely do executives suggest imbuing the work with greater meaning and purpose. In fact, fewer than 1% say that managers should show the callers how their work makes a difference. This is consistent with the attitudes of the managers themselves: They give the callers no information about how the donations are used or who benefits from them. Like the executives, they assume the callers are driven by self-interest and simply don't care. But there's a wealth of evidence that people want to do meaningful work: In national surveys over the past three decades, the vast majority of Americans have identified meaningful work as the single most important feature that they seek in a job. And numerous researchers have found that people are concerned not only about themselves but also about doing work that benefits others and contributes to society. Once they are armed with this knowledge, executives often suggest that managers deliver inspiring speeches about how the donations are used. But are such messages more powerful coming from a person who benefited from the donations? To test this idea, I invited one scholarship recipient to visit a group of fundraisers who worked in an office filled only with telephones and fellow callers. The student spent five minutes describing how the callers' work had funded his scholarship, how it had made a difference in his life, and how much he appreciated their effort. One month after this visit, the callers showed average increases of 142% in weekly time spent on the phone and 171% in money raised. Callers in two control groups, who did not meet the scholarship student, showed no significant changes in performance. In a second study of callers contacting alumni who donated more frequently to the university, the performance effects following a visit from a scholarship recipient were even more striking: A month later, the callers had on average more than doubled their calls per hour and had achieved average weekly revenue increases of more than 400%, from $411.74 to $2,083.52. In a third study, one group of callers met with a scholarship recipient, another met with a manager who described a student who had benefited from the callers' efforts, and a third group had no intervention. Only the first group experienced any performance improvement. The Art of Motivation Maintenance The high-burnout field of fundraising might feel like an extreme example, but my research suggests that outsourcing inspiration is effective in a wide range of settings. Three basic mechanisms are at work. The first is impact: Employees see for themselves how their work benefits others. This is readily apparent in companies whose products save lives. At Medtronic's annual holiday party, for instance, patients are invited to share their stories about how the company's medical technologies helped them. The stories humanize the work for the engineers and technicians behind the scenes. But employees who make less dramatic contributions can also be inspired by real-life examples of the impact of their work. At Wells Fargo, when bankers hear a customer describe how a loan has enabled her to buy a house or pay off major debts, they gain a richer understanding of how their work makes a lasting difference. The second mechanism is appreciation: Employees come to feel valued by end users. At Let's Go Publications, where teams of editors revise travel books, managers circulate letters from readers who have relied on the company's advice to navigate foreign countries and experience new cultures. These signs of gratitude let editors know their efforts are appreciated. Similarly, at Olive Garden, leaders share with staff members letters from customers describing how they chose to celebrate meaningful events at the company's restaurants. Even though employees know intellectually that their contributions make a difference, gratitude from end users is a powerful reminder of the value of continued quality improvements and innovation. The third mechanism is empathy: Employees develop a deeper understanding of end users' problems and needs and thereby become more committed to helping them. For example, researchers Rajesh Sethi and Carolyn Nicholson recently found that when product development teams had contact with customers, they were more likely to create offerings that exceeded projections for sales and market share. And at Microsoft, leaders learned that a personal connection can help software developers adopt the perspectives of end users. A Microsoft lab manager interviewed by researchers Michael Cusumano and Richard Selby explains that after seeing an end user, developers “immediately empathize with the person. The usual nonsense answer—‘Well, they can just look in the manual if they don't know how to use it,' or ‘My idea is brilliant; you just found ten stupid people'—that kind of stuff just goes out the door.” A face-to-face connection with end users appears to elicit empathy among the developers, motivating them to design software with users in mind. Even simple reminders of the existence of end users can increase employee motivation. Consider an experiment that David Hofmann and I recently conducted in a hospital. Medical professionals are aware of the importance of hygiene, yet many studies suggest that they wash their hands only about a third as often as they should. We placed signs on units around the hospital near soap and gel dispensers available to doctor and nurses. The first sign read, “Hand hygiene prevents you from catching diseases.” The second sign replaced “you” with “patients.” We then tracked soap and gel usage for two weeks after the signs were introduced. We were surprised to find that the second sign yielded average increases of 33% in soap and gel usage, whereas the first sign had no effect. Why? Research shows that medical professionals are overconfident about their immunity to disease but are much more realistic when evaluating the risk to patients, who are often highly vulnerable. This study suggests that a mere mention of end users can make the consequences of one's work more vivid and produce an increase in beneficial behaviors.