Motivation at Work

Motivation in any area of our lives is very tricky. It’s amazing how one day we can be filled with inspiration, focus, and energy, while another day we are fighting just to successfully manage our thoughts and time. Our fickle nature is nothing new and is interestingly highlighted by the timeless character of Ebenezer Scrooge in the classic A Christmas Carol.

Dickens’ novella is a beautiful account about the nature of people, the human condition, and what makes us tick. In a telling scene in which Scrooge is faced with his former business partner, the deceased Marley, he doesn’t dismiss the existence of the ghost, but he tells himself that the apparition isn’t “real.” He denies the authenticity of the image due to the simple reality that our senses, despite being designed to provide us with clarity, are easily deceptive, any “little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats” (Dickens, 1843, p. 19).?

Being visited by an actual ghost in real life is a stretch, but Dickens reveals great insight into our human nature--our own surroundings, circumstances, events, and situations affect us on so many levels. At times, our own thoughts impact our ability to control our emotions, taking us into the past, present, and future of our minds. Our motivation seems to shift on a whim, exploited by our individual experiences and personal desires.

Natural Human Tendencies

Acknowledging our natural human tendencies is paramount to motivating staff. It’s possible that all of the greatest motivational leaders were first, as a trade or within their hearts, some sort of cultural psychologist. Creating an environment designed to help employees realize their greatest strengths, connect deeply to their work, and achieve the desired results of the organization is only possible if you can tap into each person’s mental state and personal well-being.?

At a glance, our individual core values don’t naturally appear transferable to the organization’s success. Because our motivation is often subject to our own senses, and our every effort can easily fall prey to any given sensation, leaders must prioritize motivation through purposeful and intrinsic means. Any other effort to motivate staff will be derailed or diminished by our human sensibilities.?

To account for this, leaders must recognize that “the most powerful incentive known to humankind is our own evaluation of our behavior and accomplishments. When people are able to meet their personal standards, they feel validated and fulfilled” (Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan, & Switzler, 2008, p. 94). Therefore, leaders who invest in their employees from the outset of their hiring date and as an ongoing strategy through their careers, will effectively help them to understand their role and what it means to be successful in the job.?

This alone can lead to greater satisfaction, motivation, and retention. We must link each person’s contribution to their ability to evaluate the importance of what they individually provide for the team. In other words, they need to see the work itself as an outcome and not necessarily some other long range goal.?

To create these conditions, we subscribe to “The Law of the Harvest,” which asserts that we must focus on the process of our work, not just the outcome of it. The key feature of “the harvest” is to focus on the giving not the getting, the sowing not the reaping (Maxwell, 2012). It’s especially true at work, but our natural mentality is to look for quick returns and daily tangible outcomes. Instead, in focusing on “sowing well,” we prepare to wait for the harvest in due time. A good harvest is the result of meticulous planning, hard work, continual attention, good timing, and arguably a little luck. Farmers depend on and expect for a successful harvest to survive--a belief that effort coupled with skill will yield commensurate results.?

The benefit of the harvest when it bears is that the outcomes are a clear and often laudable product of the process that it took and the effort that was expended prior to its arrival. Administrators who sow well commit to the development of their employees and work toward intrinsic motivation, offering “…enough support in the social context, so the natural, proactive tendencies are able to flourish” (Deci, 1996). Environments that naturally support and provide proactive structures, positive working conditions, and needed resources from day-to-day will generate long term results. Most importantly, these environments create a stable staff who are committed to the organization because the organization is committed to them.?

Intrinsic Empowerment

For a successful harvest, we must remember that development, motivation, and ultimately retention are forged within the working environment itself, centered on employees who know their purpose, who have a deep connection with the work and their colleagues, and who feel empowered as professionals. We call this Intrinsic Empowerment.

Intrinsic empowerment comes from our ability to evaluate our successes as we sow, not just in what we reap. This is where an understanding of organizational psychology is critical for leaders. To motivate the people, we need to create a complete picture of their personal sensibilities so that they see their contributions on a regular basis.?

The workers must gain enough perspective about their purpose to evaluate their contributions during the harvest rather than at the end of it. This type of visualization prompts intrinsic value in our daily efforts, giving us both a sense of efficacy and the hope needed to further engage in the process. It provides a vision for our success in solving the problems before us and results in both more effort toward the goals and happiness.??

Considering the importance of the work facing education, these types of motivational and engaging environments are critical because they lead to greater success for students and staff. Let’s examine the problem with lagging student performance on the math section of the state accountability measure or the SAT.

Improving student math scores is not solved through the implementation of a program or a new curriculum. The results are also not seen on a regular basis through our daily work. This makes the goal seem unattainable and diminishes the daily work or, worse yet, distracts us from even doing it.?

Better scores are a reality only when we commit to the hard work in uncovering the reasons why the scores are low--uncovering with precision the gaps that need to be filled to bring them up. Successful teams are motivated by the work at hand, not the outcomes. They don’t let their minds wander into the future or beyond the relevant facts of the present situation.

Any time a “ghost” appears, they quickly realize that it’s merely an apparition and they pull themselves into focus, back to the sowing. At the center of any culture that can stay this focused is a leader who understands how purpose fulfillment works for Intrinsic Empowerment so that she can be absent when others are able to refocus on their own.?

Leaders who are completely tuned into creating meaning through the work at hand and their team’s ability to evaluate their success in an ongoing way, not some far-off goal or senseless quick fix, create cultures where people are fully engaged. They know that the work of the seed is not the fruit that it bears but rather in the effort it takes in doing all of the planting. It’s the meticulous gardening that delivers the finest rewards from any field.?

In an environment of true motivation, the first of our Retention Accelerators, people will put forth every ounce of their effort because they feel connected to the work and celebrated for doing it. Their sense of intrinsic value provides license to keep pushing, even in the face of a phantom illusion or any made-up hindrance that haunts them.?

Excerpt from Retention for a Change: Motivate, Inspire, and Energize Your School Culture