Introduction
General
Motivation means a knowledge of behaviour and that means people.
Contact with people and the need to maximise their potential will appear in many spheres, for example, in a company, in a family in many other organisations, and during sports and other team lead activities.
Exposure to a motivational speaker just isn’t enough.
The behaviour of people has been written about in many areas forming the basis of management systems, safety systems, and anywhere where change has been important.
The character and behaviour of people will always be with us and will help shape the future (see The Complete Leadership package).
Many managers and most organisations will have policies and Mission Statements (see The Complete Project Management package) that suggest that people are at the heart of everything that is done. Most people know that this is either not the case or not immediately obvious.
It is easy for many managers and companies to introduce solutions to problems on the basis that it worked for another group without giving much practical thought as to any underlying people requirements.
Behavioural systems are only useful if they manage to solve a problem permanently or in a consistent manner and only then if you can compare their implementation against measurable outcomes (see The Complete Project Management package).
Is it us and them?
In today’s society organisational loyalty can be in short supply. Following staff cuts and other management exercises just exacerbates this view. There appears to be one law for managers and one for the workers.
Dealing with people can be hard for many managers. They usually fall between the two camps of ‘it’s your job and get on with it’ approach to the ‘let’s be extremely kind to everybody’.
If you sack someone are they a poor performer? No one is all bad. After all they were taken on in the first place.
You may only be happy with 70 or 80% of their performance and should be taking action on the remainder.
Who motivates who?
When we speak of motivation there seems an implication that someone is responsible for instilling it into you. This is partly true.
Everyone has the ability to influence others and hence motivate them.
If you are fortunate, someone may at sometime take the trouble to motivate you.
However, of course you have the option of motivating yourself. Without self motivation you will never be able to motivate others.
So, motivation is not only about what you can do to help others. If you are not motivated yourself then you will not be able to carry out behavioural change in others. The information here not only looks at techniques to help others but areas where you can try to help yourself.
Self motivation
Motivation is about yourself as much as others you interact with.
You can actively think about your personality and character and how you react in certain circumstances.
There may be no such thing as a pessimist or an optimist it’s really a matter of what choices in behaviour you decide to adopt.
People are capable of excellent performances and a manager’s job is to find out how to get it.
This applies to you as an individual. You must also seek ways of maximising your own performance.
Without personal motivation our situations can often look worse than they are and any form of action can seem arduous to undertake.
What are people looking for?
The view that companies are only interested in the bottom line is slowly changing as they realise that the motivation of their major resource, people, is of paramount importance.
Companies are looking for motivated staff and in particular people that can deliver motivation.
These aspects are equally applicable to home and social life.
Everyone carries out tasks either on their own or with others and understanding behaviour is important.
Motivation involves creating the right environment that will improve confidence, reduce stress and allow performance to increase.
Do you need to be a good leader?
A good motivator does not make a good leader but a good leader must be a good motivator.
Whilst there are many other aspects to leadership (see The Complete Leadership package) without motivational abilities your leadership credentials will be low.
Starts at the top
Like many aspects of management it should start at the very top and filter down.
This is not often the case and hence must begin with you.
You must be determined to invest time (see The Complete Time Management package) in yourself as well as others.
As your motivational influence improves so will the performance of those about you.
The only way for a manager to get success is through other people.
This will be either as individuals or as a team.
Senior management will quickly realise and appreciate this sort of success.
What skills do you need?
Like many management skills anyone can learn to motivate people.
However, it does require effort and patience.
You will also need perseverance and the ability to look at your own character with honesty.
Generic approach
The techniques and comments and advice in this training package will try to cover generic applications.
In general, the principals should apply whether you are:
- Part of an organisation or company
- Working alone or as part of a team
- At home in a family situation
- Part of a social network
How you apply the techniques described will depend on where you find yourself and must often be tailored to the situation.
Like everything else, experience will often be your best guide.
Once you know the theory it is a different matter entirely trying to put into practice.
It will be like anything in life, you will need to try it out in practice and if necessary modify your approach.
If you can motivate you will have sown the seeds of a good leadership.
Organisational culture
The aim of this training information is to give a good grounding and basic idea of motivational techniques.
What we have tried to do is introduce some of the basics of motivation with comments and advice.
Hopefully, this will give you a very good understanding.
You should still read many more detailed and specialised books on this subject to improve and hone your motivation techniques even further.
In addition, motivation techniques will only work if all those who have a vested interest in it are convinced of its benefits.
We hope this information will help you to tailor those training needs and convince all those involved within the company or organisation of the merits of motivational techniques.