Partners in Motivation

18 months ago, my son Mark walked into a Navy Careers Office and asked if he could join the Royal Marine Commandos. You could be forgiven for thinking that since we were involved in both Iraq and in Afghanistan, that they would have grabbed him and thrown him in a truck waiting at the back door and whipped him off to his training. But no. Over the next nine months he was examined academically, on a tread mill, had his eyes tested and the most ambitious medical exam you can imagine. He had to train hard to get fit enough just to get through this phase of the selection process.

 Once through all that, he was invited to 4 days at the Royal Marine Commando Training Centre at Lympstone in Devon. The PRMC. 60 lads arrived and over the next few days they ran miles, did the assault course several times, swam length after length and spent long periods in the Gym. The directory staff did not tell one of the lads that they weren’t fit enough to join the Royal Marines. No. The waited until 40 lads out of the 60 quit. One by one they dropped out through injury or sheer exhaustion. As soon as there were only 20 lads still standing the process stopped and those 20 were IN.

 On day one of the 32 weeks training, those 20 lads and two other lots of 20 from two other PRMC courses, started their course to become Royal Marine Commandos. With the odd week off, that 9 months training course is the longest course for any combat troops in the entire world, hence the high regard of our elite fighting force that is the Royal Marine Commandos.

 The British Royal Marine Commandos are an elite fighting force. They are expected to go anywhere, do anything and succeed. They are the most highly trained warriors that this country produces perhaps second only to the Special Boat Squadron and the Special Air Service and given that the British forces are reputed to be the best in the world, these guys walk tall wherever they go.

 60 started the course and only 18 finished. Last week at his passing out parade he was presented with the coveted Green Beret and started his Navy career where, more often than not, over the next 22 years, he will be in harm’s way.

 Why am I telling you all this ?

 Well, apart from being a proud Dad, I recall that during his training he and I spoke about what duties he would perform once the course was over and the pay and conditions of a Royal marine.

 Mark admitted to me that he didn’t know how much a newly qualified Marine got paid.

 If ever we needed reminding that money is not the prime motivator for going to work for most of us then this story is it.

If you want to know more about money as a motivator in work then you might like to join the Partners In Motivation Group on LinkedIn and see the discussion titled “How many people still believe that money is a motivator ?”

During the 30 years of my working life I have meet so many people who for one reason or another either are, or feel like they are, in the wrong job. Actually,

 85% of all people between the ages of 25 and 55 when asked said that they were in the “WRONG JOB”.

Over the years I have been privileged to work with hundreds of people and sessions either start with issues around work and move on to family and relationship challenges OR they start with issues around family and relationships and move on to challenges around their work. In my experience, unhappiness at work impacts on all other aspects of our life. The two are inextricably intertwined.

A lack of motivation in our work brings inefficiency, low levels of performance, reduced self belief and a poor self image, low morale, unhappiness, frustration, apathy and even depression, a downturn in health, increased absence and eventual resignation.

When we don’t get what we need from our work those feelings are most often taken home from the office or work place with us and have an impact on our family life. As a result, relationships with spouse, children, parents and friends are damaged.

Conversely, when we are happy, motivated and fulfilled at work, we tend to take those feelings home with us. The benefits of being in the right job and having a happy and fulfilling career go way beyond our working day. Relationships at home, quality of life and self esteem are magnificently enhanced.

I have been fortunate enough to have frequently found myself in a position to have some impact on assisting people to make the often long overdue decision to change jobs from one they dislike because it’s wrong for them to one they like because it’s right for them. If they have been in between jobs I have helped them choose their next job carefully ensuring that this time their prime motivational drivers might all be satisfied. Often starting the new business that they have dreamed about is exactly what they need.

I know that making these big decisions is not easy and it might help us to ask the question :-

So why do 85% of all people in the UK believe they are in the wrong job ?

Answer :-

          Because for one of a multitude of reasons they are not happy in their present job

And

          For one of another multitude of reasons, they haven’t already made the changes that absolutely need to be made

So What do they say they feel about their present job ……………….

• They feel stuck
• They are bored
• They are frustrated
• They feel undervalued
• Their skill set is underutilised
• Their job is pointless in the grand scheme of things
• They feel like a round peg in a square hole

            And more ………

What aren’t they getting from their work ………………….

