How do I motivate my boss?

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The question “How do I motivate my employees?” has been asked to me countless times by superiors. Surprisingly, I have never encountered the question “How do I motivate my boss?” Since the term is not used uniformly, it should be briefly mentioned that by boss, I mean anyone with leadership responsibility for an area.

Escape the Feature Factory: Stefan Mintert english

Stefan Mintert works with his clients to improve corporate culture in software development. He currently sees the greatest potential in leadership, regardless of hierarchical level. He set himself the task of leveraging this potential after a career path that involved several changes of direction. Originally coming from a computer science background with several years of consulting experience, he initially founded his own software development company. In doing so, he realized that leadership is something that needs to be learned and that good role models are rare. It became apparent that his customers' greatest need for support in software development was not in producing code, but in leadership. So it was clear to him where his company Kutura was headed: improving leadership so that the people who develop the products can develop and grow themselves. Stefan has been writing for Heise as a long-time freelancer for iX since 1994.

Are superiors always motivated?

Considering that a superior A is also an employee of their superior B, the supposed motivation problem should also apply to person A. Therefore, from B's perspective, A might also lack motivation at times.

However, even from the perspective of person A's team, I doubt the state of “permanent motivation.” This is because I often hear from teams that they lack leadership. Team members certainly recognize deficiencies in their superiors, but they never associate it with motivation.

Is this actually about motivation or something else?

For example, a developer I worked with asked his area manager for an employee appraisal. It hadn't happened for a long time, and so several issues had accumulated for the employee. Eight months after the employee first requested the meeting, it still hadn't taken place. Apparently, the manager wasn't particularly motivated to conduct the meeting. When I brought up the topic with him, he openly admitted that he preferred to deal with technical issues. It gave the impression that anything related to personnel management in his position was not “his thing”.

Now, one can (with some justification) fundamentally complain about such a situation, but that doesn't help and doesn't answer the most important question: What should the employee do in that case?

Generally, I advise finding out what interests the superior; in other words, what motivates them. Do they want to look good to their superior? Do they want to deal with certain topics as little as possible? Do they want the tasks that are completed to be done as smoothly and on schedule as possible? And so on.

The second step is to connect your request with the presumed motivation of your superior.

Different Strategies

In the example above of the superior who wants “peace and quiet,” there are various strategies, from accommodating to confrontational. An accommodating approach would be, for instance, to take charge of planning the meeting, create an agenda with your topics, and put all of this into a calendar entry. If you can see the superior's free slots in the calendar, choose a time and invite them.

A confrontational approach would be to remind your boss about the desire for a meeting in all other ongoing meetings. This includes meetings where the topic has no relevance. At some point – so the hope is – you will have annoyed them enough and get an appointment. Whether this confrontational approach is a good idea likely depends very heavily on your personal relationship with your superior. And it's important to strike the right tone. Under no circumstances should you hinder the actual topic of the meeting. However, if the superior asks at the end in a perfunctory way, “Are we done, or do you have any other topics?” a casual mention like “We still wanted to have our employee appraisal. When would be a good time?” might work.

A third way, which I was able to use very successfully, is to create your own tickets in the Teamboard (sic!) for the topics that the superior needs to address. This works particularly well if the manager sees themselves as part of the team. If you can somehow justify that these tickets can serve as blockers for other team work, the team will eventually come to a standstill if the boss doesn't deliver.

For teams that monitor their work with metrics, such an approach can significantly worsen the evaluations. If the tickets in question remain unaddressed for a long time, the cycle time increases. In the example above, the ticket “Conduct employee appraisal” would have become at least 8 months old. In the environments I know, this is a very poor cycle time. If this is a KPI that is made visible in the company, the superior certainly wouldn't want this situation to be broadcast widely. So, with this approach, you leverage the motivation that the superior values their reputation in the company.

Ultimately, in all these cases, it comes down to taking leadership yourself in each individual case when dealing with a (seemingly unmotivated) superior.

Read first, then listen

After writing the article, the idea arose to discuss the question “How do I motivate my boss?” in conversation with managers. The discussions take place live and online and – if there is sufficient demand – regularly. The registration is free.

(rme)