[ryandrake]

Not a good general rule. What if your employees are simply mediocre performers? Do you really want to trust & empower them? Get out of their way? I don't think so. Not every company can afford to hire the very, very best.

Employee incentives and motivation is not a one-size-fits-all optimization problem. It depends on the company, on the team, on what they're working on, etc.

[davidw]

I think 'caring' works pretty well for most people. What I mean is this: care about what they're doing. Ask after it. Ask if there are problems, or they need help, or about what problems they faced. This lets them know that people do care about the results and are watching, without being authoritarian or putting them on some kind of pedastal. I think you can be a mediocre worker (I've met some really awesome coders myself, guys like Andrew Tridgell, and compared to them, I'm as mediocre as it gets), and still put in your best effort, be diligent at what you do, and so on.

[calinet6]

"Do you really want to trust & empower them? Get out of their way? I don't think so."

Trust begets trust. This will beget none. Is it any wonder your employees are being mediocre when you don't trust and empower them to be anything else?

Not every company can afford to hire the very best, but you don't need to. Good management will strive to improve the systems (including the human systems, the learning systems, and the motivational systems) which empower your employees to work better, and for your quality to improve. Traditional (read: negative or carrot-and-stick type) motivational tactics almost all have complex and difficult-to-measure complications which do more harm than good.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Key_principle... - and follow them. Designed for factories, but applicable to all management of all work. It's counter to the standard American idea of the employee-employer relationship, so extremely difficult to adapt to, but it is based on behavioral science, psychology, and statistical methods and should be regarded as basic truth. Start there and base your ideas about management on facts.

[InclinedPlane]

I'm not sure it matters, actually. Most of the highest value work is going to get done by the best folks, so as long as the "trust and empower" regime doesn't cause a complete erosion in the productivity of the mediocre programmers then it might end up being a net positive.

Even so, you are correct that there's no one size fits all management strategy for every individual and every situation. Holding such a view is a sure fire route to failure, typically. If managing were as easy as consulting a lookup table for the correct policy to apply then we wouldn't need human beings with lots of experience to do it would we?

[rhizome]

What if your employees are simply mediocre performers?

What if there was something that could motivate them to get better?

[ktom]

I would suggest that the best performers are internally motivated and not externally motivated.

So ultimately if you could motivate them to be better, then by definition they would be mediocre performers.

Based on my personal experience, I would not be surprised if you were to show me a study that found a strong correlation between being internally motivated and being considered a star performer.

[calinet6]

All people operate within a system, whether visible or not. Improve your systems, improve your quality; regardless of your employees.

Besides, by definition, most of your employees will be average. Otherwise the average would shift. Focus on bringing the whole bell curve up by improving your systems and your management, rather than on terms you use for individuals. You're better off optimizing your company and your management to handle this diversity, since it's a natural result of a sample.

[a_c_s]

You are assuming people who are 'high achievers' achieve highly in all circumstances: this is false.

For example, the Ivy League colleges suffer rampant grade inflation due to these high-achieving students not being able to cope with getting less-than-perfect grades. This poor coping is a form of 'low achievement' that drives other 'low achievement' behaviors: reduced course load, dropping out, switching to less rigorous majors, etc.