Proverbs 13:12 Hope delayed makes the heart sick; longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Every time an employee thinks he/she achieved an objective but does not get rewarded appropriately, he/she suffers a motivational loss.

As a Coach I get hired to tell the truth but sometimes the same truth has landed me in danger. At the worst it got me fired.

In 2018 I was contracted by an entrepreneur. Her staff engagement was at an all time low, people were demotivated and for such the exits were as many as the hires.

Like any wise entrepreneur she wanted to get to the root of the problem. “Why are the good people leaving”, she asked me. “ I give them the best salaries, I have buried their loved ones, educated some and to many I am like a mother”, she went on to state her accolades.

Over the years I have learnt that when someone keeps singing their praises yet the problem gets worse something is wrong.

After a series on analysis I came back to her with a solution: 360 feedback for the team.

“Sudesh I want you to tell it to me the way it is”, she insisted.

When I looked at the results of the 360 feedback it was clear that my dear entrepreneur had employees experiencing motivational loss. They had been promised heaven on earth but very little was delivered.

Some employees are more internally motivated and can withstand a few motivational losses without being affected in their day-to-day, but any employee has a “breaking point” where, after enough motivational losses,he/she will lose all enthusiasm and become a difficult employee or quit the company.

Over my career I have learnt that human beings like to contribute to the betterment of Companies. No employee is indifferent by design. Something in them snaps and they don’t know how to deal with it.

To avoid motivational loss, I usually spend a lot of time with managers teaching them how to set non-ambiguous objectives.

If the objective assigned to a subordinate is not clear, then it is possible that the subordinate equivocates and produces a work which he genuinely believes achieved the result he was tasked with. In this case, when the manager will have to tell him that his work was not good enough, the subordinate will suffer a great motivational loss: he expected a praise and received a reprimand instead.

Unambiguous objectives are necessary to avoid motivational losses.

Remember: Clarity is power and that power is motivation.

Oh by the way when my client saw the 360 report she fired me and hired me eighteen months later.