• Enough money
• Enough responsibility
• Opportunities to get excel at what they do
• The chance to work closely with others
• Stability and Security
• Recognition and appreciation for what they do
• Meaningful and worthwhile projects to work with
• Opportunities to be creative and to innovate
• Freedom and independence

And what reasons do they give as to why they haven’t changed their job already ……

• They don’t know what they want to do next they just know it’s not this
• They worry that they won’t like the next job they take either
• They worry about failure and the consequences of failure (on finances, relationships etc )
• They fear what their friends/parents/colleagues will say
• They fear leaving what they perceive to be security
• They worry about leaving after they have climbed the greasy pole for so long
• They worry about leaving a pension behind

And more ……….

So if they were to choose another job, what are they looking for?

• To make more money
• A new challenge
• Fulfilment
• Empowerment
• More responsibility
• To create a balance in their lives
• To work in a friendly environment
• Satisfaction & contentment
• Being valued
• Being appreciated and told so
• To become an expert at something
• To feel safe and secure
• Feeling passionate about what they do
• To do something important and meaningful
• Feeling vital, dynamic & driven
• To be proud of what they do
• To being “On Purpose”
• To feel a sense of belonging
• To create something new
• To be independent
• To ‘making a difference’ in other people’s lives
• To feel free
• To jump out of bed in a morning and shout “YES”
• FUN

And more ………

I can help you to take the right steps to get the satisfaction and fulfilment you need from your present role if possible and if not, we help you choose the right kind of job or start the right business, the one that’s perfect for you, the one you are perfectly motivated for, so you can be happy and fulfilled in your work. Working in the right role or job or business puts a smile on your face, a smile that you will carry through in to all other aspects of your life.

Using our on-line diagnostic tool which takes 15 minutes to complete and provides a 99.9% accurate ten page report, we help you to understand your own individual Internal Motivational Drivers so that you can recognise what you really need from your work. After a consultation of up to an hour on what the report reveals for you, informed decisions can be made with far greater confidence.

Go now to the my-map page and request a Motivational Map. Once you have completed the questions you will receive a one hour consultation where you will learn so much about yourself and come to fully understand what you need right now to enhance your sense of fun, happiness and fulfilment in life.

For a free, no obligation discussion with Nick – either by telephone or in person, about how you personally can benefit from working with him and the Motivational Map® technology please get in touch.

01842  77 33 55  /  07827 344 344 

Nick@PartnersInMotivation.co.uk

Our Motivation can now be precisely identified and measured !

When we fully understand and recognise the truth

of our own individual Motivational Drivers

and

make a conscious choice to work in a role where

each of our unique drivers are perfectly satisfied,

 then we can quite naturally enjoy

health, happiness and fulfilment

through

Enhanced personal power,

Outstanding performance &

Professional excellence.

All people have strengths they can use to contribute. All players have a place where they add the most value. Successful people have discovered their niche and play to their own strengths. Successful leaders help their people discover theirs.

This fable is based on the writings of author, pastor, and Dallas Theological Seminary chancellor Charles Swindoll and his book Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life.

 Once upon a time, the animals decided they should do something mean­ingful to meet the problems of the new world. So they organised a school.

They adopted an activity curriculum of running, climbing, swim­ming, and flying. To make it easier to administer, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, he was better than his instructor was! However, he made only passing grades in flying, and was very poor in running. Since he was so slow in running, he had to drop swimming and stay after school to practice running. This caused his webbed feet to be badly worn so he became only average in swimming. But ‘average’ was quite acceptable, therefore nobody worried about it—except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of his class in running, but developed a nervous twitch in his leg muscles because he had so much catching up to do in swimming class. He was put in the remedial class for climbing and his running suffered. It wasn’t long before he was told that he wasn’t really very good at anything.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing, but he encountered constant frustration in the flying class because his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He developed “charley horses” from overexertion being forced to make up in his weaker areas and so he only got a “C” in climbing and a “D” in running.

The eagle was deemed to be a problem child and was severely disciplined for being a non-conformist. In climbing classes, he beat all the others to the top, but insisted on using his own way of getting there! 

 All people have strengths they can use to contribute. All players have a place where they add the most value. Successful people have discovered their niche and play to their own strengths. Successful leaders help their people discover theirs. As a leader, it’s important to always be challenging people to move out of their comfort zone, but never out of their strength zone. If people are moved out of their strength zone, their motivation plummets and soon they won’t be in any kind of zone — comfort, strength, or otherwise.

All companies, businesses and organisations at some time or another, have staff motivation problems. Any key employee in your business can have all the qualifications and experience in the world and have a CV to die for, but if they don’t have the motivation to perform ….. then they won’t.

