Transcript: Great Leaders are also Great Motivators

Motivation — I Know You Can Do Better

Hello and welcome.

Today I want to start by asking you a question.   Have you ever found yourself telling an employee or team member, “I know you can do better.  What am I missing?”   What we’re getting at is that we believe our team member is just not performing to the level that they should be performing at, and what can start out as a legitimate question can quickly deteriorate into a comparison of your team member to you.

This discussion is about motivation, what motivation is and what motivation is not, because what we tend to do is to force our will on other people when we don’t believe they are doing either what they should do or what they could do.  That causes real problems as a leader over a long period of time.

What I’d like to discuss first is the topic of motivation so that we get a clear understand of what it is.  I find that many leaders don’t understand what motivation really is.  I’ve even had successful people tell me that they don’t believe in motivating others, and that they believe everyone has to motivate themselves.   They are really saying they don’t understand what motivation is, because if they understood it they would never say that everybody has to motivate themselves.

The reality is that all of us need motivation.   We need to feel motivated, and yes, the action that eventually happens is done by the individual.   They have to take action.  But that’s not the real power of motivation.

Let’s talk about what motivation is.   The definition of motivation is the desire or willingness for someone to do something.  In other words, they have to actually want to do something in order to motivate themselves or to force themselves to take action to get that object done.  That’s from the individual standpoint.    From the standpoint of a leader, motivation is the art up giving someone a reason to do something.

There are two elements of motivation and most people only look at the element that says ‘on my personal level I’ve got to have the desire or willingness to do something.’   They erroneously believe that all motivation is self driven, and that’s just not true.   Any great leader would tell you that they have practiced and mastered the art of giving people a reason to do something so that the business can move forward, the goals can be achieved and people can improve.

We simply don’t understand what that art of motivation and giving people reasons to do things means.   What we usually resort to is becoming impatient, losing our temper and imposing our will on somebody.  Sometimes we will use the power of our position to impose our will and then we have to suffer the consequences of work that is not of high quality.

The problem of trying to understand what the art of motivation is and then trying to help people understand how they will achieve and succeed when they do things is often in conflict with us as a leader.  I have come to understand over the years that this balance between the art of motivation and people’s individual self motivation causes so many managers never to even try to motivate.   What business today has erroneously done is value speed way too much and value accuracy not nearly enough.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about, and let’s use the business of farming as the example.  Most of have never spent time on a farm.   We don’t understand the wisdom that farmers have and what the business of farming can teach us.

Farmers understand that there’s a time to plow the field.   They’ll work to get the field ready, and once the field is ready they plant their seeds.  Then they water the seeds.   Then they do something very curious.  They simply wait.

They’ve learned a valuable lesson by watching plants grow.  One of those lessons is that plants need to be watered.   They need to be planted correctly, and they need time to grow.   But in today’s business world we’re at direct odds with that.

Everybody today is moving so fast that the quality of work oftentimes is non-existent.  I’ll bet that each one of you listening today has needed to talk with someone and found that their schedule is so overbooked there’s not even one, ten minute window where you could have an intelligent conversation with that person.   When we are that busy, we’re not valuing that things take time.

The farmer understands that it takes time for seeds to germinate.  It takes time for root systems to develop.  Once the root systems develop a small plant breaks the ground.   It starts to receive sunlight, water and nurturing.   The farmer spends the rest of the time protecting his crop.   He makes sure it gets just the right amount of fertilizer.  He makes sure it gets the right amount of water, and he does his best to bring that crop to maximum fruition.

I would have to ask you, why do we not do that same thing in business? Aren’t people even more sensitive than a plant would be?  The reality is that we are.  We all have different needs and different desires.  When we’re in such a hurry and valuing speed relative to getting things done it makes us short-tempered.  It causes us to make mistakes, and it causes us, in effect, to begin to impose our will on our team members.   We are then practicing the art of de-motivation.

This topic has never been more appropriate than it is in the world today.   In the United States alone, 80% of employees today report they are disengaged in the workplace.  Disengagement says, ‘I showed up at work today because I have to make a living.   I have to earn some money so that I can buy food for my family.  I need to pay for my home so that I can have a place to live.  Hopefully there will be a little left over so that I can do some things that are fun in my life.

We’ve made work a four-letter word of disinterest and ‘dis’-enjoyment.   We are motivating people negatively instead of understanding that they need positive motivation.  People need time to perfect their skills.  They don’t do it overnight.  We have to invest that time in order for them to be able to prosper.

The great Zig Ziglar, who I love to quote, has this famous saying about motivation.  He says, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last.  Well neither does bathing.  That’s why we recommend it daily.”

Let’s look at that in terms of the farmer.  The farmer would say his crop is going to produce fruit.  It’s going to grow up but it needs to be cultivated every day.  It needs to be monitored every day.  It needs to be watered every day, and it needs to be weeded every day.  It needs to be protected against pests every single day.   I wonder how many leaders in business are taking even a small amount of that attitude toward their own people.

The actual results of studies year after year show that it’s not happening.  The fact is, most people are so tired of their manager that they’re constantly making sure their resume is up to date.  They are shopping to see if there is anything better out there.   They go from one job to the other because they can’t find a leader at any of the places where they go to work.   What they find are managers.  They find manipulators.  They find people who are impatient and want results without putting any input into the value of their team.   We are nurturing a culture of de-motivated employees, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Most of you are probably thinking, ‘Gee, Steve.  I’m just one person.”  Well, that’s where it starts.  It starts with one leader who decides they are not going to act that way.  They are not going to manage that way.  They are going to motivate their team.  They are going to practice the art of giving their team a reason to do something.  Not only are they going to give them the reason to do something, they are going to teach them how to do something.   They are going to nurture them so that when they do it, they are going to praise them for doing it well.

We ought to know better.  Farmers understand.  There have even been studies on household plants that have shown if you talk to the plant it will actually do better.  If you’ll talk nicely to that plant, it will even grow better.

Human beings need that same type of nurturing every single day.  Just to draw the parallel, that is why so many relationships also suffer.  We aren’t nurturing that relationship every day.  We aren’t telling our significant other that we love them.  We aren’t telling them what we like about them.  We simply talk about the things that we don’t like or that we think need to be corrected.

We take that same attitude to work and call ourselves a manager.  We give ourselves power and think that’s going to change somebody’s life.   It’s going to change the managers life because it’s just a matter of time before you have enough turnover that people say, I’m not working for this guy/I’m not working for this gal.   They are going to find something else to do.  Before long that manager’s career is absolutely cratered.  They’re done.   They are never going to be a top performer.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  We can nurture and motivate our people.   We can actually give them legitimate reasons to want to come to work every day.   I promise you, people will want to help you, but you have to give them reasons.  You have to nurture them.  You have to tell them what you like.  When you begin to do that, great things happen.

Here’s what I would leave you to really think about and begin to implement.   I believe that leaders should value the right rhythms instead of the right task.

Let me tell you what I mean by right rhythm.  All of us like rhythms.  We actually practice rhythms.  There’s a rhythm of sleep.   There’s a rhythm of rest and there is a rhythm to activity.  A rhythm is nothing more than a strong, regular, repeated movement.  If we practice this art of nurturing and motivating people all day, every day, we’re going to establish the right rhythms for our team members.  We’re going to show them that our attitude actions are going to be strong.  They are going to be regular.   They will be repeated movements that they can anticipate and expect, and they will help them to grow and to prosper.

If you want to be a leader that others want to follow you have to master the art of motivation.   Include the art of rhythms in your instructions, your communications, and your activities each day.

Thank you for joining me and I hope this has been helpful!  I know you can become the great leaders and great motivators that you want to be!