Have you ever stopped to wonder where do your motivations come from? Because in reality motivations stops with you! Yes. That’s right. Nobody can motivate you unless you are already motivated in some way.
When, you’re motivated, the energy or drive comes from inside of you. So, the good news is that YOU have control. The bad news is that there are NO MORE excuses! You just have to get off your butt and find some inspiration!
Don’t get me wrong, people can ‘inspire’ you for sure, but when it comes to motivation, that’s a whole new kettle of fish. But …. Once you are able to tap into what drives you … voila! Like magic, it will be the secret to getting you motivated.
There are four distinct ways we can get motivated. And this is not just important for us as individuals, but it’s also very important if you lead a team.
Excuses don’t get results…
Do you love to have a check list or a to do list? A list of tasks that you can cross off one-by-one because you get your biggest kick out of achieving all of your objectives?
This kind of motivational style tends to focus on the ‘results’ first! Quite often these kinds of individuals will ask: ‘What do I need to do?’ And, once they’ve got the list, they are super-fast, and they are all about action!
For these individuals because it’s all about getting the job done, they can come across a little bit closed, impatient and get to the point where they can come across a little too direct when communicating. They don’t mean to, it’s just their way of working. They are task-focused and the path to success is to take massive determined actions!
The downside of all this ‘action’ is that when we run at the speed of light, and not taking a step back to breathe, we can experience brain overload. It’s important to take breaks, to get the job done well.
Learning to love the process…
These individuals love facts, data and strategy. These individuals like to take their time to understand the status quo before making a decision, and they want to be sure they have all the information at hand, broken down into smaller chunks so they can understand it, and then communicate it in their own way. For these people, ‘stuff’ has to make sense to them before they understand ‘how’ it is going to work.
It’s important not to rush this detailed, processed individual, because they like to understand the pros and cons to every situation. In doing so, they can see other alternatives or options in any scenario, giving you a better insight into any situation at hand.
Sometimes these individuals are considered lazy and its quite the opposite, just because they take time and use their own brain power to understand the picture doesn’t make them lazy. They are quite opposite to the task-driven individual who jumps into a task at hand without thinking too much about it because they just want the job done.
The best relationships usually begin unexpectedly…
Another motivational style is ‘people’ … believe it or not. Some individuals are driven by ‘relationships’ and it’s all about the team, family, group or community. Communication and connections is a key driver for this style. They are warm, empathetic and sensitive, they are very motivated by those around them. You want these kinds of individuals in your team if you deal with customers, because they are natural at building strong relationships.
These are the people who are genuinely interested in what you got up to over the weekend. They’re social and they like to be surrounded by people. In fact, more than that, they need people and are very much motivated by working with others. If you want to quickly get this individual disengaged … just put them on a project or task, working on their own and watch the demotivation show up on their body language as if they just had a swig of grappa! The best way to motivate individuals that are motivated by ‘people’ is to encourage connection – buddy them up with a team member or someone for them to lean on, and work with.
There is a way to do it better and I will find it…
Finally, there are those who are motivated by innovation, ideas and concepts. These individuals are what I like to call creative geniuses because they always come up with some grand design, or a new way of working. The fact of the matter is they just seem to function at a ‘higher vibration’ – they appear to have their head in the clouds. They can appear disinterested, but they’re not, they’re just highly charged – and they need to be stimulated. Often, they can create this stimulation themselves, in their heads, and that’s why they appear distracted and disengaged, but you can bet this is the team member who has brilliant out-of-the-box ideas.
These people are always looking for what’s new on the market or the next new gadget they can get their hands on. They have the ability to see change as an opportunity, they love variety and they are forward thinkers, always thinking ahead of time.
You will find a lot of entrepreneurs with this motivational style.
The best way to motivate these individuals is to let them come up with the ideas and concepts, you can give them a framework or a strategy and then ask them how they are going to deliver it … not only does this get their juices flowing, but because of their creative drive whey will come up with theories that you might never otherwise tap into.
Together we have a unique blend of systems…
The challenge, of course, is putting it all together.
Imagine an ‘action’ orientated individual who says “just tell me what I need to do” so they can get on with it and get it done … working with a ‘process’ individual who says “I need to understand the steps before I can make a decision”.
Recipe for disaster? You betcha!
Or… the individual who is motivated by ‘people’, for whom communicating with people and building relationships are key motivators … working with the individual who is all about ‘action’ and no time for a chat?
What about the individual, driven by innovation, ideas and concepts, working with someone who needs to process and think carefully, considering the pros and cons and won’t make any decisions until they’ve considered all possible outcomes and scenarios?
It’s easy to see how small conflicts arise and how some people just don’t feel valued.
When you’re pulling together teams, it’s important to understand working styles and motivators – otherwise the personalities at play can derail a project, without meaning to, and through a genuine desire to get the job done in the best way they know how.
It’s not easy and there is no bullet-proof formula, but once you help these people to understand each other, and their drivers. You as the leader are aware of the motivational forces at play, you can then use these strengths to build an incredible, highly functioning team, where people thrive, and rarely drop the ball.
