Motivation is like the petrol in a car. Your car will roll along the road just fine – but not uphill unless it has some fuel. It’s the same with people – people will roll along just fine, until they hit a hill, but fuelled with motivation they’ll move along faster, enjoy the journey more and no obstacle will stop them.

No-one can motivate someone else. Motivation comes from inside – it’s internal and individual. You can affect someone’s motivation by the environment you provide. So understand what motivates each individual and then provide the right environment for them.

Agree a SMART objective with each team member – one that will move them towards one of their own goals (one of their great big outrageous exciting goals) and watch their motivation soar and the smart objective be achieved. It’s the job of  a manager to match the organisation’s purpose, the managers objectives and the person’s individual goals into SMART exciting objectives for the team member.

New Year New Start – It’s one month into the new year, so do something different and keep motivation high.

Want a quick tip on how to keep motivation high in your team (or even your life)? Here it is – ready for it – it’s really simple, so bear with me - just do something different.

It can be something very simple or is can be something bigger, need some examples? Here you go then:

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  • Change your standard team meeting agenda
    • Ask someone else to chair the meting – or take the minutes
    • Add a new topic to the agenda
    • Take a topic off this time
    • Change the usual running order
    • Move it outside. Yep – sit on a park bench or go to the local cafe
  • Next time someone asks you a ‘how do I’ question’, instead of telling them the answer – ask them a good strong coaching question. Don’t know what a coaching question is? Then send me an email and I’ll help you
  • Give someone a different job to do for the day
  • Book the whole team into an all day meeting – and then on the day, buy them all a coffee and tell them there is no meeting and they can now spend all day catching up with whatever they like (you’ve just granted them an interruption free day!) think about it
  • Try a different route to work (yawn – heard that before – well give it a try) – include a coffee stop on the way, go earlier or later, catch the bus (hey, they’re not like they used to be!)
  • Book yourself on a training course (away from the office)
  • Invite a speaker/trainer to your next team meeting for a 1-hour training session (you’d be amazed at how well this works – just make sure the trainer is used to packing useful and practical tips into one hour of fun) (contact me for more details on this one)
  • Buy a new outfit… and wear it to work
  • Buy something new and unusual for you to use (pen, bag, notebook in a different design for example) and start using it at work

Why does this work? Well, it helps prevent sleepwalking – you know what I mean, you’ve seen it… when each day is the same and everything is as expected we can cruise through without really trying – and without using our brains very much and without enjoying ourselves.

Try something different. Give it a go – let me know what happens.  Happy New and Motivational Year to you all.

Evening everyone

(it certainly feels like evening now the clocks have gone back and it’s dark!)

Some of you know that the first ‘personal development’ book I ever read was Rhinoceros Success by Scott Alexander – well I reread it this weekend. It makes me laugh – it has funny little drawings and a great upbeat attitude. It works for me – it reminds me to concentrate on where I’m going. It helps me tap into my own motivation.

Do you ever think about motivating your team? Do you like to be motivated? How do you feel when someone tries to motivate you?

I don’t believe anyone can motivate another person. I believe motivation is personal and individual and that the best we can do is understand what motivates a person and help to provide a motivating environment. This isn’t as easy as it might first sound. A motivating environment for one person won’t be for another. Just think about your team for a minute. They probably have different reasons for being at work, prefer to work in different ways and in different environments.

So what can a manager do to ensure that people are motivated? I think we can use four steps:

1. Find out what motivates each person. What do they enjoy and hate about the job they do? What makes them get out of bed in the morning? What makes them ‘go the extra mile’? What tasks do they volunteer for?
2. Work out what needs to be done and what skills and aptitudes are needed to complete all the different tasks.
3. Match the people to the tasks based on what motivates and what each person enjoys doing.
4. Finally – and most importantly – don’t skip this step! You will be a better manager if you can help people to see how their personal performance ties into organisational goals and how completing specific tasks will help them achieve their own goals too.

When we’re motivated we’ll happily spend time lost in a world where we’re performing – it’s not hard work, we enjoy it, it’s effortless. As a manager your team will perform better if you translate work into tasks people can enjoy doing and if your team is performing then so are you.

Motivation is not fixed. People have different needs that must be met at different times in their lives and depending on the environment they find themselves in. For example, Maslow proposed a hierarchy of needs – where physical need such as food and warmth will take priority over intellectual needs (such as achievement). Try persuading people that you appreciate their efforts when they’re sat freezing in their coats because the heating has broken and the coffee machine has stopped working.

When you’re managing (whether it’s your own team of people who report in to you, a project manager matrix managing a dispersed team, or a small business owner juggling a number of suppliers) take some time to consider what’s motivating for the people you work with and then ask for their help in their language, tied in to their needs and you’ll find a more motivated team working for you.