 Outstanding performance comes from not just having the talent to do the job, it comes from having the drive and enthusiasm to use that talent. In short, they have to want to perform.

 I truth, nobody can motivate somebody else. What we can do is create the right role, the right environment, the right conditions for the person to naturally be motivated within themselves to want to perform at a high level. We can only do that if we really know and understand their precise motivational drivers. As leaders we have the responsibility to know our staff so well that we can create exactly what is required for our key staff so that they will quite naturally respond and performance will improve.

 Today’s leaders, managers and business owners have little or no training in this. They think that the way to motivate staff is through their charisma or their enthusiasm (hoping some will rub off on to their staff) or good, old fashioned carrot and stick.

 A manager might say to his ten sales staff “Okay guy’s, whoever sells two extra cars this month I will give them a weekend break in the Lake District”

On hearing that, statistically :-

• Two will say “Wow, I will do that !                                          Motivated
• Three will say “Well there’s no chance of me doing that”    De-Motivated
• Five will not be impacted at all – same old same old             No effect

 The manager has no idea what’s going on for his staff and leaves the meeting blindly thinking he is doing a great job. Worse still, the manager’s boss probably will applaud this initiative.

 Nobody thought to ask the individual sales people the question “What would have to happen for you to sell two more cars this month” Eight out of ten of those sales people were unaffected or actually de-motivated by the contest,  so what else, what other approach could be used to help them to achieve the same level of motivation as the two staff it happened to work for ?

 Well, if asked the question, on leaving that sales meeting, all the eight staff would tell you for sure was that “it wasn’t that” but most probably they couldn’t tell you with any precision what the answer is. They wouldn’t really know with any clarity or certainty.

 So the problem appears to be too tough to solve and uninspired mangers continue to do what they always have done and dream up a similar incentive for next month. Keep throwing mud against the wall in the hope that something clicks. And if it doesn’t for some staff, then we can always let a few go and replace them.

 And there’s the vicious circle.

 Imagine if you could know precisely what motivates each of your key staff about their work. If you knew exactly what motivated them you could learn to relate to them in ways that would tend to enhance their motivation and not diminish it. You would know what to change or alter or add or remove, perhaps refine the way you manage that person and watch as their motivation grows and grows. From that, their performance improves and everybody wins. The business does better and the staff are happier. The performance figures showing increase don’t lie and the staff want to come to work again tomorrow and be better still.

 Helping business leaders to recognise & understand the precise Motivational Drivers of their key staff allows them to accurately design bespoke processes of incentives and rewards leading to more production, more success and more commitment from staff who subsequently will enjoy improved happiness and fulfilment from their work.

 A person who continually gets what they need from their work is happy and therefore far less likely to leave. If management can be taught how to skilfully treat the talent in your business in exactly the right way in accordance with their unique individual motivational drivers then employee retention will soar.

 What if you were to actually consider trying a different approach ? Break the cycle and take this opportunity to find out exactly what your staff need from their work rather than making educated guesses. I guarantee that you will be surprised.

 Motivational Maps take the guess work out of performance management.

THE FIRST RULE of management is this: don’t send your ducks to eagle school.

Why?

Because it won’t work.

Good people are found not changed. They can change themselves, but you can’t change them. You want good people, you have to find them. If you want motivated people, you have to find them, not motivate them.

Don’t waste your time try­ing to turn ducks into eagles. Hire people who already have the motiva­tion and drive to be eagles and then just let them soar.

The credit for the line, “Don’t Send Your Ducks to Eagle School” belongs to author Frank McNair, who wrote a quick read book called Golden Rules for Managers.

The lesson: match your employee’s strengths with their assigned roles and responsibilities.

Every organisation needs a formalized system of recruitment to determine those applicants who not only have the job-related skill sets but also have the temperament, motivation, attitude and interpersonal skills to be successful.

Whether a candidate has the skill set, and by that I mean the skills, knowledge & competencies required for the post, may well be the easiest to determine but is always the least reliable predictor of job success.

The underlying characteristics that will determine the applicant’s motivation is a stronger predictor, but is unfortunately harder to identify. But that’s the leadership challenge; to put in place the recruitment procedures that filter out the ducks when it’s eagles you need.

A key ingredient to employee retention is to “Employ the Right Person in the First Place”.

Recently a magazine in New York had a full-page ad in it for a hotel chain. The first line of the ad read,

“We do not teach our people to be nice.”

The second line said,

“We hire nice people.”

