Good managers must regularly motivate employees and pay attention to and appraise their performance, writes GRÁINNE KELLEHER

EVERYONE KNEW the company had been going through a rough patch – then the entire division was called together for a talk by the chief executive. Given the experience of the workers at Dell, Waterford Crystal and Kostal, everyone got suitably nervous. “Don’t worry, it’s not one of those,” they were assured.

So they calmed down and waited. Half an hour late, the chief executive turned up and proceeded to motivate them, by making lots of non-specific reassuring noises. Words and phrases like “going well”, “looking good” and “positive” were thrown about. Except when, in the middle of the address, his mobile went off and he disappeared to answer it.

Then he returned, threw in a few “going forwards” and wrapped up – job done. Except the job he did was not what he thought he’d done. What he had done was:

Insult everyone in the division – twice – by arriving late and then walking off to take a phone call;

Increase most of the employees’ worries about the state of the company as they never see the guy from one year-end to the next. “Must be in serious trouble if he’s here,” was the logic;

Reinforce this worry by looking, as one employee put it, “already defeated”. The message and the man simply didn’t match up;

Create huge speculation about who was on the other end of the phone – most felt that it was the bank manager.

This chief executive is not unique and his peers are likely to emulate him repeatedly over the next year of two. That’s because, when the going gets tough, leaders have a tendency to need to do something. Often the “something” falls under the heading of “motivation” and can be more damaging than doing nothing.

The main problem a leader will encounter when he or she decides to motivate people is that they haven’t been doing it already. Suddenly, appearing and telling everyone that everything is great will lead to obvious questions like “why is he doing this now?”

Equally, an unprecedented burst of “you’re all doing a great job” will result in people who have been doing the same job for years wondering what changed. Knowing nothing really had, but the seeds of speculation and worry will be planted.

Motivation is not an event, it’s a habit. Good managers take every opportunity they can find to tell people, one to one, that they are doing a good job – where that is true and they get specific.

That’s the sort of message that says the guys upstairs are paying attention.

One of the other habits of good managers is to make sure they have good feedback processes in place so they know what’s going on. Having employees that are used to seeing you around helps, but so does having a way of tapping into the grapevine.

Every organisation with more than two people has a grapevine and good managers know this. They make sure to eat with everyone else, although not every day. They identify the indiscrete or just plain talkative types and have chats with them and they keep their eyes open – just seeing how groupings form, change or disband can be informative.

Finally, don’t assume that an intervention is the only option. The situation in your company may be so fluid that making a speech and outlining a plan that will last more than a fortnight is not possible.

The sales figures may be appalling and the order book empty. You may have no good news. Doing something may terrify and demotivate everyone. Every so often, the best thing to do is nothing.

Gráine Kelliher works with mentoring service mentors.ie