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 »
You’ll have heard of your comfort zone.
Coined by Alasdair White in 2006, the clues in the name really, it’s when any activity you’re doing is easy, takes little thought or as theorists call it ‘steady state’
You’ll start something, eventually your performance will improve, then it becomes comfortable.
Sounds great eh! Well, maybe not.
Psychologists who specialise in human performance discovered that after that initial uplift in performance,
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,
Many of us, when we break something, tend to see that item as no good anymore and will probably throw it away.
The Japanese though, have a tradition that when a piece of pottery is broken, they repair it using a lacquer mixed with gold. Known as Kintsugi, or Golden Joinery, a 400 year old tradition, people will repair the damage, creating an even stronger and more beautiful piece.
It’s worth remembering that when we break something,
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.
The ancient Greeks used to define courage in a certain way. It was not based on war or endeavour, but on daily life.
They believed courage was needed in greater quantities for each day, even just to get through one.
They thought that courage was needed when your resolve & hopes of sharing new ideas were challenged. When someone disagreed with you, then courage was needed to enter into a battle of ideas.
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,
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.
» Read more about: Your thinking won’t get you to the next part »
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,
I read a research paper recently that aimed to look at the relationship between happiness & resilience.
It set out to test the theory that the happier you are, the more resilient you are & the more resilient you are, the happier you are.
Made sense to me, sounds absolutely common sense. But I was a bit surprised to find out the results & I think they will be a great help to you,
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,
Imagine working in a place where you feel recognised & valued, you feel part of something & you feel you can be yourself, no pretending, no facade, just be you. What would it be like working in a place like that?
As a leader you can enable this to happen.
So how can you? Try these;
1. Show Appreciation – find out what it is that makes those around you feel appreciated.
We all know that relationships are key. We feel connected & appreciated. We can be open, vulnerable, not have to pretend.
But it’s hard at the moment. Lot’s are remote, interactions are virtual. In a recent survey, 71% of managers are finding it hard to build relationships.
So what can we do? Try Showing Care.
Look at a relationship you have. Score 1-10.
1 there is no relationship,
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.
» Read more about: Leadership Self Efficacy; dealing with adversity »
Imagine this.
You’re sat at your desk, in your office, with your mobile by your side. You’re tapping away at the keyboard and your phone rings. On the screen it shows the name of your boss. What’s the first thing that comes into your mind?
Something positive? Something negative?
Now imagine this. You pick up your phone and ring one of your team. Your name appears on their screen as it rings.
We can’t ignore it. It’s everywhere and the impact it is
having is devastating. At the time of writing this, 10,000 people have lost
their lives to it.
Covid-19 or Coronavirus.
Globally, people have been told to stay at home, only leave
for essential journeys and then they must social distance. If they do not
follow this they can be fined, in some counties, jailed.
Why is it then that some people still go about their daily
lives like nothing is happening?
In my role as a facilitator, I’m an expert on nothing
really, but I know one thing; I do get lots of attention.
Stood in front of people, all listening to my every word,
doing the things I ask them to do. It’s a nice feeling. It’s a powerful
feeling.
Attention’s nice isn’t it?
So, how many followers do you have on Twitter? Instagram?
How many friends do you have on Facebook?
