By Daniel Bobinski
A frequent problem within teams is that the word motivation has become firmly entrenched in some false but commonly used phrases. You’ve probably heard a few, and have likely used some yourself, such as:
• Michael lacks motivation.
• I can’t seem to get Jessica motivated.
• We need to find a way to motivate David.
The concept of motivation is often mixed with bad psychology. One truth we must acknowledge is that we cannot truly motivate people. That’s because people already have their own motivations. The word motivation means “a reason to move,” and since everyone already has their own reasons to move, they already have motivation.
Some people will argue this, saying that if someone isn’t performing up to par, threatening to terminate that person’s employment to gain compliance is motivation. Sure, such threats may get someone to do something, but rest assured that a person’s submission is not coming from a place of true motivation – it’s occurring because of a demand, which, when looked at objectively, amounts to a form of slavery.
Can workplaces operate like that? Sure. Tens of thousands do. But you can bet those workplaces do not thrive, they merely survive.
If we’re going to practice ethical emotional intelligence, we must realize we cannot give people motivation, we can simply draw it out. The idea is to create conditions in which people’s natural motivations propel them forward. If we want to call that “motivating people,” that’s fine, as that’s the colloquial term. But understanding the truth of what’s really going on helps us stand firmly in reality, and helps to create passion-driven teams.
The second thing we must acknowledge is that what holds people back from moving forward is not a lack of motivation. It is the presence of obstacles.
Let me be bold. Most obstacles live inside our heads. We call them fears. We may refer to them as hangups, having issues, personal problems, or baggage, but fear is at the root of all of them. If our fears get severe, we might get diagnosed as neurotic. Whatever term is used, the obstacles in our head lead us to self-defeating behavior, and those choices slow us down or stop us all together.
Third, before these fear obstacles can be removed or minimized, we must acknowledge they exist. Humans are particularly good at projecting blame onto others for their own issues. We do so because often it’s too painful to acknowledge what could be perceived as a weakness within ourselves. The pain might be mental, it might be emotional, or both. Whatever the reason, people have a tough time seeing the internal obstacles because fear is invisible. Internal obstacles are intangible.
To wrap up, there’s one more thing we need to acknowledge: everyone has fears. These fears get in the way of our forward progress, so the bottom line is that if we want better engagement from ourselves and/or our team members, our task must be to create safe environments that allow fears to be identified and then eliminated. Or at least minimized. But that is a topic for the next column.
– Daniel Bobinski is author of the best-selling book, “Creating Passion-Driven Teams,” and president of Leadership Development Inc. He’s been helping organizations of all shapes and sizes since 1989. Learn more at www.eqfactor.net or reach Daniel at 208-649-6400.
