I'm Lawrence Kersten, Co-Founder and COO of Despair, Inc.And today I'm going to talk to you about the signs of a demotivated workforce.Now one of the perennial problems that managers and executives face ismotivating their employees. And despite all of the work that's been done on allof the incentive plans that have been developed, motivating employees is stilla problem in need of a solution.
Well at Despair, Inc. we believe the problem is trying tomotivate employees and we believe instead that you should try and demotivateyour employees. So what I'd like to do today is explain seven signs of ademotivated workforce and explain the benefits that we've experienced atDespair, Inc.
The first sign of a demotivated employee is a feeling ofpowerlessness. Employees who feel powerless over their lives tend to besatisfied with less. Because they feel like they have no control over theirlife, they feel like anything they do could perhaps create even bigger problemsthan the ones they're experiencing now, so they tend to be satisfied with whateverthey've got.
The second sign of a demotivated employee is they tend tofeel like they are victims of a hostile fate. They feel like any changes theymight make are going to be like going from the frying pan into the fire. Soconsequently they tend to be very loyal to the organization. And as a result oftheir loyalty, this tends to reduce turnover and as a result of reducingturnover, that saves the company money.
The third sign of a demotivated worker is they tend to feellow self-esteem. Now we have all been taught that low self-esteem is a badthing. But the benefit of this is it tends to eliminate the need for employeerecognition. Employees who have low self-esteem tend to want to avoid thespotlight. Consequently the last thing they want is a recognition program, andwe know how expensive these programs are. So eliminating those tends to helpthe bottom line.
The fourth sign of a demotivated worker is acutedefensiveness. As a result of their feeling defensive, they do extra work as ameans of ingratiating themselves to executives. Now any time you can get anemployee to do extra work, particularly for something as irrelevant asingratiation, that's a good thing.
The fifth sign is employees feel acute self-doubt. As aresult of their self-doubt, they will work very hard as a means of salvagingtheir identities.
The sixth sign of a demotivated workforce is the employeestend to feel a lack of emotional resilience. Now this is very important,because employees don't want to feel badly about themselves, and so consequentlythey will work extra hard to avoid humiliation. Though they tend to avoidseeking recognition, they will work very, very hard to avoid humiliation.
And then the seventh sign of a demotivated workforce isintense risk aversion. And this is very, very important, because employees areso unwilling to take any risks on their own, they will tend to be satisfiedwith simply being an extension of executive ambition. As a result of that, theywill essentially do whatever you're asking for, and really that's what we'relooking for.
So, at Despair, Inc. we have sought to demotivate ouremployees and we have experienced the benefits that I've outlined here as aresult of our demotivational program, and I would encourage you to do the same.