Three Reasons Not to Send Your Ducks to Eagle School

The presupposition in this phrase “Don’t Send Your Ducks to Eagle School” is that you have identified that in your organisation, you have some Ducks who need to develop in some way in order to be able to perform their role more successfully. You have the notion that if these Ducks were indeed Eagles, then they would be much more successful in their role. This situation is most common for incoming business leaders and mangers that are new to their role and who are reviewing the staff they have inherited. Like many managers you probably believe that anyone can learn just about anything so you repeatedly send your Ducks to Eagle school. One thing you probably know for sure by now is that this way to go is massively flawed.

1. If You Send Ducks to Eagle School, You Will Frustrate the Ducks

The truth is that Ducks are not supposed to be eagles—nor do they want to become eagles. Who they are is who they should be. Ducks have their strengths and should be appreciated for them. They’re excellent swimmers. They are capable of working together in an amazing display of teamwork and travel long distances together. Leadership is all about placing people in the right place so they can be successful. As a leader, you need to know and value your people for who they are and let them work according to their strengths. Square Pegs fit best in Square Holes. There’s nothing wrong with ducks. Just don’t ask them to soar or hunt from a high altitude. It’s not what they do, just as if you ask an eagle to swim or to migrate thousands of miles, it’s going to be in trouble.

2. If You Send Ducks to Eagle School, You Will Frustrate the Eagles

Eagles don’t want to hang around with ducks. They don’t want to live in a barnyard or swim in a pond. Their potential makes them impatient with those who cannot soar. People who are used to moving fast and flying high are easily frustrated by people who they perceive to be holding them back. If you need a great eagle, go find a potential eagle and send them to Eagle school. That way do you have the possibility of helping that person develop into a great eagle.

3. If You Send Ducks to Eagle School, You Will Frustrate Yourself

How many times are we going to go through this useless process. You focus on the development of your Ducks and no matter how much you motivate them, train them, provide them with resources, or give them opportunities, they still don’t perform according to your expectations.  Ducks do what ducks do, and eagles do what eagles do. If you take a duck and ask it to do an eagle’s job, shame on you. As a leader, your job is to help your ducks to become better ducks and your eagles better eagles—to put individuals in the right places and help them reach their potential.

It’s a mistake to try to turn Ducks into Eagles. All you will do is frustrate them and yourself. You shouldn’t ask someone to grow in areas where they have no natural talent. So if you have someone who is a great swimmer and loves to fly in V formation, send him to duck school. No matter how motivated or intelligent he is, he’ll never become an eagle. You cannot put in something that God has left out

Don’t waste your time try­ing to turn ducks into eagles. Hire people who already have the motiva­tion and drive to be eagles and then just let them soar.

RECRUITMENT & SELECTION The wrong person in the wrong job is no good to either the individual or the organisation. A key ingredient to employee retention is to “employ the right person in the first place”. Since 60% of all new employees leave their post within the first six months, choosing the right applicant has never been more important. Partners In Motivation can help. Read more.

In an interview with Michael Jackson, Oprah Winfrey asked him “Michael, after all these years, what do you know for sure?”

 What a fabulous question.

If you were asked that question how would you have answered? What do you know for sure?

Well, one thing I know for sure is this:

For over 25 years, I have worked with SME’s, corporations, charitable organisations, in the public sector, private sector and I can tell you that all senior people everywhere have one fundamental challenge in common. How to maximise the motivation of their people.

They all know that to have focussed, committed, successful, productive, highly motivated staff ………. and to retain them, is absolutely key to the performance of their organisation.

Leaders also recognise that having people with that high level of energy around their work means that those staff experience improved health, fulfilment and happiness from their work.

It looks like a perfect Win:Win combination.

They just don’t know how to achieve it.

And it’s no wonder. Until relatively recently we have not had the understanding of actually what motivation really is. We haven’t been able to study it, we haven’t had the language to describe it and we certainly haven’t been able to measure it.

But now, with the breakthroughs being made in the study of Motivation, we can:-

• Understand what motivates people at work
• Describe what motivates them
• Measure what motivates them
• Monitor what motivates them
• Maximise their motivation

 The development of the Motivational Map® technology has given us the tools to achieve more through motivation. We can dramatically improve business success and profits by improving staff and team motivation. Understanding exactly what motivates individuals in an organisation can be used to magnificent effect in such areas as:-

• Maximising employee motivation
• Retaining staff
• Boosting team performance
• Improving business profitability
• Recruiting the right staff to complement existing teams

 Organisations large and small are opening themselves up to these new understandings. They just need to be shown how, and my quest ……………..  is to be there when they ask.