Motivating Others

“Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”
- Og Mandino
(Author; President of Success Unlimited Magazine; speaker)
So many people struggle with work motivation, motivating their staff and ensuring their employees are suitably motivated to perform at their best.
Motivation is the key ingredient for success in any team, company, organization or group of people. You can have all the technical skills, knowledge and personal drive in the world, but if you can’t motivate your team, you will not achieve success. As a leader, you must strive to motivate others to succeed in order for goals to be accomplished. Everyone has motivation. Every one of your team members are motivated on some level. It is your job to establish the level of their motivation and find a way to move them up to the level you require.
People are mainly motivated towards satisfying their own needs. When asked to do something their mind will ask the question internally, “What’s in it for me?” To truly be a motivator of people, you must always put yourself in their shoes. Identify why it would be beneficial for your employees to do a task, etc. Once you find out the employees’ motives, you find out how to motivate them.
People are motivated to move away from pain and are motivated to move towards pleasure. This gives you a choice to make as a leader. Should you motivate your team toward pleasure or away from pain? You can motivate toward the pleasure by providing recognition, incentives and rewards for individuals or a team excelling in the role and tasks they have been given. You can motivate people to do well in order to avoid the pain of a corrective action, such as losing their position in the team, or losing their privileges. The debate goes on as to which route yields the best returns, but the research I have read and the benefit of my experience leads me to conclude that it depends on the individuals in the team whether incentives are a better motivator than the threat of punitive action. Certainly, a reward culture promotes a positive environment in which people feel free to thrive and express their strengths.
Give people a reason why you are asking them to do something. They need to know the importance that their role and task has for you, them, the team and the overall success of the project. Simply exerting your authority as leader and telling someone to do something is not motivational. Taking the time to make them and what they are doing feel important, relevant, needed and appreciated is a great motivator. Ask and explain the need for a task and you will be rewarded by the right result. Tell and expect and you may end up disappointed.
You can learn all you need to know about motivation from my book, Live A Motivated Life. You can get your copy now, by clicking here. Invest in yourself!
- Og Mandino
(Author; President of Success Unlimited Magazine; speaker)
So many people struggle with work motivation, motivating their staff and ensuring their employees are suitably motivated to perform at their best.
Motivation is the key ingredient for success in any team, company, organization or group of people. You can have all the technical skills, knowledge and personal drive in the world, but if you can’t motivate your team, you will not achieve success. As a leader, you must strive to motivate others to succeed in order for goals to be accomplished. Everyone has motivation. Every one of your team members are motivated on some level. It is your job to establish the level of their motivation and find a way to move them up to the level you require.
People are mainly motivated towards satisfying their own needs. When asked to do something their mind will ask the question internally, “What’s in it for me?” To truly be a motivator of people, you must always put yourself in their shoes. Identify why it would be beneficial for your employees to do a task, etc. Once you find out the employees’ motives, you find out how to motivate them.
People are motivated to move away from pain and are motivated to move towards pleasure. This gives you a choice to make as a leader. Should you motivate your team toward pleasure or away from pain? You can motivate toward the pleasure by providing recognition, incentives and rewards for individuals or a team excelling in the role and tasks they have been given. You can motivate people to do well in order to avoid the pain of a corrective action, such as losing their position in the team, or losing their privileges. The debate goes on as to which route yields the best returns, but the research I have read and the benefit of my experience leads me to conclude that it depends on the individuals in the team whether incentives are a better motivator than the threat of punitive action. Certainly, a reward culture promotes a positive environment in which people feel free to thrive and express their strengths.
Give people a reason why you are asking them to do something. They need to know the importance that their role and task has for you, them, the team and the overall success of the project. Simply exerting your authority as leader and telling someone to do something is not motivational. Taking the time to make them and what they are doing feel important, relevant, needed and appreciated is a great motivator. Ask and explain the need for a task and you will be rewarded by the right result. Tell and expect and you may end up disappointed.
You can learn all you need to know about motivation from my book, Live A Motivated Life. You can get your copy now, by clicking here. Invest in yourself!