How to Motivate Lazy Colleagues
An office worker may hope to never have to know how to motivate lazy colleagues, but too often the situation is an unfortunate reality. Having lazy co-workers can result in a generally under-productive office, an unpleasant working environment, and various nuanced consequences within the realm of interoffice relationships and project management. As much as many companies claim teamwork and diligence as valued characteristics, some of their employees may not regard these traits seriously.Supervisor NoticeIt may seem akin to being a snitch or the school tattler, but notifying a supervisor can be a very effective way of how to motivate lazy colleagues, especially if it can be done anonymously without risk of some sort of reciprocation or escalated response. Having a co-worker be written up for poor work ethic, or otherwise endure professional discipline, can be a very effective motivational tool indeed.Political LeverageThe masters of office politics understand that words are the weapons of the political arsenal, and the right sequence of phrasing can complete alter a person or situation. Sometimes, understanding how to motivate lazy colleagues involves striving to recognize the subtleties of the corporate culture and take advantage of situational factors. To put this into the perspective of an example, imagine that Joe is a lazy co-worker, and Joe's supervisor is Veronica. If a worker were to interact with Veronica, and drop hints that Joe was not performing up to expectations, the result may be additional pressured leveraged against Joe to work harder or suffer consequences. Additionally, the right amount of passive-aggressiveness or backhanded compliments in a business setting among other, more-respected colleagues can be just the psychological warfare needed to start affecting the laziness toward a more positive direction.Creative IncentiveHuman beings have desires. This deceptively simple fact can be exploited as one of the tools of how to motivate lazy colleagues. Perhaps the unmotivated co-worker has a penchant for a certain local restaurant, in which case the basic offer of taking out to lunch there in exchange for finished a project by a certain date may prove to be remarkably effective. Knowledge of strengths and weaknesses can be a key role in the motivation game as well; for instance, if one worker is particularly adept at business writing, he or she may offer to help a colleague form a proposal in exchange for help with an assignment that would appropriately complement the other team member's strengths in return. The added benefit is that identifying such symbiotic relationships can provide long-term benefits besides simply helping to offset laziness.
The potentially prickly problem of how to motivate lazy colleagues will likely persist as long as people show up to work, but this does not mean that reversing a negative trend is a futile endeavor. Sometimes, the issues at hand may just be altering someone's perspective to acknowledge the bigger picture: A group of people working together for the common good of an organization will enhance organizational success, and thus positively affect everyone involved.
