How motivated do you feel right now?
Start of a new year, a time to set goals, make commitments, start new things, stop old things.
You’d think that most people are pretty motivated right now.
Well, research suggest otherwise.
A Gallup study conducted in September 2023 revealed that globally only 15% of people are motivated in the workplace.
In Europe that falls to 10% &
» Read more about: Bitesize Leadership No. 35 – Motivation »
Someone explained to me that motivation is internal. You can’t motivate someone; you must give them the opportunities to motivate themselves. It made total sense to me, & I even had lots of personal examples spring to mind that backed it up.
But then I discovered that it’s not totally correct.
I listened to a podcast with Dr. Richard Ryan, a clinical psychologist & co-developer of Self Determination Theory,
It’s not uncommon for people to say to me, “You do all that soft and fluffy stuff don’t you?” Yep, that’s me.
We then follow that conversation where they tell me that it sounds nice, there’s a time & a place for it, but really we need to get the job done, we just don’t have time for all of that.
So, let’s dig into that.
Sounds nice. Time &
I read an interesting piece this week that said that as humans we have lots of protective mechanisms.
They are the ways that we look at the world around us to make us feel safe, to protect us from harm.
One of them is called Self Serving Bias.
This is when we attribute success to our efforts & our failures to other things.
Imagine an athlete being interviewed after their team has won.
I’ve been a facilitator 18 years now & at times I’ve been asked by clients, “Why aren’t we seeing changes? Why are they still getting it wrong? Why isn’t the development working?”
For a second there’s a little bit of internal defensiveness which kicks in, followed by a bit of self-doubt, but I quickly remember something;
Development is a journey & patience is a virtue.
Whenever people go on their developmental journey,
We all know that our morals enrich our lives. They are the things that guide us, set our standards & are how we hold ourselves accountable to others.
But have you ever met a Moraliser?
A person who seeks to impose their views on others, telling them how to live & behave. They want you to conform & comply with their preferences. They defend their actions by saying they are trying to defend you from harm.
One of the many things that all of the leaders I am fortunate to work with have in common, is that they are really good at their job.
Or so they think.
Now, hold on. You may have just read that and thought, “Ouch, that’s a bit harsh.” But hear me out.
Lots of leaders have done the job of the people they lead. They know what to do in any situation their team finds themselves in,
It’s not uncommon for me to be asked to coach someone who’s finding it hard to lead a team, whether due to being a new leader, a team that’s not performing or something in between.
The business really wants to help them, give them the tools and techniques to lead so that the results are great.
Often though it’s not tools and techniques they need.
It’s not a skills challenge.
What makes a great leader? Presence? Credibility? Probably all of these things & more. But what are they?
If you read enough books, you’d think being outgoing & openly confident.
But what if this just isn’t you? Does this mean you’ll never get to where you want to be?
Not. At. All.
Presence, Credibility; compared to who?
If you’re a keen cook but compare yourself to a Michelin starred chef,
My kids don’t believe me that there used to be a phone number that you would ring to find out the time.
That’s not the only thing. You could add to that vinyl records, cassette players, pay phones in big box on every street, I could go on.
The pace in which things change is mind blowing. For example, the year 2000 was 21 years ago. Yes, you read that right.
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When things are uncertain, how do you react, what do you do?
You may just accept that it’s unpredictable, need to deal with what’s in front of you. Or you may have a well thought out plan, exactly for this occasion, indeed all occasions.
These tend to be the norm. Well, there’s another way & if you recognise it, you’re known as a Probabilist.
Imagine you’re stood in a square,
We’ve probably all done it. Set of dominos, lined them up and pushed the first one, watching them all topple over. Slightly mesmerising, always impressive. Especially when you get creative, loops, bridges, twin tracks.
Oooo, get me!
Anyway, you’ve probably also heard of the domino effect too; a cumulative effect produced when one event initiates a succession of similar events.
So, here’s a thought. Instead of using dominoes, let’s use behaviours and people.
My Grandad would always say that a bacon sandwich without brown sauce isn’t a bacon sandwich. “Brown sauce boy,” he would say, “is essential.”
I love that. The thought that something can make another even better. That it’s essential to bringing out the very best.
Well for me, Trust, is one of those essential ingredients.
Think of relationships, jobs, decisions, ideas. Now imagine them without Trust.
Trust is an essential ingredient to most things,
Have you noticed recently, that when you ask how someone is, you tend to get the same response. No matter who you ask.
It’s a kind of, slight shoulder shrug, nose scrunching, eyebrow raising thing. Every day’s the same, all rolling into one, doing exactly the same as I was yesterday and the day before and the day before type of response.
It’s all a bit Groundhog Day. (For those less than 25 years old,
People don’t half get on your nerves don’t they! They wind you up, they stress you out, they don’t listen, do whatever they want.
Well, that’s what we tell ourselves. The more we tell ourselves, the more we notice it. There’s a name for it. Psychologists call it ‘Conformation Bias’.
So, if we notice these things & they get on our nerves, which means we are stressed & tetchy, how useful is that?
We often think that adversity is a one-off event, so severe it takes every ounce of our focus. It can certainly be that, but it’s one version. It actually comes in many forms.
It impacts some more negatively than others. Same event, different perspectives. Some struggle, some flow through.
It seems risky to some, paralysing them, but for others, hardly makes them pause.
It has no plan or schedule.
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