When it comes to improving performance, most people focus on two things, setting objectives and improving skills. But what if I told you that if you’re only focusing on those two, then you’re missing out on a vital ingredient that’s going to make all the difference to performance?
Read until the end and find out exactly what that is and how you can make sure that it’s not missing for you or your team.
I’ve spent the last 20 years or so working with leaders at all levels in organizations. And today I want to help you improve your performance by making sure that you’re not missing out on one of the key ingredients.
What is this magical ingredient? Well, if you haven’t guessed it already, what we’re talking about is Motivation.
Motivation is the energy that gets you up in the morning that helps you to focus on what it is that you need to get done.
It’s what makes you feel great. Like, time’s just flying by.
What does it feel like when you have no motivation?
When you don’t enjoy what you’re doing?
Time drags, doesn’t it?
Any urgency that you might have had felt to get things done, just disappear and any excuse for not getting it done becomes really attractive.
There are three critical components of performance:
1.a clear goal, vision, or objectives
2.the skills to achieve it
3.the drive or motivation to get you there
You can have an amazing vision and all the skills to achieve it but if you don’t have that drive or motivation, you’re just not going to get off the ground.
Let me give you an example in the form of a metaphor to make this a little clearer, think about this. You’re going on holiday to a destination that you’re really, really excited about. You’ve done your research and it’s going to be the most amazing holiday bucket list stuff.
Now you get to the airport through passport control and you’re walking towards the departure gate and you look to your left and there’s the plane. It’s all shiny. It almost looks new. You can see the crew just getting on board and there seem to be quite a lot of experience there. And they’re joking and laughing and seem to be having a great time already. If they’re having such a great time, just imagine how amazing this flight is going to be. That’s what you’re thinking to yourself.
When you get on the plane, the crew are amazing and they see you to your seat. You can smell the food that you’re going to be served, and it smells strangely attractive. You can see the captain and his crew doing their final checks. You settle in ready for the flight to this holiday of a lifetime. And suddenly there’s a message on the tonneau system.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid there’s going to be a slight delay today..
There’s been a problem with the fuel truck and we’re going to have to wait for a new one to arrive when not just not carrying enough fuel to get us to our destination. Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, this means that we’re going to have to disembark you whilst this happens. No fuel means that the plane, in spite of its really clear destination, amazingly skilled crew is going nowhere.
Well, this is the same for you and your team.
How’s the motivation in your team? Have you or your team members ever lacked motivation?
Let me know in the comments section of this article.
One of the ways that some of us find motivation is by belonging to a group or network that can support and sustain us.
And I’ve got a free Facebook group called The Rising Leaders, which will do just that for you.
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Whenever you are ready to join a private community of Female Leaders who share the same path, challenges and celebrate your wins, join us here: https://bit.ly/RisingLeadersPrivateGroup
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So now that you know that motivation is key to performance, what’s next?
I can almost hear the question coming at you. How do you motivate yourself and your team?
Well, there are two key things to remember here:
1.you can only motivate yourself and not others
2.everyone is motivated by something different
So let’s take that first point that you can only motivate yourself and not others. This doesn’t mean that as the leader, you can’t do anything else about someone else’s motivation.
Your role is to ensure that the person can identify first, what it is that motivates them and then have a way to find that at work.
So for example, if they are motivated by recognition, by being publicly recognized in some way, how are you doing that? How are you giving them the well done or the employee of the month or whatever it might be that allows them to see themselves recognized publicly?
It’s that motivated by creativity by being creative, by solving problems in new ways, how can they use that at work? So this then comes onto point number two..
everyone is motivated by something different.
Let me help you out here using a tool called Motivational Maps, which I’ll tell you about in another artilcle – we work with nine different motivators.
1. making a difference or having a purpose
2. creativity and innovation or solving problems in new ways
3. freedom and independence
4. being in charge of people of resources
5. financial or material reward of some kind
6. expertise and knowledge
7. security and safety
8. belonging being part of something
9. external recognition, public recognition of some form
knowing which ones drive you will help you to start to identify which ones drive others.
A mistake we often make as leaders is assuming that if we’re motivated by something that everyone else will be too. So for example, if you love learning and going on courses, which is the expertise motivator, you might send your people on lots of courses to thinking that surely this is going to motivate them.
But what if it doesn’t? What if you have people in your team who really value the opportunity to be creative, or you have people in your team who value having that sense of security and safety, how would going on a course help them achieve those things?
I’m not saying that it wouldn’t, you can make the link, but if you can make the link for them, we’ll help them see it through the lens of that own motivation, then that they might really enjoy the course cheat.
If not, so how do you figure out what it is that drives you and each member of your team?
On the next series of this newsletter, I’ll be going through each one of the nine motivators, what they mean and how you can use them to make sure that your people are always tapping into that energy that they need to get things done and also help each other do the same thing.
I’ve also got a free course that is going to take you through the motivators and it’s going to help you to identify what it is that drives you. Click here to get access on this short video course now.
And remember, if you found this valuable please like and share this article.
Speak soon,
Sonia xx
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