Understand how your motivators are linked to personal and business goal achievement
Motivation occurs when you step outside of your comfort zone.
When you are in your comfort zone, you experience comfort, security and boredom, so it is unlikely that you will feel motivated. You are more likely to do nothing and just relax.
When you are in your panic zone, you experience discomfort, stress, anxiety and irrational thoughts, so the likelihood of being motivated here is also slim. When you are in your comfort zone, you are more likely to procrastinate because you cannot control your thoughts and because you like the sense of comfort. That means you are more likely to do nothing. As an individual, it is your responsibility to move out of your comfort or panic zones and move into the learning zone, which is where you grow.
When you are in this area, you will feel motivated to achieve your goals.
As a leader, you have a responsibility to motivate your team. You are responsible for recognising where your team is currently residing in their comfort zone and making them aware of it. When your team is in the learning zone and displaying signs of motivation, it is your responsibility to understand their motivators and play to them. By doing so, you can support, encourage and inspire your team to achieve both their own and the team’s goals.
Once you are aware of how you can influence, inspire and engage your team, more of your business goals will be achieved.
Someone only becomes motivated when they choose to step out of their comfort zone and stretch themselves. This is why you need to understand what motivates your team so you can help them take that step.
Ask your whole team to complete a motivation questionnaire to help you understand what motivated them. Key motivators are normally captured in one word: money, security, recognition, and achievement. Usually, these words are connected to core values. You can use both motivators and values to understand how to encourage your team to step out of their comfort zone and become motivated. It is important that you understand the meaning of the words your team uses to describe what motivates them because it could mean one thing to you and something completely different to them. It is important that you question your employee to understand what they understand by the word ‘motivation’ itself so you can make sure you’re both on the same page and speaking the same language.
There is a questionnaire to help you do this, and you can get it by contacting me at https://www.accendocoaching.co.uk/contact You can also find other motivation-defining questionnaires online too. I have also used the Motivation Pillar tool (available at www.motivationalmaps.com), which gives you the same information.
Ask your team to rank the following 12 motivators in order of importance, with one being the highest motivator and 12 being the lowest.
1. Independence
2. Recognition
3. Achievement
4. Leisure Time
5. Power
6. Prestige
7. Money
8. Pressure
9. Self-Esteem
10. Family/Social Life
11. Security
12. Personal Growth
Of course, motivation is critical to success, but it is just as important to understand what demotivates someone as it is to understand what motivates them.
For example, a member of your team might be motivated by recognition but demotivated by prestige. So if they are recognised in a public arena, it could demotivate them rather than motivate them. If recognition is someone’s highest motivator, but prestige is their lowest, avoid recognising their achievements in public.
When setting goals with an employee, it’s also useful to check whether and in what ways the goal is congruent with their personal values and motivators. If the goal isn’t linked to a key motivator, the employee is likely to remain in their comfort zone because the goal will not stretch them enough. It’s vitally important that you know this because it could be the difference between having a team that is engaged and having a team that is disengaged. By understanding an individual’s needs, you will be able to manage them individually as well as part of the team. The more you know about someone, the more effective you will be as a leader, and this knowledge will enable you to ignite your team for peak performance