Day: May 23, 2024

As a trainer I’m often asked this question: Can you motivate someone else? The short answer is…absolutely not! No matter how hard you want it, no one can motivate someone else to do what they don’t want to do, they have to want it. There has to have meaning, value or some level of benefit to them for them to do it. You may get someone to do a task by enticing them with a “sweet” carrot or threatening that person with a “sharp” stick. But that is not representative of personal motivation.

Now you certainly can influence other people to do a particular task and this strategy works both professionally and personally. If you can tap into what motivated them and the underlying desires people have, you will get amazing results. As a leader, the key is to find alignment between what your people want and what will help the organization meet their objectives. There are several things to consider when we positively influence motivation:

Ask the individual what they want or perhaps what is needed. Finding out what motivates (either extrinsic or intrinsic) means asking and making time to listen to them and find out what they actually want out of their job. The key is to not make assumptions about what you think they want; rather, you truly need to ask. You may even want to phrase in a manner that takes money off the table and ask “what else has value to you”. The goal is to go beyond the surface and dig a little deeper. You are looking for what motivates and what has meaning or value to them. Perhaps they desire:

• A new title
• To lean new things
• More time off to spend with their family
• To make more money to buy a new truck , send their children to college, or save
  toward retirement

A well-known management theorist, Frederick Herzberg once said, “If you want someone to do a good job, give them a good job to do.” There is no doubt that some jobs are intrinsically boring and monotonous, and there may be little that can be done to make them more challenging. However, the vast majority of jobs can be enriched by either designing or redesigning them in a way that employees derive more:

• Opportunity to use a variety of their skills & talents
• Satisfaction of doing an identifiable piece of work from beginning to end
• Feeling of independence to handle their jobs their way
• Comfort in contributing, and belonging to, a team effort
• Clear information about their performance effectiveness from the work itself

Show people how they can get what they want. If someone wants to become a supervisor one day, offer ideas of actions they can take and things they can do to help move toward that goal. Implementing various career development activities that help individuals on their path (and maybe at their pace).

You get what you reward. It’s a fact that all human behavior is influenced by its consequences. If an organization rewards employee behavior, that behavior is apt to be strengthened and repeated. If that same behavior is ignored, it will weaken and eventually dissipate.

Such things as personal thanks from one’s manager, public acknowledgements, awards for outstanding performance, and celebrations of group accomplishments have tremendous motivational impact.

Allow others to get what they want while also benefiting the organization. Motivated employees tend to produce! This impacts our customers, their purchases and recommendations to others, which positively affects the bottom line. If we have happier and motivated employees and customers, we also have a happier bottom line.

A motivating environment is one in which employees feel that their managers are accessible to them when they need support or advice, as well as listen to them. So even though the secret to motivating other people is that you can’t do it, you can dramatically influence others when it matters most. Leaders make a difference!