Motivation: Stick? Carrot? Or is there a third option?

May 1, 2018

As a former Finance Director I bring an unusual insight into motivation. In my quest to build a strong and highly profitable business, I loved direction, clarity, structure and processes. We’d become ISO accredited in Quality, Environmental and Health & Safety, and had excellent Business Operating Systems. But even I eventually realised that authority, financial controls, stick and carrot only get you so far. I found ourselves creating more processes to catch out the people who weren’t complying – before realising I just need to understand why.

Wasn’t it Einstein who said the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results?

‘Why?’ is intangible and open ended. It might open up questions and thoughts that we don’t want to explore. It’s not as simple and clear cut as a nice process. BUT, if you are committed to significantly improve business performance, we need to move beyond authority, processes and control. And by ‘we’, I also mean ‘you’. This is not a challenge we can leave at HR’s door.

In a world that’s focused on productivity, it feels crazy to leave untapped ability on the table. The UK is 20% behind the rest of the G7 countries in terms of productivity, which simply means it costs more to do business in the UK. It means there less money in the UK economy for wages, innovation and the NHS. And yet, 64% of people say they have more to offer in their skills and talent than they’re currently being asked to use or demonstrate. That’s 20 million workers. (According to Engage for Success.)

And whilst motivation is not as definitive as a nice process – but it’s a far better way to do business, especially with today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) environment and complex demographics.

So how do we motivate people?  Read more

Added ValueU for Aspirin Business’s Motivational Mapping Family

February 27, 2018

International coach and engagement specialist Sonia Gavira, of valueU, has successfully completed her training to become a Business Practitioner of Motivational Maps, with Aspirin Business.  This enables Sonia to license and train fellow coaches and consultants, which she’s already started.

Sonia was introduced to Motivational Maps by Susannah Brade-Waring, Managing Director of Aspirin Business and a Senior Practitioner with Motivational Maps.  Susannah explained, “Tools can provide excellent insights for coaches and their clients, and there are many to choose from.  Motivational Maps always seem to ‘hit’ the spot with both coaches and clients – with many coaches finding themselves re-energised by the refreshing style and insights provided by this ISO accredited diagnostic.

Sonia’s trained to be a Licensed Practitioner with Maps first, which we always encourage.  She’s then trained to become a Business Practitioner, further developing her expertise in motivation and co-delivering accreditations with me.  Her enthusiasm and collaborative workstyle are highly motivating, and she’s a great asset to Aspirin’s family of Motivational Map Practitioners.”

Sonia said, “Having worked around the globe in leadership development and engagement projects, I am accredited in many tools. However, having tried Motivational Maps myself and with clients, looking to improve both their personal and business performance, I’ve been impressed.

My clients and I find Motivational Maps provide an accurate window on the motivation of leaders, their teams and their organisations.  They tell you where you get your energy from and what will suck the energy right out of you.  They encourage and enable you to take action.  I’ve already started to train fellow coaches and consultants around the globe, and I know that Motivational Maps will enable them to make an even bigger difference to their clients, and maybe even to themselves.”

If no one goes to work to be difficult, why are they?

February 14, 2018

“Whatever the question is, love is the answer.”

I love this quote. It reminds me to move my focus from the superficial noise and angst, onto ‘what really matters here’.  No one goes to work to be unhappy.  No one goes to work to deliberately antagonise others, to be difficult – and yet that’s what we experience.

People are complex – and that simultaneously makes them brilliant and challenging. Increasingly employees (and customers) are becoming more demanding – for a number of reasons, and they have higher expectations. This is forcing managers and leaders to re-evaluate their own roles and their own behaviour. Management used to be primarily around the management of tasks – it just happened that a primary resource was often human.  This stems from the industrial revolution when we were machine-centric, and the humans worked around the capability and physicality of the machines.  My first degree was in Ergonomics (the man-machine interface), so I understand this.

“This is forcing managers and leaders to re-evaluate their own roles and their own behaviour.”

We’re moving beyond this now, at an exponential rate, and managers HAVE to manage people – not just as a resource but as individuals. For some managers this is normal – the way they’ve always worked. For many it’s a huge challenge, and it’s a challenge to their identity, to the way they generate respect and action.  Skills training alone is not enough, so ticking the box on a management course just won’t create the changes required. That’s why I work with motivation first.

There a powerful story that Tony Robbins tells of a woman who pulls out her hair; pulls it out so her scalp bleeds and people avoid her. Tony explains that, however strange and illogical the behaviour, at some level it works for the person. Otherwise they wouldn’t continue to do it, and we have to address this first.  (In this case – it was a deliberate strategy to avoid being hurt by others by making herself so undesirable.)  At a simple level, that’s why we’ve all read books, been on training courses and applied little of what we’ve learned.  The motivation, the deep desire for a different outcome, has to come first.  As they say ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’  And we’ve all heard stories of people who overcome all sorts of challenges – because it mattered to them.

“However strange and illogical the behaviour, at some level it works for the person, and we have to address this first.”

So today – as it’s Valentine’s Day, if you experience others who are being difficult, why not take a moment to wonder ‘why’?  Love is a verb – and the most loving thing you can do today, might be to take a moment to understand what’s really going on for someone else.  #motivatedperformance

Aspirin Business’s UK Network Expands

March 14, 2017

Dorset based Aspirin Business continues to go from strength to strength adding to their 30-strong network of Motivational Map Practitioners across the UK.

The Lucid Group, based in Birmingham, became the latest organisation to be accredited in using Motivational Maps. Lucid help clients in areas such as change management, strategic planning, marketing & sales improvement.

Read more

Managing Millennials – a ‘Must Have’ Capability

March 14, 2017

‘Lazy’, ‘selfish’, ‘demanding’ – all labels attributed to Millennials.

