To understand how Entrepreneurs are motivated we need to learn
about the process of being motivated. The following is an
examination of that process.
So, What is Motivation?
The District Sales Manager walks into the Sales Manager's office and says, "Jim, I've talked with that new salesman you hired. I don't know how you can say that he is highly motivated. He didn't sound motivated in our talk."
The Corporate Trainer calls the Production Manager and says, "You said that Frank wasn't motivated, but in this class he's the most highly motivated student."
The new salesman is talking with his Manager, "When I took over this territory, I studied the buying patterns of the customers here and I thought the Triple Z Corporation would be my best customer. Yet, I can't get their buyer excited about anything in our line."
Are these situations the result of a change in the motivation of someone or because people do not have the same perception of the nature of motivation? Probably some of both, and neither needs to happen.
To reduce motivation fluctuation and to increase the available
knowledge about motivation, for the past three years we have been working with an advanced model of human behavior. This model greatly expands our ability to work with and motivate those around us. By knowing how each person is motivated we always know what to do and say to spark that person's motivation.
What are the situations where you would want to motivate others? In every situation were you want someone else to begin some action, you want to provide that person with a motive to act (motivate); you want to have that person generate behavior. Any time you want the other person to generate specific behavior; you want to motivate the other person.
In sales, marketing and advertising you want to motivate the
prospect to become your customer. In managing, coaching,
teaching, influencing, and in politics you want others to perform
certain tasks. As a customer you want your supplier to perform
certain tasks. In all areas of communication that should result
in action, improvement in the motivation of those performing the action will mean improvement in the results.
We have been exploring the patterns that make someone good at
motivating others. We have interviewed hundreds of business
people in the last three years. Some have been good at motivating people and some have not. Those who are good at motivating others are able to agree with or match up with certain behavior and language patterns of the people they want to motivate. In this article we will discuss what they do and how they do it.
Motivation is not a single, measurable thing, like miles-per-hour (MPH) for a car. Many psychological instruments attempt to measure motivation and provide some scale for it. MPH can be measured on a fixed scale, but motivation cannot. Yet, in lots of ways motivation and MPH are similar. MPH is affected by the conditions of the road and the engine, by the weight of the vehicle, by weather, by gear ratios, etc. . . Motivation is also affected by many factors.
The MPH at any given moment is the result of the interaction of a variety of the factors (components). For instance, are the tires radial or not, does the engine have four, six or eight cylinders, does the car have automatic or manual transmission, is the road smooth or rough, is the road level, inclined up or inclined down? There are many factors more that could be explored.
Motivation for each person at any moment is the result of the
interaction of a variety of components. There are many components in the motivation system that people have and we will explore five of them in this article.
First, we will discuss ways of recognizing these patterns in the work behavior of people. When you have a chance to be around someone for a few days these patterns will begin to show themselves in almost every action a person takes. Then we will consider ways of talking with a person to spark their motivation.
So, for five components of the motivation system we will discuss the kinds of behaviors that people can exhibit. Then, based on the kinds of behavior you recognize, you will have a list of words and phrases that work best at sparking the motivation of that kind of person. Sometimes you will notice that a person does both of the behaviors that are described. In those cases you can use both of the sets of words and phrases and it will spark their motivation.
Motivation Direction
What is the direction of motivation for this person? Does the
person move Toward what they want to attain, gain, or achieve or do they move Away From what they want to avoid, steer clear of, or get rid of.
The Toward person is motivated by goals. When they have a goal to strive for, they generate behavior. When the Toward person is focused on a goal they seem unable to recognize problems
associated with their goal or the path that they are on in their attempt to achieve that goal. The Away From person is motivated to avoid problems. When they recognize that something is going wrong or can go wrong, they generate behavior. The resulting behavior is directed to avoid the problem or fix it. The Away From person seems unable to generate behavior in response to goals.
To motivate the Toward person you would talk about "the result," "the goal," "getting what you want," "having," "attaining," "gaining," "achieving." To motivate the Away From person you would talk about the "problem," "solution," "avoiding," "get rid of," "steer clear of," "not have."
Motivation Source
Where does the motivation come from for this person? Internal
people decide for themselves and External people need someone
else to decide for them.
Internal people decide for themselves about the quality of their work. They decide on their own how to proceed on a task. As they start a task they know what successful completion will be. So, the Internal person is one who tends to decide for themselves what goal to reach for or what problem to avoid.
