Which kind of motivation after the financial crisis?

Companies, especially business and investment banks, have been impacted by a huge crisis in 2007. They are just emerging now from this period. During that time teams and management boards dealt first with emergency tasks, like a sailing crew trying to fix a boat before it definitely sinks, without any time to think again their actions.

Today, even if the sea is still rough but the storm gone, the crew starts thinking about their motivation: cost reduction, regulatory constraints, low brand image, stress… and no more incredible bonus!

Questioned by many clients about motivation levers after this crisis, P-Val brings a first insight on the strength of their current World. Two main questions have to be asked before any useful work on motivation levers can be initiated.

1.       Is the current World, inherited from the crisis, still logical and efficient? Did this World burst completely?

If the Greatness is to be the most innovative, how to deal with that if the Interactions and Decisions are based on compliance process and costs reduction?

If the greatness is the high growth, how to deal with that in a market under liquidity constraints, full of “de-leveraging”?

This gap between Greatness and Recognition before the crisis and Interactions and Decisions after the crisis generates a disappointment from teams at every level.

2.       Can the current World, or the one under construction, generate performance? Does it totally fit with the Clients’ World and the environment?

The main risk is to transform the company in order to avoid the last storm although the next one will be completely different. Greatness is often built from previous experiences. Are these storms really going to happen again? Shouldn’t we look for the expected World greatness in the client’s World’s evolutions? Therefore an investment bank with a goal to “cleaner than clean” could be a weak competitor because of a lack of efficiency, without avoiding some fines inherent to the job.

Such a World would not perform and could lead to a loss of motivation in the medium term. 

Giving a sincere answer to these questions is the only way to really motivate your teams.