Motivation Hacks You Can Start Using Today

As managers dependent on the efforts of others, we try to help folks get and stay motivated:

• Giving frequent updates on company and unit goals and accomplishments, and hoping individuals will identify with them.
• Increasing engagement by showing linkages between individual efforts and organizational results.
• Exhorting people to “dig deep” to find their own reasons to do the work.

These are useful in ensuring that everyone is on board with, and connected to, the focus of the organization. But the place where you’re often left hanging is with snags and delays in the more mundane workflow of intermediate deliverables in a project, and waiting for input you need for a decision. Simply restating and reinforcing big-picture goals isn’t likely to provide the kind of motivation you need to get the right person to take the right action when it’s needed.

In his excellent article, Motivation: The Scientific Guide on How to Get and Stay Motivated, James Clear describes the ebb and flow of motivation in individuals, and offers helpful suggestions for getting and staying motivated. He talks about the importance of establishing little routines to make it easier to get going on the work you have to do.

These ideas are terrific for individuals seeking to increase their own personal motivation. Can we apply these same principles to motivating our teams?

How can a manager establish routines to jump-start the motivation of other people — team members, joint venture partners, even customers — at the time he or she needs it?

Here are a few techniques you can implement today:

Change the request to a “stepping-stone” deliverable. You’ve asked for something and it’s not happening. Now, instead of asking for it again, recast the emphasis from “Do It Right” to just “Do Something Now.”

It’s easier to go back and edit when something’s already there.

Example: Tom’s boss had asked him to put together a new marketing piece. He hadn’t shown her anything yet. They happened to be traveling together and, once they were seated on the plane, she asked him to take out his computer and give her a quick skeleton outline for the brochure, and to do it before they were asked to put away computers for take-off.  Nothing fancy. Took him 10 minutes. After a quick discussion, you bet he was motivated, couldn’t wait to get started again, and the ideas flowed.

When you’ve asked for something and it’s slow in coming, don’t keep asking for the same thing in the same way. Assume they’d comply if they knew how, so change up the assignment by asking for something smaller and easier, and which will provide a stepping stone to the next action.

Communicate a straw-man decision instead of continuing to ask for input. Put it out there well in advance of the deadline for the final decision. I know you’ve been waiting for the input before making a final decision. Announcing a straw decision that will become final by a date certain will signal your intention for forward movement and prompt responses from others who want to be heard before the train leaves the station.

Example: Alana was having trouble getting responses from the sales force to her questions about which products they wanted to see continued and which ones could be discontinued. So she sent out a letter in October telling them which ones would be staying and which ones would be gone, effective January 1. She got plenty of responses, each with its own nominees and detailed reasons why, which was exactly what she had been asking for.

When you’ve asked for feedback or input and no one’s responding, put out a draft memo “announcing” the decision as a fait accompli. It takes a little bit of courage to propose a course of action with incomplete information, but there’s no better way to wake up “sleeping constituents.” It’s much easier for people to agree or disagree with a proposed action than to come up with choices on their own.

Conduct results-oriented check-ins instead of status reports. Focus on seeking Action Commitments by a date certain and testimonials. (Nobody wants to stand up and say they haven’t made progress since the last call.)

Most status calls and meetings drift into reports about “activity” — he or she did this or that. It’s more helpful to ask for after-action reports about commitments and results — who promised what to whom and was it delivered on time and with the expected outcomes? Then ask for the next round of commitments.

It’s great to have tools you can use to get yourself motivated. Try to think of variations on those very themes to do the same thing for others you’re counting to help get the job done.