Motivation Summary2

Motivation is crucial in coaching. Trying to motivate based on our own beliefs, like promotions, can lead to trouble. Understanding someone's motivation and tying it to their goals and areas of improvement can be a game changer. Using a state and question format, we can emotionally change their relationship with the situation and fuel their motivation to pursue improvement and accept change. This technique is called state and ask. When coaching the motivation, I'm just going to make a very strong statement. It is the game changer. See, often when we try to motivate based on our own belief system, like promotions, we really run into trouble. A very good friend of mine, Julie Winkle Giuliani, wrote a great book called Promotions Are So Yesterday, and she identified eight areas of where people are typically motivated. It is a fantastic book. Her assessment is equally as fantastic. That's a great way to explore it as well. The other thing is bringing motivation, that understanding into conversations, is a game changer. So if you have someone who's disruptive, doesn't handle conflict well, can exhibit a negative attitude towards teammates, and you know their motivation—again, we'll keep it simple—is to become a first-time manager, sit down with that person, and I'll give you a formula, and you say, you know, Joe, one of the areas that we know you have an opportunity to improve is handling conflict thoughtfully, and—notice the word and—and improving in that area, how will that serve your goal of becoming a first-time manager? You tie the motivator to their goals. You tie the motivator to the areas they need to improve to achieve their motivation. So now let's say you have someone who's having a negative tendency towards a teammate. You might say, well, Tom, I know that you and Susie have had some tough conversations. I want you to think about having that conversation thoughtfully and professionally and how that might serve your goal of becoming a first-time manager. So what you do is you use a state and question format. You give a statement, we're working on your ability to work with Susie more thoughtfully and professionally, and the question, how will that serve you well in terms of you reaching your goal of becoming a first-time manager? What that does is it emotionally changes their relationship with the situation. It emotionally changes what they need to do to successfully handle the situation, yet knowing emotionally there's an attachment to this almighty thing called where I want to end up, my personal goal, my motivator. That will take you some time. The technique is called state and ask. You lead with the statement. So Bob, let's say you and I continue to improve on your ability to self-regulate, pull back in meetings, give other people the opportunity to speak, and really have people view you as a teammate who's truly listening. How will that serve you well in your pursuit of being a first-time manager or whatever his goal is? Again, you can lead with what you're working on without opinion, keep it neutral, and how will that serve your goal of and fill in the blank with what motivates them? That creates the attachment. That creates a person's willingness and ability and capacity to continue to pursue improvement that will fuel their motivation, but more importantly, accept this thing that comes with motivation, something most people avoid, and that's called change.