Motivating employees to perform - Audi

Societyhome to an emphatic 4-0 victory over Rapid Vienna in the UEFAChampions League. At the same time, Audi was being presented withthe coveted “Auto Trophy” in Berlin for the Audi A6, Audi A8 andAudi Q7.In order to motivate employees, the world of work must first beorganised in such a way that they are able to experience a “flow”,expounds von Cube. This term was developed by the psychologistMihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He describes a state in which an employeebecomes completely involved in an activity and is thus motivated byit in its own right.Felix von Cube stands out from the mass of guiding intellectualforces in the sphere of management in a great many respects. Hisbackground is in the realm of the natural sciences, more precisely inbehavioural biology. According to von Cube, one of the key errorsmade by managers is that they have a completely unworkable notionof human behaviour. Anyone seeking to motivate employees needs arealistic picture of people as their basis. This includes a knowledgeof man’s impulse structure and behavioural programmes. In thesphere of work, so von Cube’s core thesis goes, no desire can beexperienced without effort.The self-professed followers of this philosophy include FelixMagath, manager of FC Bayern Munich, and Dr. Horst Neumann,until recently Board Member for Human Resources at Audi and nowin the same function at Volkswagen. Magath and Neumann met upwith von Cube at Bayern Munich’s base in Säbener Strasse to discusshis management concept. The previous evening, Bayern had rompedSo how can the world of work be organised so that employees candevelop a sense of flow?von Cube: There really is still plenty of untapped potential forthis! There are vast swathes of corporate life in which the conditionsfor employees to develop a sense of flow do not yet exist. On theother hand, Mr. Magath, it was evident from the way your teamplayed last night that they were enjoying what they were doing. Howdo you achieve this? And above all, how do you keep achieving this?Magath: It’s genuinely becoming more and more difficult tokeep up such a situation for any length of time. You can’t achieve itwith external incentives, the players’ enthusiasm has to come fromwithin. Paying a player a 5,000 euro bonus for winning doesn’t dothe trick. Money is now a basic requirement that has to be met –there’s no more to it than that. In the days when I was a professionalplayer, things were somewhat different. Your aim was to earn a millionmarks in the course of your career so that you could live comfortablyfor the rest of your life. That was a real source of motivation.Bayern Munich’s players are first and foremost pursuing a different28