The entrepreneur, by nature, is a highly enthusiastic and energetic individual. This person normally has an exceptional passion for his or her business with an incredible drive to ensure their business’ success. Their passion and drive often seems endless and relentless, and herein arises the first significant problem that many entrepreneurs face: Employee motivation.
So often an entrepreneur will say to us: Surely their salary is enough? They’re being paid to do a job, why must I incentivise further? There is a lot of validity in this argument.
The problem lies not in the action of having to incentivise; rather in the understanding that for the employee this is very often a job, whereas for the entrepreneur, this is their life.
The culture of an entrepreneurially run business is frequently one in which the owner is synonymous with the business. It is the charisma of the entrepreneur that motivates employees to want to work as part of a team to grow the business.
Therein lies the solution to motivating employees without providing external incentives: make the employees feel that they are part – and an important part – of the business.
To initiate a business, market, or even an industry is exciting and dynamic. There is nothing quite like creating your own space in the market, and then building it to the next level. No person can create and build a business single-handedly – there is always a need for people to assist, innovate and proactively contribute.
By making people aware of their value and their role in growing the business, they start to feel appreciated, and they start taking ownership of their part of the growth. Isn’t that the greatest accomplishment for any entrepreneur? Not owning 100% of their own small pie, but rather building an enormous pie in which all the contributors share a piece, and each piece can grow and grow through joint nurturing. Entrepreneurship is about creating, and developing “intrapreneurs” within your business is a creation in itself.
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