13 Sep World peace…
Remember the movie Miss Congeniality with Sandra Bullock? What were the beauty pageant contestants’ standard cliched answer to the question: “What matters the most to you?” – World peace. But of course!
As much as we mock this and think it is funny, ironically if we start drilling down to what we would want to see happening in the world, we all have something powerful and full of hope in mind. This is our inherent ‘change driving’ persona, we want to “…make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire human race…” Again, a lot of irony with Michael Jackson’s well-known song, but I do believe we all want to Heal the World.
Recently I have been reading a lot about motivation again. Since I did the research for my PhD that topic fascinated me, and now two decades later it still tickles me: What make us do stuff? What drive us?
In Daniel H. Pink’s book Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us, the punch line is that we need to enable others to become intrinsically motivated. It seems so obvious, yet we still think carrots and sticks would do the trick.
Please don’t underestimate the impact of external influences either – such as perceived unfairness of salaries and packages, or poorly designed incentive schemes. My philosophy with external motivational drivers is simple – consult the people on what they really need physically i.e. maybe it is a bigger computer screen, or flexy hours, or proper coffee in the staff kitchen; and then, yes, you have to pay them fairly, and if need be explain your fairness story – how did you get to the number, and why it works. That is it.
In my opinion the part that we should be paying far more attention on is the more tricky internal drivers: mastery, autonomy and purpose. As leaders we need to ponder on how we can drive the changes we want by ensuring others are enabled to do that. That means we have to help them to:
- get better and grow continuously, be challenged and stimulated;
- have the freedom to add value and contribute; and
- align our own passions and purpose with that of the organisation.
I also recently learned that our well-known master of motivation, Maslow was busy adapting his hierarchy of needs before he passed away in 1970. The intention apparently was to explain that we need an integrated approach to stay driven and motivated, and it is not necessarily basic needs before a purpose driven life. I agree with that, people are far too complex to only stick to a linear steps-by-step approach to motivate them to “be the change they want to see in the world”. (Paraphrased, but thanks to another master, Mahatma Gandhi.)
So whether it is driving change in an organization, or in the world at large, it is truly amazing to be able to step up as a leader to get others and yourself to contribute meaningfully. Can I then ask, do you know how you are contributing? How are you changing the world to be a better place? What would you like to see and be?