As business people, we invest a lot of time thinking about motivation.\u00a0 How do we get our employees to work more efficiently, effectively, and productively?\u00a0 Since the dawn of commerce, the favorite solution to a motivation problem has been to throw money at it.\u00a0 The most obvious examples of this are salespeople who work for a sales commission, but there are lots of other places in business where the carrot-and-stick (if you do this, I\u2019ll pay you that) is the preferred method of motivation.\u00a0 We have bonuses, profit sharing, stock options, or the promise of a big hike in salary, to name a few.\u00a0 Sometimes these sorts of monetary motivators work, but more often, they don\u2019t . . . at least, they don\u2019t work to the extent we think they should.\u00a0 They may move the needle on the motivation meter a bit, but not nearly as much as we hoped.\u00a0 So how can this be?\u00a0 It\u2019s absurd!\u00a0 How can people fail to be motivated in the face of an opportunity to make more money?\u00a0 For more on this puzzling phenomenon, and for a few thoughts on other approaches\u00a0 to motivation, please continue reading below.<\/p>\n
Motivation is all about passion.\u00a0 Discover what people are passionate about and you\u2019ll understand what motivates them.<\/strong><\/p>\n In business, money seems to be the default motivator.\u00a0 When we want someone to do something, or we want someone to do more of something, or we want someone to do something better, we come up with a scheme to funnel money their way if they do what we want done.\u00a0 Unfortunately, money is not the universal motivator we sometimes think it is.\u00a0 We all need money to live and to support the lifestyle we want for ourselves, but money is not necessarily what propels us out of bed every day.<\/p>\n The point is, people can be motivated to do all sorts of extraordinary things, even heroic things in which financial gain plays no role whatsoever.\u00a0 That\u2019s the good news.<\/p>\n The bad news is that motivation is a very personal, individualistic sort of thing.\u00a0 What motivates you may not motivate me, and what motivates a third person may not motivate either one of us.\u00a0 So in the end, you can\u2019t motivate people . . . that is, you can\u2019t dictate what they need to be passionate about. They carry their own innate motivation within themselves . . . in fact, they probably arrived from the factory fully equipped with motivation.\u00a0 However, you can<\/u><\/em> help them to discover the passions that truly motivate them, help them to focus on those passions, and help them develop those passions into tools they can use in both their personal and professional lives.<\/p>\n Some more bad news.\u00a0 Helping people to discover the real motivating factors in their lives is tough, one-on-one mentoring work, and it won\u2019t come easily.\u00a0 It will require that you build real, meaningful relationships.\u00a0 People don\u2019t like to be manipulated, and they won\u2019t willingly tell you what gets their juices flowing unless they trust that you won\u2019t use that knowledge as a tool to manipulate them.\u00a0 Hence the need to build a trusting relationship.\u00a0 Still, if you end up with well-motivated employees who are passionate about what they do and who are willing to harness those passions to help the company achieve its goals, that\u2019s a pretty good deal, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n So the next time you\u2019re considering some sort of incentive program to motivate your people, resist the knee-jerk urge of a cash offer.\u00a0 You may still have to offer some sort of financial prize because people expect that in business.\u00a0 But go a little deeper and consider if there may be a way to tap into something your people are truly passionate about.\u00a0 If you\u2019re able to do that, you\u2019ll get a lot more than mere compliance . . . you\u2019ll get the energy and enthusiasm that comes with genuine commitment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As business people, we invest a lot of time thinking about motivation.\u00a0 How do we get our employees to work more efficiently, effectively, and productively?\u00a0 Since the dawn of commerce, the favorite solution to a motivation problem has been to throw money at it.\u00a0 The most obvious examples of this are salespeople who work for<\/p>\n\n