It’s a scene that’s hard to forget.
Midway through the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, the main character – Jordan Belfort – stands in front of a set of office windows, facing dozens of his employees. Belfort – played by Leonardo DiCaprio – is sporting a fancy suit and has a microphone in his hands.
In a raucous speech that would make football coaches blush, Belfort extolls the trappings of wealth status. Then he implores the stockbrokers assembled before him to pick up the phone and start dialing.
The brokers roar voraciously, and then they get to work. They relentlessly push the stock of a fledgling shoe company on their clients.
The brokerage firm – Stratton Oakmont – makes a hefty profit on the inflated shares. The brokers get the trappings of wealth status. And their clients? They’re left in the cold when the smoke clears and the share price drops.
This might all seem like a cautionary tale. Perpetrating securities fraud rarely ends well — and it didn’t for Stratton Oakmont.
But while the tactics in the film have largely been shunned, the speech at the center of it all has not.
And that’s a problem.
Every few months or so, I tune into an all-company meeting on my work laptop.
The core of this meeting has become familiar. There are financial results. There’s a refresher on the company’s core values. There are updates from key business units.
And there’s always a motivational speech from leadership wrapping the proceedings.
Yes, this tenet from The Wolf of Wall Street has made its way to my company. We might not be trading in penny stocks — or profanity — like Stratton Oakmont. But the messaging is directionally similar.
You see, Jordan Belfort was onto something. He might not have held a fancy business degree or consulting accolades before starting his brokerage. But he knew that motivation was key to boosting business productivity.
Job titles and paychecks could only do so much to unlock achievement within Stratton Oakmont’s workforce. To get the most out of his employees, Belfort would need to inspire them, to cajole them, and to fire them up.
This understanding is what built the template for the motivation play that so many companies use today — mine included. By boosting the promise of productivity, the quarterly pump-up speech seems to be an all-around win for businesses.
But looks can be deceiving.
There was a time when work was primarily a transactional pursuit.
Employees would put in their 40 hours each week. And the company would reward them with a paycheck. If the employee stuck around for long enough, they’d get a gold watch at retirement and collect a posh pension.
Those days are long gone. Now, employees are looking for more than pay and stability from their vocation. They’re committed to making the most out of their work.
Many employees enter the workforce intrinsically motivated. They’re driven to make a difference, and they’re committed to maximizing their effort to satiate their desire.
The motivation play from companies would seem to pair well with this ethos. By adding extrinsic motivation to the mix, business leaders could inspire employees to believe in the collective mission at hand. Execute on that, and inspired employees could feel compelled to run through fire for the company.
Motivation proliferates. Productivity soars. Success abounds.
Read between the lines, though, and the implied picture is darker. By motivating their workforce to give more, company leaders are also saying they’re not currently doing enough.
Perhaps that would be a needed kick in the pants if employees weren’t trying their hardest. But in the new world of work, that’s rarely an issue.
And telling the intrinsically motivated to crank it up more can be problematic.
You see, contrary to popular belief, there is an upper bound on effort. We can only give so much before we give out.
The fruits of that effort can certainly accelerate. But such improvements take time to manifest.
So, telling a group of intrinsically motivated achievers to try harder and do more can be counterproductive. Slamming a hammer more vigorously into a concrete bunker wall will only do damage to the hammer.
Worse still, such directives can foster resentment. For while some of those giving these edicts rose through the ranks of their company to reach leadership, many did not.
That dissonance can degrade trust. So, when an outsider drops mandates on their adopted workforce, it can seem elitist — and lead to blowback.
Yes, the motivational play has plenty of cracks under the surface. And if they’re left to fester, those fissures can swallow a company whole.
How can I help you?
This is more than an opening prompt from a chatbot. It’s a core question on many company’s performance review forms.
I’ve encountered this question, or something like it, while filling out dozens of these reviews over the years. And while others might have called for higher pay, more guidance, or more perks, my response has remained consistent.
Provide me the tools to perform my role to the best of my ability.
This response is illustrative. Both of what the intrinsically motivated are looking for and of what their employers are loathe to provide.
Resources, you see, are costly. Software licenses, physical tools, and seminar registrations carry costs for a business — costs that might not directly correlate to increased revenue. It’s a losing financial equation that’s all too easy to nix.
The motivation play, on the other hand, is free. Firing up the troops unlocks the potential for more business, without the company spending a dime.
But the hidden costs are far from trivial. Broken trust and burnout in the wake of these initiatives can fuel attrition. And the endless clamor for more can lead achievers to ration their efforts; that way, they have that extra 5 percent to devote to the next motivation play.
I’d argue that these costs are plenty high. Likely steeper than those incurred while preparing employees for success in their roles.
It’s time for companies to realize this. To understand that motivation is not a commodity for them to peddle. And that the carrots and sticks can only go so far.
Workers are not racehorses, subject to the edicts of their trainers and jockeys. No, employees are free willed thinkers. Achievers who are often driven by intrinsic motivation.
They deserve better than raucous speeches. They deserve more than pleas to work harder. They deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt.
Let’s provide it.