Nobody wakes up thinking, “I hope I do mediocre work today.”
After managing a ton of people across multiple companies and industries, I’ve reached a conclusion that transformed how I lead: People inherently want to do good work. Your actual job as a manager is to remove whatever stands in their way.
The Motivation Myth
The management industry has built a billion-dollar empire on the premise that employees need to be motivated, incentivized, and cajoled into performing well. This premise is fundamentally wrong.
The truth I’ve observed repeatedly is far simpler: Most people already have intrinsic motivation. What they lack are clear paths to apply it.
I learned this lesson the hard way when I inherited a “low-performing” team. My first instinct was to implement performance improvement plans, increased monitoring, and “motivational” interventions.
The results? Performance dropped even further.
What’s Actually Happening
When I finally stopped trying to “fix” the team and instead asked what was preventing them from doing their best work, the floodgates opened:
- Contradictory directives from different stakeholders
- Technical debt that turned simple tasks into nightmares
- Approval processes that added days to tasks that took hours
- Incomplete requirements that forced constant rework
- Tools and systems that actively fought against productivity
They weren’t unmotivated—they were barricaded.
The Obstacle Audit
I began a practice I now implement with every team: the obstacle audit. It’s a simple exercise with profound results:
- Ask everyone: “What prevents you from doing the best work of your career here?”
- Classify each obstacle (process, technical, resource, clarity, etc.)
- Tackle the top three immediately
In one case, removing just two major obstacles (an outdated approval chain and a flaky test environment) increased team throughput by 62% in three weeks. No “motivation” required.
The Manager as Bulldozer
This perspective reframes the manager’s role entirely. You’re not a motivator, scorekeeper, or taskmaster.
You’re a bulldozer, clearing the path ahead of your team.
The best management days of my career haven’t been when I gave inspiring speeches or crafted clever incentives. They’ve been when I:
- Eliminated three approval steps from our deployment process
- Fixed the budget problem preventing a critical hire
- Resolved conflicting priorities between product and engineering
- Secured maintenance time to fix persistent technical issues
None of these actions “motivated” the team. They simply removed the frustrations preventing motivated people from applying their energy productively.
Signs You’re Not Getting It
How do you know if you’re still trapped in the motivation mindset rather than the obstacle-clearing one? Watch for these warning signs:
- You spend more time tracking output than removing barriers
- Your first response to performance issues is “motivation” rather than “what’s in the way?”
- Team meetings focus more on goals than on identifying and resolving obstacles
- You feel more like a supervisor than a support system
The Permission Problem
Perhaps the most insidious obstacle is the one managers unconsciously create: the permission barrier.
Teams that must constantly seek approval, validate decisions, or justify approaches will inevitably slow down and play it safe.
I was startled to discover how often I was the obstacle. My team didn’t need my brilliant insights—they needed me to quit being a bottleneck.
A senior engineer once told me, “I don’t need you to tell me what to do. I need you to run interference so I can do what I already know needs doing.”
The Path Forward
Want to transform your effectiveness as a manager? Try this today:
- Assume everyone on your team fundamentally wants to excel
- Ask directly: “What’s preventing you from doing your best work?”
- Focus 80% of your energy on eliminating those obstacles
- Measure your success not by how you “drive” performance, but by how effectively you remove barriers
The team that appears unmotivated is usually just a team drowning in obstacles. Stop throwing them motivational life preservers and start draining the water.
Your job isn’t to push the boulder up the hill. It’s to clear the path, so your team can roll it down.