Millennials will form 75% of our workforce in just 8 years’ time, accordingly to Deloitte. ‘Managing Millennials’ was rated the number 1 ‘Must Have’ capability for business leaders in 2017, in a survey conducted by Mindshop. However, many managers feel at a loss to understand how to get the best from them without constant attention, and to truly engage them in their organisations.
Read more

Fit, lean and agile teams – getting fit for change

June 7, 2016

by Paul Kinvig and Susannah Brade-Waring – Business Coaches & Facilitators with Aspirin Business Solutions

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The Scottish golf club Muirfield’s decision not to change its 272 year men-only membership policy has proved to be very costly, as it’s lost the right to stage one of the most prestigious golf tournaments in the world – The Open.  By contrast, it came as a real surprise to us just how many world changing inventions/ discoveries/ innovations can be attributed to Scotland and its people. Here are just a few – pneumatic tyre, telephone, television, hypodermic syringe, penicillin, flush toilets and refrigerators.

Contrast that again to the high speed world of Formula 1, which has made a number of mind-blowing changes – for example moving from being predominantly funded by cigarette advertising prior to its international ban, and in achieving the seemingly impossible feat of a sub 3 second pit stop.

In order to survive and thrive as an organisation, the need to both embrace and drive change has passed from being an option to a fundamental requirement.

Racing drivers know that going slow into the bend allows us to be faster going out.  Leaders who deliver change successfully, know the same holds true for organisations.  So it’s in the preparation for change that the race is won.

Whilst every organisation is going through change, for some it is slow and predictable. Whereas, the retail market is moving so quickly it’s difficult to know what we need to change to, let alone how we do that.  The best we can do is become more agile, leaner and well-equipped so we are fit and ready for change.  And, the golden lining, when the team are ready, they’ll start to drive the change themselves.

So, how do we become more agile, leaner and well-equipped?  Here are 3 things to consider:

1. Re-recruit

We’re very familiar with re-recruiting for sporting teams, picking the players who’ll help us achieve our objectives for the next season.  But what if we applied the same policy to our teams?  After all, even if we are in the same role today as we were 2 years ago, it’s highly likely that the requirements of the job have changed.  So bearing in mind the current and foreseeable future requirements of your team, who would you automatically re-recruit, who will make the grade given training, mentoring or coaching, and who probably won’t?  We acknowledge that this idea will feel intensely uncomfortable to some, however we’re actually being much fairer to everyone if we acknowledge the likely struggle to keep up and, as leaders, to face this head-on.  A good test of whether we need to think about re-recruiting is that when a vacancy comes up, do we just automatically use the same job description?  And if someone is unlikely to ‘make the grade’ they may thrive incredibly well in a redefined job role.

 

 2. Develop an ethos of team working

Change brings new challenges and uncertainty.  Therefore, the need for people to work together as teams, with trust and appreciation for each others’ talents increases significantly.  Consider, if you will, two examples – firstly that of a flock of geese who would never migrate if they couldn’t depend on each other, and secondly the F1 pit stops – where a sub 3 second pit stop utterly depends on having the right people, in the right roles with the right equipment.

Teams waste time and energy when there is an atmosphere of mistrust and blame and lose focus on achieving what is ahead because they are looking around and behind them.  This is often exemplified by team members not believing that change is necessary, that there’s a hidden agenda or not trusting others to get their part of the work done.  And, it can be easier to fail by refusing to participate, than to be seen to fail if we can’t deliver the new requirements.

If we are to build agility into our teams so that change is embraced and, in many cases, driven, we have to create this culture of trust by communicating effectively, being honest and authentic, sharing information and actually always ‘doing the right thing’, even when it is tough and has challenging implications. Being consistent in these areas creates that culture by demonstrating it in our behaviour as leaders AND thus demanding it from our teams.

However there is one more area that we need to examine and it is that of…

 

3. Create a culture of motivation and accountability

You have to expect that with a former Finance Director as our leader, we believe accountability is a critical success factor.  And yet this issue of accountability is a thorny one in that knowing what to hold people accountable to, and how to hold them accountable can leave us scratching our heads (or walking away), and we sometimes think it applies to our team – but not us, as leaders.  And yet if we want to make our teams agile and responsive then accountability is one of the keys to this.

It’s defined in the Business Dictionary as –

“The obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner.”

If we look at the definition, the words underlined give us an indication as to key areas of focus. Each individual within the team needs to know exactly what is expected of them in terms of their activities and to what level so that the results can be accounted for without ambiguity or confusion i.e. in a transparent manner.

Contrary to what you might think, research shows that this principle of accountability has a very positive effect in respect of accuracy of work, problem solving, decision making, colleague co-operation and team satisfaction. It’s our responsibility to be accountable ourselves so that that authenticity moves through the team….there is no blame or vindictiveness…it’s just the way we do things!

And whilst we firmly believe in the principle of accountability, we also firmly believe in motivation – of creating the conditions that create a great place to work.  Being able to take pride in our work through a job well done, is a fundamental aspect of this.

 

At Aspirin Business Solutions, we take pride in creating great results for our clients.  Helping leaders and their teams adapt to change successfully, is critical in achieving their wider goals – such as succession planning, increasing profitable growth and in ensuring organisations will survive and thrive in a changing marketplace.

Our Seven Factors to Faster Growth model fuses people and processes to release the potential in individuals, teams and organisations.  It allows our clients to scope out the intended future through vision, strategy and mission and identify how to implement and deliver that through values, objectives and team performance – and then to define and increase the capability of leaders, managers and teams accordingly.

seven steps

 

If this article resonates with you, we’d love to explore how we could help you achieve your organisation’s goals.  Please get in touch and let’s talk.

E: sue@aspirinbusiness.com

T: 01202 801187

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