Generating a sense of purpose within a team is one of the more significant tasks a project manager faces. Together with skills and motivation, purpose allows the potential of a team to be realised.
According to Expectancy theory, when faced with several choices, an employee will favour the route that will lead to a reward.
Jill Hamlyn, MD of People Business
To create a healthy team, the strengths and best suited roles for each individual must be identified.
In view of this fact, the concept of a corporate persona becomes important. The right person for the job will be able to blend in with the corporate persona, and this in turn facilitates harmony within the company.
In his book, The Gods of Management, Charles Handy explains that cultural confusion, or poor people/job fit, is detrimental to an organisation and can result in inefficiency, the need for extra resources and increased overtime.
Once the hurdle of finding the right person has been negotiated, it becomes important to establish a sense of motivation within the team. In this regard, a reward system is important. There may be inherent rewards to be gained from working with a successful team, such as feelings of camaraderie and job satisfaction. However, external rewards are also significant, especially with regards to the concept of expectancy.
According to Expectancy theory, when faced with several choices, an employee will favour the route that will lead to a reward. Thus pay is unimportant as an objective entity. It only becomes important to the extent that it is seen as a way to satisfy motives that are meaningful to an employee.
Motivation
Employees who regard pay as important and who also expect their performance to be instrumental in receiving more money will perform better.
Setting goals is an important facet of Expectancy theory. The project manager is instrumental in helping team members to set both personal and team goals. Research has shown that motivation to perform is highest when goals are specific, are set at a high level and are accepted as realistic.
Regular feedback should be provided by the project manager to facilitate effective team motivation. Monetary rewards may be instrumental in this since many goal-setting employees regard the amount of pay received as feedback on performance.
Profit sharing may be one way for project managers to instil a sense of working together towards a goal, if the rules of profit sharing are adhered to. Profit sharing must be related directly to performance and regular feedback. Fairness and full disclosure must be maintained at all times, and the profit sharing formula must not be arbitrarily changed.
Profit sharing makes the people in the team `partners` as they all have a major stake in each other`s achievements, which in turn creates a tough-minded attitude towards other members of the team who do not fully participate in the work.
In order to be successful, project managers need to hone their project management skills. The person who accepts responsibility stands out from the others, and is ultimately the one who gets ahead. The individual drive and inspiration of project managers may become the bottom line in negating staff turnover.
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