What Is "Motivation"? And How to Motivate People Around You
As a leader, one of your responsibilities is to motivate not only your direct reports but also your peers. Some leaders have this 'talent' by nature, while others among us need to make an effort to be able to motivate people around them and make it feel natural.
To achieve this, it's important to understand what 'motivation' actually entails. In the book 'Drive' by Daniel Pink, the author explains it as a sum of the following factors:
- Autonomy β the desire to be self-directed. We get motivation and joy by having control over our lives.
- Mastery β the desire to improve our craft. We get satisfaction by getting better at what we do.
- Impact β the desire to have a positive impact on the world. We are empowered by work that serves a higher purpose.
And what does it mean in practice?
If you want to have people with βdriveβ around you, make sure they have autonomy, they work on impactful stuff, and they have a space to improve their skills (mastery).
Different Approach
There is an even simpler version of this, which does not require so much effort at the beginning (useful if you need to fix somebody's motivation fast, not good enough in the long run) .π [1]
Simply put, if you want to motivate your team members into exceptional results, focus on serving them with tasks, which overlap with their interests. Which may sound logical at the beginning, however much harder to implement in practice.
Exercise π
How can this be put into practice?
For each of your team members, try to answer the following question: "What are topics, person X likes/is interested in/is pondering about in their spare time??". Once you have answered this question for everyone, then begin to find their initiates around these themes.
---What is "motivation", actually? As a leader, one of your key responsibilities is to motivate not just your team, but also your peers. Some leaders naturally excel at this, while others have to deliberately work on it. #Leadership #Motivation pic.twitter.com/uh1rQGluug
— George Sifalda (@JSifalda) December 10, 2023