External people need others to decide for them about the quality of their work. As they start a task they do not know what successful completion will be. They need others around or some objective standard to be able to judge the progress of a project. So, they often have others tell them about the progress (do not mistake this with a need for strokes, both Internal and External people need strokes). The External person needs someone else to define what goals to go for or what problems to avoid.
If you want to spark the motivation of an Internal person, you
would tell them "You know," "you decide." If you want to spark
the motivation of an External person, tell them "Others will help you decide," "others will let you know."
Motivation Reason
Why does a person get motivated? What realms provide the spark
for a person? We have found that this breaks down into two
patterns, just like the first two components. The Options
person is one who wants to be working with ever expanding
options. The Procedure person wants to continue to work with
known options.
Options people are always looking for new ways. They want to
expand their options. When they are given a procedure to follow, they will subvert it. They may be able to create procedures for others, but they seem unable to follow those procedures. When faced with an obstacle, they are already thinking of loopholes. They work best when juggling more than one task at a time.
Procedure people need to have clear-cut procedures to be able to do their job. They want to stay with known options and if they do not know the options, they will generate no behavior; if they do not know what to do, they will do nothing. When faced with an obstacle, they stop. Give them a procedure and they will follow it. They work best with only one task at a time.
When talking with a Options person, "think of the options,"
"consider the possibilities," "other ways," "choices," will spark that person's motivation. With a Procedure person, "procedure," "known way," "proven way," "follow directions," will spark that person's motivation.
Motivation Level
How much energy will the person have for initiating the
performance of the appointed task? Again, this component breaks down into two patterns, just like the three former components. The Proactive person is the person who initiates and the Reactive person is the person who waits.
The Proactive person is interested in doing the task. On the job they are characterized by jumping into the task, usually without any analysis or study. They are doing and working most of the time. When given an opportunity to perform some task, this person will begin the task. The Proactive person acts without consideration.
The Reactive person needs to understand and analyse before they can act. This need for 'knowing' keeps them from initiating, but they will react to the initiations of others, they will act and perform in response to others. When given an opportunity to perform some task, this person will ask for more information or time to study or understand. The Reactive person considers without acting.
When talking with the Proactive person you need to say, "do,"
"act," "get it done," "work," "do it now," "make things happen" to spark his or her motivation. For the Reactive person, "this is what you've been waiting for," "know," "understand," and "analyse," will spark motivation.
Motivation Criteria
So far we have discussed components of a person's motivation
system that are binary (either one way or the other). This
component is not binary, it is open-ended. This involves words
and phrases that are motivation sparks for a person. These
Criteria do not fit in categories like the other components.
Every person has some criteria by which they decide about
everything special in their life. For some people it might be
"fun, meeting people, challenge, and interesting." For another
person the Criteria might be, "useful, effective, see what I've done, and satisfaction." For each person the set of words and phrases are unique and personal (Each person's definition for their Criteria is unique and personal, too. Do not think that you actually understand the meaning of someone else's Criteria).
Criteria is the basis for making decisions, so everyone will use their Criteria as their justification in making decisions. A person might say, "That's interesting," or "That wouldn't be
useful," or "Tell me how this is in any way effective." Whenever someone objects to anything, they do so based on one of their personal Criteria and whenever a person decides to accept anything, they do so based on their own personal Criteria.
To spark the motivation of any person, use that person's Criteria as the justification when providing information or asking for action. If a person has a Criteria of "satisfaction and challenge," and you want to get that person to perform a task, describe the task as "satisfying and challenging." Or, you can ask the person to find a way to make the task "satisfying and challenging" for themselves. Using a person's Criteria anywhere in a sentence will spark them.
Putting It All Together
Let us consider an employee who is Toward, Internal, Options,
Proactive, and whose Criteria is "self satisfaction, honest,
reliable, and happy." To get this person excited about a new
project, you would say, "Honestly now, this project is a reliable way for you to get what you know you want. Think of the possibilities of how you can get the self satisfaction that makes you happy by making this happen." These sentences will so closely match this person's way of making sense of the world, that he or she will be unable to resist your suggestions about doing the project.
Consider now a co-worker that you need to influence to do some
task, but you are not their supervisor. The person is Away From, Internal, Procedure, Proactive, with "not being bored,
interesting, security, and excitement," as Criteria. You could
say, "You know that an interesting way for you to avoid being
bored and to maintain your security in this organization, would be for you follow the procedures to do this task in an exciting way."
