Shawn Achor Quotes

The only way to get people to like working hard is to motivate them. Today, people must understand why they're working hard. Every individual in an organization is motivated by something different.

The worst mistake a boss can make is not to say 'well done'.

The best way to make employees happy is to set realistic goals and achieve them. The big job is to make sure those small steps are pointing us in the right direction and demonstrate at the end of the year that they all add up to something pretty great.

Our philosophy at Zoom is to create a company that promotes self-motivation. I have told our managers not to spend too much time motivating employees. You have to create an environment where employees can motivate themselves. That is really important because self-motivation is more sustainable.

If you hire great people, and they're all self-motivated, then you can get by without a lot of structure.

There will always be people who think that money and benefits and even just having a job should be thanks enough. There are also those that think they do a great job without anyone having to thank them. But study after study has shown that no one is immune from the motivating effects of acknowledgement and thanks.

When you're managing a large number of people, you learn that incentives matter tremendously. You really want people to be rewarded for doing the right thing for the customers and the organization.

Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can't miss.

Incentive prizes work.

Customers are using BetterWorks in a number of creative ways to reward and incentivize employees.

If you believe, as I do, that your employees truly are your most valuable asset, you will do whatever you can to help them do their jobs as well as possible.

Take time to appreciate employees and they will reciprocate in a thousand ways.

Isn't it ironic that pay, perks, and benefits all cost your company at the bottom line, but authentic recognition, especially when it's most unexpected, costs very little and gives the most impressive return on investment?

The cost of praising someone is nil - but every psychological study shows the payoff is huge.

Call it what you will, incentives are what get people to work harder.

I can't tell you how many thousands of small moments that I've had with employees in our company that have been nothing more than a one-on-one. I'll see the baggage-services person, he or she is by himself. I'll pull them off to the side and have a 15-minute conversation about their history, their life, that kind of thing.

Bottom line: If you can't spare some time to give your employees the chance to wow you, you'll never get the best from them.

Today, no leader can afford to be indifferent to the challenge of engaging employees in the work of creating the future. Engagement may have been optional in the past, but it's pretty much the whole game today.

The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.

When you hire good people, and you provide good jobs and good wages and a career, good things are going to happen.

Working towards something you're excited about - as opposed to something that makes you feel badly about yourself - is what will keep you going back to the gym.

Taking care of your employees is extremely important and very, very visible.

Many of the factors that we think will cause motivation, such as fair pay and a good manager, won't make you love your job. Even if you eliminate what makes you dissatisfied, that doesn't make you motivated. It doesn't make your work rewarding. You just are less bothered by things.

We would rather have our employees running our business.

You get what you reward. Be clear about what you want to get and systematically reward it.