How to get staff motivated: QA in business administration “Target is another format of the top leader’s desire, learn what drives staff”

This time, Inamori* spoke about the above motto in his book : Practical Accounting -Business Administration and Accounting -.

What Inamori said is quoted with “”.

“Question: How should top leaders set goals that look exciting but realistic to staff? How should we motivate them, and which one works better, top-down or bottom-up approach?”

“Answer: Inject your energy via top-down approach, motivate people towards the goals upon capturing and analyzing people’s subliminal minds. “

Here, Mr. Inamori talks about the keys to motivate staff towards the goal.

Let me explain one by one.

1. Demonstrate strong desire of top leader

“The problem is rather the commitment and determination of the top leader than the approach. First of all, as the business leader, you need to have the numbers that you want to achieve. Business goals are the representation of leaders’ subliminal minds. The key is how to get people motivated to strive themselves toward the goal that you set. ”

→This is a problem of the subconscious mind of leaders. Even if they verbally want to set a goal, in their subconscious mind, they may be thinking that it’s actually impossible, they don’t want to pay such high tax, or don’t want to raise staffs’ salary. It is always the subconscious mind to be realized. Thus, top leaders must analyze and understand their own subconscious minds and to reconcile their subconscious and conscious minds. I, myself, have not yet been able to analyze this subconscious mind. I am afraid to set high goals and embed them into my subconscious mindset. I am very much afraid of failures or losing everything. By writing these down and manifesting them, we can reconcile our subconscious and conscious minds. I may have to keep taking this approach to manage my subconscious minds.

2. Capture and analyze people’s subliminal mind

“Management is ,at the end of the day, how to get people motivated by capturing and analyzing people’s subliminal minds. This is not just for business leaders, but for those who have been managing people like directors of the sports team or school teachers. Thus, we must analyze to understand the psychological background of the people and what is the driver to get people spontaneously motivated.”

→Top leaders must stay away from egoism, devote themselves to the team, work hard for the fulfillment of all the staff, and develop relations based on respect and loves towards staff. Managers themselves must be aware of their own minds and psychological drivers under both conscious and subconscious levels. We must be careful about what other people say and under their context, what kind of message that person wants to communicate. For instance, when a staff says that he needs more people in his team, he wants to communicate to the top leader, ‘Please pay attention and value my achievement ’, ‘I am the one to boost the business with such small number of staff’, ‘please value me’, or ‘ I can’t keep working with that guy, please help me.’ Top leaders may be required to have the same skills and experiences that do psychological counselors.

3. Drive people to challenge

“Everybody must have a desire to challenge something new and to achieve his goal, as well as to change the status quo. It looks boring to everyone to just keep doing routine work. This looks easy and staying on the safe side and the more people work together, the more conservative they get. However, we, human beings, tend spontaneously to seek something exciting and interesting as well. We are made to seek challenges. Therefore, managers must motivate people to seek much higher goals. A Chinese proverb says as the keys to success, `The best time, geographic advantage, and harmony among people’. This can be interpreted that even though you have all the external conditions, unless you get the harmonized desires from your people, you won’t be able to achieve the goal. Even though there are less motivated staff, they would eventually get involved in the company-wide stream of challenges. It is you, the top leader, to create the initial path to drive people. At the end of the day, management is the psychological approach. For example, you need to arrange casual drinking to create an atmosphere where people can open their mind, be straight forward and listen to each other.”

→Top leaders must spend their time listening and talking to staff, motivating them to challenge much higher goals by telling them to move to a completely new world. Mr. Inamori often uses the phrase “open up your heart.” I think this means reading and understanding the subconscious mind of each staff member. Drinking may help to link the conscious mind to the subconscious mind. People’s subconscious minds come out when they get drunk. Thus, talking over drinks may help the top leaders’ message to achieve the subconscious minds of staff. By doing this, even when they are working at their workplace, they may spontaneously consider `Maybe I can achieve this goal.’

Further queries or doubts, please email to ytomizuka@abrilsjp.com

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