In this quick video I share key insights into how to EFFECTIVELY motivate your team as well as yourself. Once you understand these strategies, your ability to get the best out of your team will sky-rocket.
Here’s the summary below. you can watch the video, listen to the podcast or read the transcript.
Summary
Level 1.0 – Survival
Level 2.0 – Carrot and Stick
Level 3.0 – INTRINSIC – THIS is the key
I’ve got some short pre-Christmas webinars planned for you which will really help you in your practice.
Don’t be disappointed by the fact that there will be NOTHING for sale during or after the webinar. They are purely educative.
1. On November 22 we have Nataly Morgan talking about ‘Winning Your Front Of House’ – this will take about 20 minutes. The day again is Tuesday 22nd November at 7:30 Sydney time (AEDT)
2. And then on Wednesday December 7, also at 7:30 pm AEDT Sydney time, we have Chris Newton sharing the Rich Vet strategies from his highly acclaimed book – Rich Vet Poor Vet Cheers
Click here to listen to the Podcast
TRANSCRIPT
The Evolution Of Motivation
Motivation 1.0
The 1st level of motivation that we have instilled within us is the motivation to survive. This is fundamental and this will not change.
And you will not be able to tap into the next levels of motivation unless this level is take care of.
Motivation 2.0
This was an ‘advent’ in around the 1900s and is what’s referred to as ‘carrot and stick’ motivation.
“If you do what I say and you please me I will give you a carrot; if you don’t do what I say and you don’t do what I say, you don’t please me, I will belt you with a stick.”
Does this work?
It used to, it worked really well until it didn’t.
Motivation is evolutionary. And we are motivated differently depending on the level that we’re at.
If you’re in a really dark place, then you are just motivated by survival (motivation 1.0).
Once you’re out of that dark place, you’ll be motivated by people saying; “If you do what I say, I’ll give you a carrot and if you don’t do what I say, I’ll beat you with a stick.”
And there have been thousands of studies that have been done on the use of incentives and their effect on performance. There was a research paper that was actually published in Dan Pinks’ book, ‘Drive’, where they identified a group of school kids and they put them in one of three categories.
- Kids who loved to draw
- Kids who didn’t mind doing it if they were asked and
- Kids who hated to draw.
Now are you ready for this….
They incentivised all of the children to participate in an art class. And they said; “if you participate in the art, we are going to give you a certificate of participation.”
After two weeks, the kids who loved to paint, guess what happened – they started painting less.
The kids who would do it if you asked, started painting less.
And the kids who hated doing it, stopped doing it altogether.
What they discovered was that when you incentivise someone to do something that they already love, their reward system in their brain starts to overlap, gets confused and as a result, they go from doing it because they love to do it, to doing it because they think they have to and they now stop enjoying it.
Carrot and stick is extrinsic. Meaning that it is externally motivated.
Motivation 3.0
Intrinsic motivation comes from the inside, is internally driven. This is what is referred to as ‘self-motivated’. These are the people who are internally driven.
Now what do you think is the quickest way to mess up someone’s internal drive?
Give them external incentives!
Counter, Counter, Counter-Intuitive!
- When you actually introduce a financial incentive, not only does performance end up dropping for those who would do it naturally, it also dramatically increases the likelihood of deceitful, risky and deceptive behaviours.
So how do we motivate people if we don’t offer them a financial incentive, because that’s going to fuck them up, how do we do it?
First of all, we need to find people who are intrinsically motivated, because if we choose people who are already motivated, then we’re already ‘half-way there’.
Part of the training that I do with my one-on-one clients and with the practices that join in my two big courses – Easy Veterinary Marketing and Veterinary Practice Profit Formula, I train them in how to identify people who are internally motivated from those who are externally motivated.
All you need to do is to learn to ask 3 conversational questions and you’ll have the answer.
Before we move on – if that interests you then look out in very early March 2017 because I’ll be launching the Easy Veterinary Marketing training about then.
Moving On…..
The question is – how do we reward them?
What a great leader does is they understand how to reward and when to reward. And understand that there are two types of rewards.
- There’s the ‘now-that’ and the ‘if-then’ reward.
We don’t want reward people by offering them an incentive. Because that’s an ‘if-then’ reward.
“If you do this, then I’m going to give you that……”
So then you might go; “Well what if I give them an unanticipated, surprise reward? What if I give them a surprise reward”?
“Now that you’ve done this, I’m going to give you ….. that”
That’s a ‘now-then’ reward.
Who would agree – that’s a reasonable way to reward someone unexpectedly. It Is and it WORKS!!
UNTIL – it becomes an expectation.
So if you are going to engage in ‘now-that’ rewards, they must be sporadic and there must be no structure to them.
Who is starting to see a correlation by, not just between your team members but also with yourself? Because again, if YOU focus your practice on EXTERNAL rewards, chances are that you’re going to be more likely to engage in high-risk behaviour.
But it also increases dramatically the likelihood that your performance will drop. Because you are not doing it for something that internally makes you feel good, you’re doing it for something, because of something externally that you feel you have to.
… something to think about….
Summary
Level 1.0 – Survival
Level 2.0 – Carrot and Stick
Level 3.0 – INTRINSIC – THIS is the key