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One common theme stands out in my many years of operations management training. Managers and supervisors don’t know when they’re doing a good job. And actually neither do their employees. Now, isn’t that a strange situation to find ourselves in?

Long ago in another lifetime, I taught education at a university. It was rewarding work. During that time the mission was to develop teachers, of course, and I taught teaching methods and techniques.

But the real job was to teach people to teach themselves, and to get it across to these future educators that this was their mission as well. That was because people teaching themselves is a “walking around asset”—a life skill that lasts a lifetime.

So what about you and your employees? What moves you to do a good job? What motivates you? That’s a great question, isn’t it? And don’t you love that word “motivation”? What is it all about?

I am concerned by motivation. It seems to me either you are driven internally or you aren’t. If you don’t come with attitude and desire, I can’t give it to you. I also tend to think in the other direction too—that I can demotivate you. Managers and supervisors potentially demotivate their employees every day.

“Making money is a byproduct of being in business. Providing your products or services well in a manner that satisfies the needs of customers is why we are in business.”

They do it with looks, words, tone, loudness, and body language. All are signals that cause people to withhold their most valuable assets, their talent, knowledge, and skills. So, while I’m not sure I can motivate anyone, I know I can demotivate everyone.

I find it interesting we all start a new job as interested and excited in the new opportunity. But depending on the environment and the boss, things can change. Some people become careful and cautious in their work because they are criticized with every mistake. Some people become disillusioned and disinterested when no one pays any attention to them.

Let’s explore one other aspect of our work and the cultural biases we live within. In North America, we learn through what I call obedience. We show people what we want them to do, we tell them what it is that we want, we show them again, and finally we tell them to try it. We want them to do it over and over again until they get it right. Then once they have it right, we move on and leave them alone. Contrast that to the Japanese culture. Everyone is taught to make the job better each and every day. It is called kaizen (“improvement”).

That gets me to the heart of this message. The boss doesn’t spend a lot of time with each and every employee every day, and the boss’s boss doesn’t spend time with him or her every day either. It is the way of work in larger companies. There are some exceptions, but very few.

Small companies are more like families. They are a small social group, know each other well, and work closely with each other every day. But when the company grows they often lose that warm, “fuzzy” feeling. So we need to have different devices and mechanisms that allow each employee to know and understand what is expected of them and how they can measure their own performance. We need goals, and daily ones at that.

In his book The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, Patrick Lencioni describes the situation extremely well. It is well worth the read. He describes what each of us need as a sense of value. We need to feel that our work and effort is worthwhile and that we made a contribution to someone in some way. He uses key words like anonymity, irrelevant, immeasurable. You do not want employees to feel they are anonymous, they are irrelevant, and that they can’t measure their work performance. Do you think that would motivate anyone in a job?

Here is another simple truth. An employee will work much harder and more readily to satisfy a customer than they will to satisfy the boss. Isn’t that interesting? Why is that? It’s actually simple. It’s because it becomes personal. It is not about a company or a system or a procedure, but it is about another human being.

So what do we need to do? Well, it is really quite simple too. Ask the customer, consistently and constantly, what they would like to have from you—what are their needs and wants? Once you have that information, it really becomes much easier to manage a department or a business.

Many people think we are in business to make money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Making money is a byproduct of being in business. Providing your products or services well in a manner that satisfies the needs of customers is why we are in business. And when we realize that, we start to enjoy ourselves and have fun at work. And that is what makes motivated employees and satisfied customers. That is what makes everything work.

Start asking questions of your customers. “How can I help you?” “What can I do for you today?” “If you had a magic wand in your hands, what would you like to see from my company?” Go ahead, I promise everyone would feel better if each of us did the same.