How does the marketing and advertising person use this
information to motivate large populations? The traditional method for the marketer to understand the population to be influenced is to do surveys. This is the same. Determine the characteristics of the population to be influenced by survey and then use these language patterns to make behavior happen. If no clear-cut pattern shows up in the survey for a particular component, use the language for both patterns and each group will be influenced appropriately.
How are Entrepreneurs Motivated?
Our data shows that Entrepreneurs are Proactive, Toward,
Internal, and Options. The overview of the motivation style of
such a person is that they actively (Proactive) go after (Toward) the goals they choose (Internal) and use every option or go around the rules (Options) to achieve those goals.
Proactive: They are characterized by jumping into every project without taking time to think it through. Their days are filled with action. This action holds them in good stead as they begin each new task. Most of their success is based on their tendancy to act (many business failures that we have seen have been because people did not initiate). So, they are motivated by situations where they can act and initiate.
Toward: They are goal oriented. They tend to be so goal oriented that they don't recognize the "down-side" of a situation. They might give lip service to the problems or the situations that should be avoided, but they hardly ever account for them in their plans. This is often refered to as "being focused;" keeping all of your atention on the outcome and not being diverted by errata. The entrepreneur has this trait of being so focused that they tend to only think about getting the outcome. They think only of reaching the goal. They are motivated by situations where they have a goal to focus on. They must make their own mistakes to be able to learn (it's rare for the entrepreneur to be successful in their 20s - most seem to "make it" in their late 30s thru 50s - we think that this is because they have to make at least 15 years of mistakes for them to learn enough to begin to succeed).
So, they are also motivated by situations where they get to gain more "experience." Third, they have trouble accepting compliments. These can only be accepted when the compliment exactly matchs their own belief about the thing being complimented. This means that they have trouble in hierarchical, corporate work settings, because they often reject the management interventions of their immediate supervisors. They reject the compliments (and the criticism), because it rarely matches their own views. So, they are motivated by situations where they have no supervisor (with whom to disagree).
Options: The entrepreneur cannot follow procedures. Given a
clear-cut procedure that always works, this kind of person has to do it another way or modify the procedure (every time). The
Options person is always coming up with another way of doing
things. The Options person is driven to alter the normal way.
They are excited and motivated by opportunities and possibilities and situations that they can use or introduce alternatives.
So, a recap of the situations that motivate entrepreneurs is that they are motivated by situations where they can act and initiate. They are motivated to be in situations where they get to do all of the deciding; they are motivated by situations where they are in charge. They are also motivated by situations where they get to gain more "experience." They are motivated by situations where they have no supervisor (with whom to disagree). They are excited and motivated by opportunities and possibilities and situations that they can use or introduce alternatives.
Implications about Entrepreneurs
It seems to us that an entrepreneur is an entrepreneur because of these motivation factors. They have trouble in corporate
structures because the don't like to follow procedures, they
don't like being told what to do, they are "forced" to do things some alternative way, they have to jump in on each project, they want to decide about their own goals, and they have to be in charge.
There are some other implications that need to be noted. Because of their tendancy to jump right in on a project, they often have trouble with projects that they have not taken the time to understand. Because of their tendancy to focus only on the goal, they often get zapped because they don't account for the things that could go wrong. Because they don't listen to others and cannot learn from other's mistakes, they have to make a lot of mistakes to gain enough experience so that they automatically jump right into the situations that are good for them. After a lot mistakes they automatically know how to handle and avoid problems (learned behavior pattens - still not a natural pattern). Because they are driven to do things some other way or to offer alternative ways, they often offer alternatives that are not needed or are not popular or are not profitable.
What Next?
Our investigations into the nature of motivation and who succeeds at motivating others are still continuing. We will uncover other factors, other components of the motivation system. For now, we know that those who are the most successful at motivating others are utilizing the information that they have about others. Those who are most successful at getting others to do what they want are using these kinds of words and phrases in their discussions with others.
If you want to increase your effectiveness at motivating others, then you will begin to recognize these patterns in others, and you will begin to talk with people in ways that match their ability to understand and respond with increased motivation. As you use this information and as you change you language patterns to match others, you will join the ranks of those who are most successful at motivating others.
(c)1986, Rodger C Bailey, You may reproduce this in any form, for any purpose, except where people have to pay to receive a copy or version of this material.
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