Do leaders need to motivate?

A leader said to other leaders: “You can’t motivate people! But you can mobilize them!”

I say why don’t you go beyond all that!

Why it’s hard to motivate?

Just think about how hard it is to motivate yourself to do one thing sometimes, whatever that might be: working out, eating healthier food, going to bed earlier instead of watching series, etc. If it’s hard to do that for ourselves, no kidding that it is as hard or even harder to motivate an employee or a team to accomplish something! We often lack will and a good enough reason, hence why it’s hard to motivate ourselves. But we can go deeper than that!

There has been multiple study on motivation. My favourite, is a long-standing one: Self-Determination Theory. Dan Pink popularized it in its great book Drive!

Beyond the carrot and the stick approach which they called Motivation 2.0 (i.e.: if you do this you’ll have a great bonus), there is another kind of motivation that scientist examine. They called it Motivation 3.0. It’s based on different factors that will contribute a person to auto-motivate themselves if those factors are met. (Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose.)

As leaders, the first one is the easiest. We can provide people with the autonomy to go about their task as they see fit (there are 4 aspect to it), which will in turn increase their motivation. The second factor which is Mastery, is harder because it solely depends on the persons will to be masterful over what they do. The third one is a mix of both, your help and the person/team adherence to the business or project purpose and their own.

Hence you see the dilemma you're facing here as a leader! You still have to externally fabricate factors that will contribute to one’s motivation.

It’s a great approach, it can work, but I’d like to go beyond that!

Let’s mobilize them instead!

To me, to mobilize or motivate is almost to same; to the exception that by mobilizing people we focus more on the purpose aspect of motivation. In other words, let’s get people behind a reason to do what they should do that is so strong and compelling to them, that they will do it.

Again, you see your dilemma here! As a leader, I still need to come up with external reasons to mobilize them. Best-case scenario, if you have the right people onboard that align fully your vision, your mission, your purpose they will mobilize themselves by definition.

I hope you are great at hiring! And I hope that a rotten apple doesn’t creep in your team! Or, which is often the case, that a perfect apple doesn’t start to rot for other reasons that you don’t even control! For instance, an employee goes through a midlife crisis and doesn’t support your mission anymore. Their purpose just changed! Forget about mobilizing them now!

The common denominator? 

By now you see what is going on! Whether you approach someone or a person by the means of motivation or mobilization, you are still trying to do so by external means. