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1. Copyright 2011, Leading Geeks Company. All Rights Reserved | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
When the job market heats up, mo va on is an important topic. Managers are interested in
ge ng their workforces fired up to make progress and to prevent the kind of employee turnover
that o en comes with an employment recovery.
The ques on for IT managers is: What can I do to
mo vate my staff? Companies don’t exactly open
the great money spigot unleashing torrents of
disposable cash. Fortunately, money has never
been a big obstacle to mo va ng geeks. The classic
(and o en expensive) things that managers do have
never been par cularly effec ve anyway . Geeks
don’t get fired up by inspira onal speeches,
bonuses, made up awards, family picnics or even
training on cool new technology that they may
never get to use.
To mo vate geeks, there are really only two things
you have to do and neither costs much money.
That’s right. The
most important thing you can do to mo vate the staff is avoid
demo va ng them. Most geeks come to work already engaged and
energized; but the source of that mo va on is different for each person.
Some love the technology and the puzzles. Others are engaged by the
opportunity for learning and advancement. Many are excited by the
impact of their work on others. Some are happy with the peers with
whom they get to work with.
Regardless of where their mo va on comes from, your biggest job is not to kill it. Demo va on and
dejec on usually start at the top. Internally generated mo va on tends to be a rela vely fragile state.
While a manager may not be able to create a mo vated team, he o en has the power to kill whatever
mo va on grows.
Paul Glen is the CEO of Leading Geeks, an educa on and
consul ng firm devoted to unlocking the value of technical
people. You can contact him at paul@leadinggeeks.com.
Sponsored by:

2. Copyright 2011, Leading Geeks Company. All Rights Reserved | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
Excluding technicians from decision-making. Technical people's distress at being le out of major
decisions is about more than just feeling out of the loop. They o en sense that their talents have been
disregarded. They have been insulted. And, since many decisions are influenced by technical
considera ons, they also feel that the decisions themselves could be suspect, since managers' technical
knowledge is rarely respected. Any of these
interpreta ons would qualify as demo va ng.
Inconsistency. People who are drawn to careers in
technology typically have a strong need for
consistency and predictability. Early interac ons with
computers are quite comfor ng for them. As
youngsters, they draw conclusions about computers,
their parents and themselves. "If I type in this
command, the computer always does the same
thing. That's cool. I wish my mom was that
predictable."
Excessive monitoring. In technical groups, there
are few bigger insults than to call someone a
micromanager. The feeling of being micromanaged is profoundly demo va ng. Monitoring someone
excessively, inten onally or not, communicates distrust for the person being overseen. And in many
kinds of technical work, it can also serve as an impediment to progress. In intellectually demanding,
crea ve work, interrup ons can disrupt thinking for long periods of me. A manager's one-minute drop-
by can result in hours of lost produc vity, regaining the concentra on lost.
Let’s face it; you can’t really mo vate anyone else. You can offer
incen ves and rewards, but that’s not what makes crea ve people
create. They have an inner drive that makes them great. It’s called
intrinsic mo va on. Your job, as a manager, is not to create intrinsic
mo va on for them, but to create a fer le place for it to grow.

3. Copyright 2011, Leading Geeks Company. All Rights Reserved | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
1. Select Wisely. The most important thing a leader can do to encourage intrinsic mo va on is to assign
work to geeks who have an interest in the work. Take advantage of what they are already interested in.
Not only are they already interested, but it also signals that you care about what they are interested in.
2. Manage Meaning. The second most important
thing a leader can do is to give a geek some sense of
the larger significance of their work. Without a sense
of meaning, mo va on suffers and day-to-day
decisions become difficult. It is easy for geeks to
become mired in the ambiguous world of ques ons,
assump ons, and provisional facts characteris c of
technical work.
3. Communicate Significance. It is very
important for managers to be explicit about the role
a new technology plays in a business; otherwise,
some will misunderstand the centrality of their work
and others may develop delusions of grandeur.
4. Show Career Path. Many geeks have only a vague sense that there’s more to advancing their careers
than just acquiring new technical knowledge. Be specific about what competencies a geek must
demonstrate in order to advance their career.
5. Projec ze. Projects help turn work into a game and geeks love games with objec ves that delineate
both goals and success criteria.
6. Encourage Isola on. While geeks need free flowing communica on within their own work groups,
collec ve seclusion provides fer le soil for mo va on, cul va ng cohesion and concentra on. Much of the
most crea ve work comes from small groups who are isolated from the rest of their organiza on and are
completely focused on one major crea ve effort.
7. Engender External Compe on. Healthy compe on can enhance group cohesion. Nothing like a
common enemy to get a group to focus.

4. Copyright 2011, Leading Geeks Company. All Rights Reserved | www.leadinggeeks.com | 310-694-0450
8. Design Interdependence. When a colleague is relying on you to complete your work, it’s much
easier to put in the extra effort for them than it is to meet some externally imposed deadline. It’s the
foxhole mentality. In war, soldiers fight for their buddies, not for some abstract concept.
9. Limit Group Size. As group size grows,
colleagues become less individuals and more an
undis nguished mass of anonymous faces. The larger
the workgroup is, the less conducive the
environment for developing intrinsic mo va on
becomes.
10. Control Resource Availability. Whether
thinking about money, people, me, or training,
there’s a delicate balance of resources that will
encourage a group’s enthusiasm. Too many
resources or too few can diminish interest in the work.
11. Offer Free Food . . . Intermi ently. Never underes mate the power of free food. I can’t offer any
ra onal explana on, but for geeks, even those making sizeable incomes, free food offers major support to
mo va on development, far more than an equivalent amount of cash. Plus, it brings the group together in
a common se ng, allowing for outside-the-box collabora on.
So when you are thinking about your staff and how to get them fired
up, forget about all the expensive and ineffec ve techniques that
involve throwing money around and hoping that people chase it.
What most technical people need is not more money, but a place that
they are excited to come to every day, a place where they can feel
appreciated and fulfilled. Give them that, and the mo va on will take
care of itself.
Paul Glen is the CEO of Leading Geeks, an educa on and consul ng firm dedicated to unlocking the value
of technical people. Leading Geeks taps this value by transforming the tricky rela onships between
technical and non-technical groups, at the execu ve, management and project level.
You can contact him at paul@leadinggeeks.com