Over- or Understimulation

Most employees need stimulation. Such stimulation as pep talks, encouragement or even nagging can spur people on to greater heights or it can push them over the edge into exhaustion. The quality, quantity and timing of stimulation determines whether such efforts are a positive or negative force.

Successfully providing stimulation to employees involves more than just lighting fires under people. Providing the proper amount of stimulation is a question of energy and adaptation. Seasoned athletes have the advantage of years of experience and training. They’ve learned how to pace themselves in order to win. Your people may not have the same type of experience and perspective. Consciously or unconsciously they rely on their manager to set the pace that enables them to become winners.

Learning how to set a proper pace for subordinates requires determining where each person’s stress comfort zone lies. Research has shown that up to a certain point, performance increases by increasing stress. This is the point where it’s effective to push people with deadlines, incentives or other forms of pressure.

Beyond this point, increasing stress causes performance to drop sharply, and only through decreasing the pressure will a manager be able to improve performance. This relationship between performance and stress was shown over seventy-five years ago by Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson at the Harvard Physiologic Laboratory. The results hold true today.

Too little stimulation can just as great a problem as too much. In one study, participants were restricted to a single room and told to do absolutely nothing. Most of them rated the situation unbearable after three or four days. During the experiment, the bored subjects developed tension, sleeplessness, personality changes, reduced intellectual performance and feelings of depersonalization. Happily, all these symptoms quickly disappeared when they resumed their normal activities.

Other research shows that people overwhelmingly agree that boredom on the job is even more uncomfortable than long hours, heavy work loads and pressing responsibilities.

According to a study of two thousand people at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Occupational Safety, those who reported being bored at work felt that their abilities were not being used and that their jobs did not provide as much complexity and variety as they wanted.

Managers who want to ensure that their people reach levels of peak performance must learn exactly where the comfort zone occurs. In addition, they must understand that such stimulation or motivation, or lack of it, will also vary with each individual. As with Situational Leadership, the level of competence and commitment of each individual will differ. Being aware of these differences will enable managers to help people hit high achievement levels.

Some motivation should be applied on a department or unit level. However, the best motivation should be interwoven with an individual’s own one-minute goals. This type of motivation is individualized. It relates to the specific job a person is performing and is linked with measurable outcomes. Appropriate, well-managed stimulation is the stuff that makes winners.