Coaching and the Hawthorne effect

Coaching and the Hawthorne effect
If you want to see an immediate boost in levels of
motivation, fire up your word processor and create a quick
questionnaire for each of your team members which asks:

What aspect of your job do you most enjoy?
What aspect of your job do you least enjoy?
What aspect of your job would you most like to see stay the
same?

Type up and issue one questionnaire for each member of your
team. You may need to explain that you're looking at ways
to improve motivation and that the starting point is
getting a better idea of what makes them tick.

You can get people to put their names on the sheets if you
like or you can do it anonymously if you think you'll get a
more honest response.

If you think issuing questionnaires is a bit heavy handed,
pop the questions on a flip chart or white board and have
an open team discussion around them. Alternatively if
there's a scheduled performance review or appraisal coming
up, factor the questions into your one to one discussions.

In any event you'll be gathering valuable information about
levels and types of motivation in the team which you can
use to develop a long-term approach. However, I promised
this tip would improve motivation straight away and it
will. Here's how it works: By asking people questions
you'll be paying them attention and you'll benefit from the
'Hawthorne effect' Perhaps the most famous experiments in
motivation were carried our by management researcher Elton
Mayo and his team at the Western Electric Company's
Hawthorne plant in Chicago. Between 1924 and 1932, five
sets of tests were conducted in an attempt to understand
what made workers assembling telephone equipment more
productive. To begin with the experiments concentrated on
improvements to lighting. Productivity indeed improved, but
it also improved when the lights were dimmed. This odd
result was repeated in experiments which looked at pay,
incentives, rest periods, hours of work, and supervision.
Mayo advanced two theories.

He firstly suggested that the very fact of being involved
in an experiment encouraged the workers to be more
productive. It created interest and involvement in their
repetitive work, and their managers began taking an
interest in how they felt. Mayo's second theory was that
social interaction had a critical effect on motivation
because the experiment meant bringing workers together in
teams with a positive relationship with a supervisor.In any
event it seemed the workers simply appreciated the change
the experiments brought about, felt more valued and
generally happier and thus their performance improved. So
just by issuing your questionnaire you're showing that
you're taking an interest in your people and that you value
their contribution. You should see results improve even if
you did nothing more.

This questioning approach lies at the heart of management
by coaching. If you embrace the coaching role you'll be
paying this sort of quality attention to your staff every
working day. The improvements that follow can be quite
staggering. With coaching as the prevailing style you can
ensure a constant level of motivation, not just the quick
fillip provided by waving the carrot or the stick.

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Matt Somers is a coaching practitioner of many years'
experience. He works with a host of clients in North East
England where his firm is based and throughout the UK and
Europe. Matt understands that people are working with their
true potential locked away. He shows how coaching provides
a simple yet elegant key to this lock. For a bumper load of
coaching tips and tricks - including FREE resources - visit
http://www.mattsomers.com