Six lessons from our response to COVID-19 on...staying motivated to create high-quality care for every person, every time

What can we learn from our response to COVID-19 about…Maintaining Motivation for high performance?

In these strange, stressful and interesting times I’ve been focused on what we can learn from our response to COVID-19 and looking at how we can apply it over the longer term to create and maintain high quality care more generally. Something that’s stood out for me from the incredible work in train across health, aged and human services, is the need to stay motivated over the long haul – and how leaders are managing that, even as the ground shifts and changes beneath their feet, and there's no concrete end in sight.

As a general rule, I believe we all need an overarching purpose to stay motivated, whether it be in your work life, your life in general, or your own personal manifesto about what you're trying to achieve in one particular area. But to stay motivated, you need something bigger on your horizon than the day to day grind. There are seven billion people on the planet, but every single one is unique. To me, that tells me that my overarching purpose has to be something about the things that I bring in particular, and applying them to be the best me I can be in that process.

One of the things that has emerged for me over the years is that I'm here to help people to create the best care they possibly can across health, aged community and human services. That's where I've landed, amongst other things. Professionally, that's certainly what I feel I can do and can help with. And I find that overarching purpose really helps keep me going on the days when I don’t ‘feel’ motivated. 

So before we get to the specifics of motivation, I'd encourage you to think about your purpose. At the end of the day, what would you like people to say to and about you? Perhaps when COVID-19 has become a memory, or this time next year, or at the end of your life, what would I like people to remember me for and know me for, and be grateful to me for? Knowing this is really helpful when day to day motivation wanes and you really can't be bothered. Those are the days that you act according to your purpose, and the motivation bit arrives later. 

OK: six lessons from our COVID-19 response for maintaining motivation over the long term:

One: Be Future Focused. When we look at our response to COVID-19 the first thing I’ve observed about maintaining motivation is that people who are managing that over the long term are future focused. There's a day to day necessity to do the right things and keep going, but all of that is with an eye to the future and bigger picture. 

When we apply that to improving quality, it's easy to get stuck in the day to day grind of audits and incident reports and meetings. Without that future focus, you can make quality a very transactional thing rather than a transformational thing. Transformation requires that future focus - whether it be six months, or 12 months, or two years; having a clear picture of where you'd like to be down the track, how you'd like things to be different – and better. We’re seeing that with COVID-19: we're doing the right things day-to-day, but we have an eye on where we want to be in three, six and 12 months. And that is immensely helpful in keeping people going, particularly when they're seeing progress.

Two: Paint a Picture of a worthwhile destination: the goal. This takes being future focused down to the next level of specificity. Define one, concrete goal you'll be happy and proud you've achieved in six or 12 months. What would you love people to say about what you've achieved in that time? This has to be specific enough to get you out of bed in the morning. Not some vague, "Oh, well, I want things to be better," or "I want the quality of my service to be better" or “I want COVID-19 to be all over.” No. this has to be something you can see in your mind. Something you can point to and say, “I did that. I made that. That's there because I decided to make it so. And if I hadn't decided to make it so, it wouldn't be there." It might be a small-ish thing like fixing one important process that’s broken. Or it might be a major organisational overhaul. Whatever is important to you - and necessary to do.

You also need a rough idea of how to get there. You don't have to go into great detail at this point to stay motivated, but you do have to have a bit of a mud map. You must be able to see that there is a path from where you are to where you've decided you want to be, or your 'purpose' is just a pipe dream and won't be enough on its own to keep you motivated to act.

Three: Believe! Pick a destination you can chart a realistic path towards. It can be aspirational, and it should be. But it must be doable because we need you to believe that it's possible. That's what I'm seeing in the COVID-19 response. We believe we can beat this. I know people are having moments of doubt, and days of doubt, and possibly weeks of doubt. That's being human. And in fact, doubt is not a bad thing because it makes you stop and think and reflect. But overwhelmingly we believe we can get through this.

To maintain motivation you need to pick something that you absolutely believe you can make happen. And as part of that you need people around you to believe it as well. If you try to travel any path alone, it's exceedingly difficult to maintain any sustained motivation. If we look at COVID-19, it’s a team effort. We're all in this together and you need people around you who are committed to supporting you on that path, either helping you in a really material way or just providing lots of support.

Four: Small Steps. Small steps make big progress! Motivation often disappears when we give ourselves bigger than bite-sized progress chunks to chew. Of course, some things do take major pieces of work to achieve, but the overwhelming evidence, not only from our COVID-19 response, but from anything to do with motivation, is if you break down the big pieces of work into the smallest steps that you can, you are much more likely to keep going.

For this reason I love the ‘Stonecutter’s Credo’. This is about remembering that a stonecutter doesn’t split a high rock with one blow. Maybe there are 100 blows before that, and each one played its part. When you're up to blow 50, it's hard to see any progress. But unless that stonecutter makes those 100 blows, they're not going to split the rock. I find this extremely helpful because sometimes it seems as if we try and try and don’t see any progress. But by making that effort and taking those steps you are building progress. And at some point you will split the rock. This is what we’re seeing with COVID-19: small constant steps. Wash your hands, keep your distance, don't travel unless you have to, do the right things over and over again. They're not necessarily easy, steps, but they're small. They're things that we can conceptualize and we can do.

Five: Observe and Flex. Even within small steps, there must be flexibility, depending on how we're travelling towards our destination. In the complexity of human services, things change! Observe the path you’re treading, and if you have to make some adjustments because you've hit a dead-end, that’s part of the deal. But you don't stop striving towards your destination. To stay motivated, you must recognize progress – and keep making progress. If you’re stuck, acknowledge it and course correct.

Recognise and Celebrate: Don't let milestone achievements pass. Mark and celebrate them. Congratulate yourself. Get those support people around you full of congratulation and celebration. Because as human beings, we do need to stop every so often and say, "You know what? I think I just split a stone. After 100 blows, I got to the 101st." Our human brains enjoy the celebration and the marking and the recognition. Don't ignore it. We’re observing this recognition and celebration in our response to COVID-19.  We watch the graphs and the behaviour change and we mark it. And we’re motivated to keep going over the long haul.

All of these motivation lessons are also critical to create and sustain great care for every person, every day - which is also a long haul. See if you can absorb some of these motivational factors into your practice more broadly, and apply them to creating consistently great care. Your consumers, your staff – and you – will be glad you did.