I Need Motivation Theories

Most leaders can't motivate people because they

misunderstand what motivation is truly all

about. Here are three factors of motivation that

can help leaders motivate people on a consistent

basis.
------

Leaders do nothing more important than get

results. But you can't get results by yourself.

You need others to help you do it. And the best

way to have other people get results is not by

ordering them but motivating them. Yet many

leaders fail to motivate people to achieve

results because those leaders misconstrue the

concept and applications of motivation.

To understand motivation and apply it daily,

let's understand its three critical factors.

Know these factors and put them into action to

greatly enhance your abilities to lead for

results.

1. MOTIVATION IS PHYSICAL ACTION. "Motivation"

has common roots with "motor," "momentum,"

"motion," "mobile," etc. — all words that denote

movement, physical action. An essential feature

of motivation is physical action. Motivation

isn't about what people think or feel but what

they physically do. When motivating people to

get results, challenge them to take those

actions that will realize those results.

I counsel leaders who must motivate individuals

and teams to get results not to deliver

presentations but "leadership talks."

Presentations communicate information.. But when

you want to motivate people, you must do more

than simply communicate information. You must

have them believe in you and take action to

follow you. A key outcome of every leadership

talk must be physical action, physical action

that leads to results.

For instance, I worked with the newly-appointed

director of a large marketing department who

wanted the department to achieve sizable

increases in the results. However, the employees

were a demoralized bunch who had been clocking

tons of overtime under her predecessor and were

feeling angry that their efforts were not being

recognized by senior management.

She could have tried to order them to get the

increased results. Many leaders do that. But

order-leadership founders in today's highly

competitive, rapidly changing markets.

Organizations are far more competitive when

their employees instead of being ordered to go

from point A to point B want to go from point A

to point B. So I suggested that she take a first

step in getting the employees to increase

results by motivating those employees to want to

increase results. They would "want to" when they

began to believe in her leadership. And the

first step in enlisting that belief was for her

to give a number of leadership talks to the

employees.

One of her first talks that she planned was to

the department employees in the company's

auditorium.

She told me, "I want them to know that I

appreciate the work they are doing and that I

believe that they can get the results I'm asking

of them. I want them to feel good about

themselves."

"Believing is not enough," I said. "Feeling good

is not enough. Motivation must take place.

Physical action must take place. Don't give the

talk until you know what precise action you are

going to have happen."

She got the idea of having the CEO come into the

room after the talk, shake each employee's hand,

and tell each how much he appreciated their hard

work — physical action. She didn't stop there.

After the CEO left, she challenged each employee

to write down on a piece of paper three specific

things that they needed from her to help them

get the increases in results and then hand those

pieces of paper to her personally — physical

action.

Mind you, that leadership talk wasn't magic dust

sprinkled on the employees to instantly motivate

them. (To turn the department around so that it

began achieving sizable increases in results,

she had to give many leadership talks in the

weeks and months ahead.) But it was a beginning.

Most importantly, it was the right beginning.

2. MOTIVATION IS DRIVEN BY EMOTION. Emotion and

motion come from the same Latin root meaning "to

move". When you want to move people to take

action, engage their emotions. An act of

motivation is an act of emotion. In any

strategic management endeavor, you must make

sure that the people have a strong emotional

commitment to realizing it.

When I explained this to the chief marketing

officer of a worldwide services company, he

said, "Now I know why we're not growing! We

senior leaders developed our marketing strategy

in a bunker! He showed me his "strategy"

document. It was some 40 pages long, single-

spaced. The points it made were logical,

consistent, and comprehensive. It made perfect

sense. That was the trouble. It made perfect,

intellectual sense to the senior leaders. But it

did not make experiential sense to middle

management who had to carry it out. They had

about as much in-put into the strategy as the

window washers at corporate headquarters. So

they sabotaged it in many innovative ways. Only

when the middle managers were motivated — were

emotionally committed to carrying out the

strategy — did that strategy have a real chance

to succeed.

3. MOTIVATION IS NOT WHAT WE DO TO OTHERS. IT'S

WHAT OTHERS DO TO THEMSELVES. The English

language does not accurately depict the

psychological truth of motivation. The truth is

that we cannot motivate anybody to do anything.

The people we want to motivate can only motivate

themselves. The motivator and the motivatee are

always the same person. We as leaders

communicate, they motivate. So our "motivating"

others to get results really entails our

creating an environment in which they motivate

themselves to get those results.

For example: a commercial division leader almost

faced a mutiny on his staff when in a planning

session, he put next year's goals, numbers much

higher than the previous year's, on the

overhead. The staff all but had to be scrapped

off the ceiling after they went ballistic. "We

busted our tails to get these numbers last year.

Now you want us to get much higher numbers? No

way!"

He told me. "We can hit those numbers. I just

have to get people motivated!"

I gave him my "motivator-and-motivatee-are-the-

same-person!" pitch. I suggested that he create

an environment in which they could motivate

themselves. So he had them assess what

activities got results and what didn't. They

discovered that they spent more than 60 percent

of their time on work that had nothing to do

with getting results. He then had them develop a

plan to eliminate the unnecessary work. Put in

charge of their own destiny, they got motivated!

They developed a great plan and started to get

great results.

Over the long run, your career success does not

depend on what schools you went to and what

degrees you have. That success depends instead

on your ability to motivate individuals and

teams to get results. Motivation is like a high

voltage cable lying at your feet. Use it the

wrong way, and you'll get a serious shock. But

apply motivation the right way by understanding

and using the three factors, plug the cable in,

as it were, and it will serve you well in many

powerful ways throughout your career.

2004 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All

rights reserved.

================================================

=====
The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent

books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST

LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT

LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of

The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and has

worked with thousands of leaders worldwide

during the past 20 years helping them achieve

sizable increases in hard, measured results.

Sign up for his free leadership ezine and get a

free guide, "49 Ways To Turn Action Into

Results," at www.actionleadership.com

Published At: http://www.isnare.com