ExtremeMakeOverTJBHomes.com

The heroic home builders behind Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
demonstrate what can really get people motivated

Imagine that you're the owner of a small home construction company. You run it with two of your sons and a few employees, and is as much an extended family as a business. You get an unexpected phone call one afternoon from a producer for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. He tells you they'd like your company to build a house for the show.

You get the details. Not only would this be for no pay and you'd need to put much of your other business on hold for weeks while working on the project, you will also need to gather the subcontractors, suppliers and volunteers to make this happen. You will need to get them to do this for no pay-or very little pay-as well. You would also need to have the house built, to the last shingle and welcome mat, in six weeks from now; so if you say yes, you need to start immediately.

This is essentially the phone call that TJB Homes received earlier this year.

"I had never seen the show, and I was very skeptical about the whole possibility," says Budzynski.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which has recently entered its fifth season on ABC, is an unabashed tearjerker. It finds families in the midst of serious challenges, often due to the disability, or sometimes loss, of a family member, and gives them a fresh start with a brand-new home and an outpouring of kind gifts and gestures.

While the program generally focuses on the work of the stylish designers who host the show and devise the bells and whistles to get the "oh my gosh!" reactions from the families, it is the other often small, home-building companies, that actually gather most of the resources, hammer the nails and lay the pipes. That these companies not only agree to put forward this much effort, but actually pull it off in spite of the difficulties involved, demonstrates motivation on a grand scale. A look at several of these companies and what inspired their significant level of effort in the EM:HE projects offers insight for other companies seeking to motivate employees, if on a more modest scale.

Certainly the publicity of being on a major network show, and the exciting circus of producers and cameras that descended on the small towns, stoked the enthusiasm of participants. But the home builders emphasized that there were more significant motivators at play.

The individuals were more enthusiastic to take part when they knew it was going to be extremely difficult.

Another major motivator was being recognized for taking part, and what it said about the company and industry in general to be helping a family in this way. As with smaller-scale incentive awards, public attention for a job well done can often be a strong enticement in itself, even without any material rewards to accompany it. This was especially true for these members of the home-building industry, who after receiving mostly negative press that focused on the slumping market, were not going to pass up a chance for some positive recognition.

Tom Budzynski, president of Blaine, Minn.-based TJB Homes, had actually been sending out e-mails to reporters at USA Today and The Minnesota Star Tribune weeks before getting the call from the show, trying to encourage more positive coverage of the home-construction industry. Extreme Makeover provided a positive story line that the industry could get behind and be proud of.

"When this happened, I kind of felt somewhat self-appointed to be an ambassador to the industry," says Budzynski. "Part of doing this, especially in our little geographical area of Minneapolis-St. Paul, would actually change the look of real estate and building, at least for a short time. And it did."

Budzynski mentions a newscast that ran about the TJB build in which the reporter introduced the piece by saying, "a good news story about home builders? I can't believe it." This positive publicity helps identify the companies involved as focused on a higher mission than profits, which improves engagement of current employees and attracts potential ones.

Not only did involvement offer a positive opportunity for the home-building industry as a whole, it also allowed the individual companies to present themselves in an inspiring way. Associating their work with positive community efforts allowed the companies to show themselves as being in line with the values of their clients, and especially their employees.

"Organizations now are finding that in order to have their employees align with their goals, they need to know what's important to their employees also," says Christi Gibson, executive director of Recognition Professionals International, a group that advocates recognition and engagement strategies to businesses.

Gibson says that it's important for companies to connect with larger goals, like helping families in need, that reach beyond just making profits, if they want to keep their employees engaged in their work and invested in the company. "That kind of caring, it shows that an organization has a heart. And people want to work for an organization that has a heart," says Gibson.

The same effect works with business partners. Many of the subcontractors joined in the extreme building projects because of their history with the home-building companies mobilizing the builds. They saw joining up as both a chance to come through for a partner they had a relationship with, and a way to strengthen the relationship by working together toward something more than just business.

The home-building companies reported having almost all of the contractors they reached out to jump at the chance to get involved. The only exceptions mentioned were the large national companies, like the major lumber suppliers, where the human connection between the businesses was not as strong.

After the show's hosts surprised the family with their "Gooood Moooorrnnnning!" wake-up call and sent them off on a week-long vacation while work started, it was time for the volunteers and businesses to follow through on what they'd agreed to, and to do it fast. Working literally around-the-clock, all the employees of the home-building companies were called on to put in hours that were longer than they were used to, stepping outside their usual work roles and doing things much more physically demanding than they would regularly be expected to.

Many, including the companies' management and owners, had to get their hands dirty with activities they would usually have their men do. Sometimes it was a matter of those who were involved just wanting to offer their help, in what-ever capacity would be of most use to the project.

Besides moving outside the boundaries of their usual job roles, participants found that the compressed schedule and high demands of the project required moving beyond preexisting business rivalries as well.

The project required those involved to move out of their work roles and relate with one another on a different level. The desire to help the family and the wider community was a strong enough incentive to move business-as-usual to the periphery.

Paul Levesque, international business consultant and author of Motivation (Entrepreneur Press, 2007), describes how helping others, whether they are recipients of volunteer efforts or paying customers, is a strong enough motivator to diminish almost all others.

"We put aside our own jobs and own lives. We're involved in something bigger-a sense of higher purpose," says Levesque. "The people that are building those homes on Makeover are not doing it for the money or for the personal glory. It's wonderful that they're appreciated and recognized, but the driving thing is 'I want to help.'"

The home builders emphasized that the experience of being part of the project was profoundly rewarding, simply for the emotions and experience of being a part of it. They describe the looks of eager excitement on the faces of volunteers, who willingly took on any job that needed to be done. Budzynski describes one master plumber who found that there was not a need for more plumbing work during his shift, yet was more than happy to just clean up the snack area. Months after the build, participants would approach the home builders to thank them for the opportunity to have been a part.

"[The volunteers] found the real reason they were there. It wasn't for TJB Homes, the builder, it was for themselves," says Budzynski. "They received something, and I don't even know how to describe it. You can call it 'the Holy Ghost.' It was a good feeling, because they were giving from their hearts and they weren't just giving from their pocketbooks."

Levesque, who has worked as a consultant with over 350 corporate clients in the past two decades, believes this enthusiasm for good work is not limited to volunteer work or extreme acts of generosity like EM:HE. It can be generated just as strongly in the commercial sector as well, he says, as long as companies that connect with their employees' basic human desire to help others, giving them goals that are more inspiring than just making the boss more money.

"We want to help, we just don't know how to channel it," says Levesque. "We don't have a society or a workplace that gives us good ways of channeling our desire to help. When I speak to management teams I say, 'That's your job. You give [employees] channels to tap into their spirit of volunteerism.'" Mirroring Budzynski's comments, Levesque assures that if you give them the kind of motivation the home builders gave their employees and volunteers, "They'll work twice as hard for you, yet at the end of the day they'll thank you for making it possible for them to feel so fulfilled."

Having taken part in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has helped the employees and owners see what their coworkers are capable of. When the employees look at each other now, after helping complete something so challenging and also so worthwhile, they have a stronger respect for and connection to those they worked alongside. "Now, we know anything is possible. I'm capable of more than I thought I was. You were capable of more."