13 Jul Myth #5: “It’s Impossible To Motivate Unmotivated Staff”

Motivating others takes leadership.  The practice of leadership is not the same as the exercise of power.  Getting someone to do something by threating them is not leadership.

Read and connect with your clients better

Mentor – Mark Oliver

• Well this myth is partly true because you can’t motivate anyone else (all motivation is intrinsic).
• Bonuses don’t work but commissions can!
• There are four fundamental intelligences (I strongly recommend you watch the 8 minute video clip on the home page – second video down).

Transcript:

Kevin: How threatening are you as a leader? Motivating others takes leadership. The practise of leadership is not the same as the exercise of power. Getting someone to do something by threatening them is not leadership. That’s what we’ll be talking about today with our guest mentor all this week, Mark Oliver. Good morning again, Mark.

Mark: Good morning, Kevin. Good to be here.

Kevin: Let’s talk about motivation. Myth number five, it’s impossible of motivate unmotivated staff. Now, you want to bust that myth for me?

Mark: Yeah, and we touched on that. I was a bit early or premature, last session.

Kevin: Yes.

Mark: The key is because we can’t make anybody motivated, we can’t motivate them as such, we can only help them be motivated, it is actually sort of true because you can’t motivate them if they’re totally unmotivated. The key is to try and identify things which will get their interest, are more likely to motivate them. So, understanding different styles of people is critical, because what works with one person, as we all know, doesn’t work with another and vice versa.

Kevin: Yeah. In the notes for today we’ve given you a link to an eight-minute video on Mark’s home page. I suggest you click on that link. It’ll take you straight to the home page. Have a look at it. It’s the second one down. In that you talk about the four fundamental intelligences. What are they?

Mark: It’s very important that this message gets out because in terms of traditional academic work, we’ve only really measured one intelligence IQ and basically considered that, or the message has been put out that that’s the only intelligence. There are actually four fundamentally different intelligences. They’re unrelated, and they are IQ, which is one of them, EQ or emotional intelligence, which many of your staff or many of the listeners may know. Then there’s spiritual intelligence, which is nothing to do with religion, it’s our creative intelligence, it’s linked to strategic intelligence. And lastly there’s physical intelligence, which is our practical intelligence.

Mark: So, to give an idea, entrepreneurs often have high spiritual intelligence, IQ is very important for lawyers, emotional intelligence is very relevant to people selling, and physical intelligence is necessary for people who are tradespeople to be effective in their role. So, these four are independent. In fact, we are all naturally high in a couple and naturally low in a couple, and immediately we understand that, we know that the illusion of one intelligence is damning, because if we just believe IQ is the only intelligence, then there are stupid and clever people, and there are many people have been labelled like that and quite damaged psychologically by buying into that label, when it’s never been true.

Mark: The reality is everybody you meet is more intelligent than you in some ways and in some ways you’re more intelligent than them.

Kevin: Yesterday we touched on this but I’d just like to get your input again on the impact of bonuses on IQ and motivation.

Mark: Well, a couple of things. One is, with IQ and EQ, the first I mentioned, one point to notice that they’re oppositely correlated. The higher my IQ, the lower my EQ tends to be, and vice versa. The good news is that all of them are developable, a bit like leadership. You can develop intelligences if you practise in the right way. So that takes some motivation as well.

Mark: When it comes to bonuses, I would look carefully, if I was in an organisation, as to whether we need bonuses. One way to look at things, in many companies they will give enough money so the person is satisfied, and then that takes money off the table and then you look at other things, and if you can do that, that tends to be a more productive way to work. Because I’m certainly not saying that people don’t have a certain amount of income that they want. What I am suggesting, and the evidence is very strong, that increasing that income won’t actually make them more motivated.

Kevin: Yeah, there are other triggers, aren’t there, to making them motivated, and one of those is what we talked about a day or two ago and that is engagement, just getting them more engaged in the business and almost giving somewhat of a leadership role or feeling as if they’re having more input.

Mark: That a very good way to do it, so getting them more involved. Also, understanding personality styles more insightfully is important, and if I could put one plug. I run a public programme that looks at understanding the eight key styles that you find in any population anywhere on the planet, and knowing which style I am or someone is enables them to be more aware of which styles they’re dealing with and to adapt the way they deal with them more effectively, and it helps in a whole range of things. Not just selling and leadership but parenting and a whole range of other aspects of life.

Mark: And that is people are interested, they can go on the website under public workshops, and there’s information there.

Kevin: Yeah, well that link that we’ve got in today’s commentary below this player will give you that link straight to Mark’s web page, his home page, which we’ve been featuring all week anyway. Mark Oliver has been my guest. The book is called Motivational Leadership. I strongly suggest you get it. If you jump on Google you’ll find it. Motivational Leadership written by Mark Oliver. Mark, thank you so much for your time this week. It’s been great talking to you and would love to get you back into the show again.

Mark: My pleasure, Kevin. Thank you very much for the invite and good luck to all your listeners.