Motivation Overview2

Motivation can be defined as a passion to work beyond money or status and the willingness to pursue goals energetically. There are two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes from within, while extrinsic motivation is driven by external factors. Understanding an individual's motivation is important for effective management. The story of a graphic designer who was offered a promotion but didn't want to manage people illustrates the importance of aligning motivations. It is crucial to have open conversations and accommodate different types of motivation, such as working independently or in a team. Motivating others should be based on their individual motivations, rather than our own beliefs. Now, in coaching to motivation, let's give you more or less a high-level definition from an emotional intelligence perspective. It's a passion to work for things that go above and beyond money or status, the willingness to pursue goals energetically and with enthusiasm. Now there are two sets of motivation we would encourage you to think about more than anything. You have people who are intrinsic or extrinsic. Someone who is extrinsic sees what they're currently doing as an apparatus or a catalyst for something, maybe like a promotion or doing something differently. Someone who is intrinsic is someone who wants to, is motivated by what they're currently doing. And I always love to share this story. I have a very good friend who's a graphic designer. And the graphic designer is something that she's very passionate about. She works for an agency. She has her own clients. And the funny thing about her, she's a high creative, high innovator, much like what I am. And that's one of the reasons we're friends. And she's an introvert though. And so the company started to get nervous about her leaving the agency and they wanted to reward her. Now, again, this is going to come with this concept of intent versus perception. The ownership's intent was fantastic. They wanted to promote her to being the boss. She did not want to manage people. She calls me up and she says, I've got to quit. I've got to find a new job. I'm so upset. She tells me what happened. I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what a wonderful gesture. She said, I don't want to go into management. I go, it doesn't matter what you want to do in terms of the context of their intent. They're showing you they value you. Now what we need to do is craft a conversation so you feel safe having it so they feel safe in promoting someone else. She said, oh, I've never thought of it from that perspective. So the end of the story is she didn't get the job. Obviously, her friend got the job who is less of a graphic designer yet wanted to go into management. So everybody's goals were really served well. Now the other person later said if she didn't get the job, she was probably going to pursue other agencies. So actually two jobs were saved by understanding motivation. So when she went to ownership and she said, look, it's a lovely gesture. I love the work that I do. I don't want to change that. She was intrinsically motivated. She said, now whoever gets the management job has to understand I like to work on my own. So there's other types of motivation at work here. Independent motivation, working on your own, or collaborating in a team environment. One's not better than the other. But if you have someone, and I'm much like my friend, I like to work on my own when it comes to innovation and design and working on projects that don't require collaboration. I enjoy working independently. And her friend had reached out to me and said, geez, how do I make this transition? I said, well, do you know how she likes to work? And she said, yeah, she likes to work on her own. She's very independent. She doesn't like to collaborate in a team environment. Her creative juices really get going when she interacts with clients. I said, yeah, kind of the same way. I said, so how are you going to manage her? And she said, I have to give her room to do that. I said, exactly. So motivation is a lot of times what we try to do is motivate the person based on our belief system. Our fundamental rule with motivation is when motivating, do not try to motivate until you understand what motivates. Your motivation of promoting someone may not be their motivation.