You Can't "Motivate" Anyone

Some of you might be reading this and think to yourself.... "WTF! isn't that the point of leadership?" To this I must say "Yes and No". Let's step back a minute and I will explain.

I've talked about Good to Great a few times already. But I think it's worth mentioning "The Three Circles". Essentially, in order to find what you (and your organization) can be truly "Great" at you need to find the intersection of "What you can be the best at; What drives your economic engine; and What you are deeply passionate about". This makes sense. Suppose you are the best at doing something, but you don't really care for it... it wouldn't make sense for you to pursue this, because your heart would not be in it (no matter how much everyone else in your life may try to cajole or guilt you into doing it). Similarly, if you know doing something will make you filthy rich (lets say playing professional basketball), but you're like me and can't make a layup if your life depended on it... this again probably shouldn't be one of your goals.

Now I've also been listening to Tony Robbins in the car on my otherwise long and boring commutes to and from work everyday. I went through his "goal setting workshop" in which he focused much less on the actual goals (you could set whatever goals you wanted) and much more on asking "What your reasons that you absolutely must achieve these goals?" He went to explain how critical the Why's were for you to avoid "setting and forgetting" them.

Now going back to the beginning. Why can't you motivate anyone? The simple reason is that if these people don't have any passion to share your goals or they can't think good reasons for them to follow you, they won't. No matter how much yelling and screaming (Steve Balmer) you make, you can't "motivate" people. But the converse is also true. If people have the passion to share your goals and have lots of good reasons to follow you, they will. Even if you are low keep and mild mannered!

So you have to learn that you can't "motivate" anyone, only discover their passions, and give them good enough reasons that show how these match up with your goals. Then they will motivate themselves.

Think about this one, it's tough to get your head around, but well worth it! Until next time.

-Jason