This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
guest editorial Modern Motivations


JON KOWANETZ OWNER OF HANDCRAFTED CAR AUDIO, MESA, ARIZ.


days. We make promises to ourselves to exercise more, drink less, quit smoking or any number of New Year’s resolutions. These goals help enrich our personal lives but not our professional lives. Given that every business’ goal year after year is growth, shouldn’t that mean you need to make your business better every year? From birth, it’s our natural instinct to learn to crawl, walk, run and finally play sports with friends. What is this motivated by? Money? Food? No, we have no need for one and will get the other regardless, so what’s left? Mastery. What was your mo- tivation to do the best you could do when you first got started in this industry? Big bonuses? Nope. You did it because you loved the job, not what it could do for you. This concept is the same for your employees, people you hired to do a job you know they love. Perhaps enticing workers with mone- tary incentives is the wrong idea. For some, the biggest motivator to get up and go to work in society is money. Technicians do better work when it will garner them higher pay. Salesmen will be more courteous, attach more accessories and provide better customer service if you pay them to do so—right? But perhaps this way of thinking is a relic of a simpler time, when most jobs were more algorithmic, as- sembly line tasks in which one could follow a simple set of instructions. It makes sense to pay employees doing tasks like these on a commission basis because rewards, by their nature, focus the workers vision and, since there is never a need to deviate from the plan, they can become faster and faster with a very small failure rate. In this sce- nario, paying for performance works very well, but what about tasks in which the worker must use his creativity to complete the task? Think about a hobby that feeds your


A


soul. For me, it would be snowboarding. I love snowboarding with all of my heart and I would do it day in and day out for the rest of my life if I could support my family on it. So, what if somebody offered to pay me to snowboard for their videos? Dream come true right? Maybe. If they started to dictate choices like type of board used,


s a society we typically mark the beginning of a new year by denouncing the bad habits we held during the previous 365


number of hours on the mountain and what trails to ride, then maybe not. I’d be more likely to take the easy route, racking up runs and tricks that I knew were safe, so that I could guarantee my pay, instead of breaking boundaries and leading the industry. It’s important to understand that the right employees will strive for high quality by a deadline simply because the challenge of doing so moves them to perform. They don’t need your incentives. If you are currently using incentives to motivate your team, try these practices out and see what affect they have:  Take the issue of money off the table.


Pay your team members a slightly high- er-than-average wage based on their skill level and never bring up money again. Watch what happens when they are no longer worried about feeding their families and can focus on doing what they love.  Don’t dictate how they do their work.


Provide each team member with a very clear framework with which they can oper- ate. Be sure that they understand what the finished product must look like, but how they get there, is up to them. Remember, you hired them because they’re good, right?  Reward them when they are not


expecting it. When a member of your team does a great job at something, surprise them with a reward! There is nothing wrong with a reward, as long as it is given after the fact. Think about a time when you got a tip from a customer for going above and beyond. Did you do so because you knew you’d make more money? Would the tip have had the same luster if you knew about it before hand? For extra effec- tiveness, make the recognition about the process used, not the end result. These ideas may seem radical and go


against everything that we “know” indi- vidual motivations, but before you discard them as starry-eyed idealism, consider that our industry is mostly devoid of the inno- vation and determination that once made the OEMs follow our lead. A walk through the halls of SEMA and our shrinking slice of the consumer electronics pie is undeni- able proof of that. Isn’t it time we admit that what we are doing is not working and that maybe a new focus on leveraging our creative energy, rather than our desire to survive, is exactly what we need? 


me-mag.com 13





Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68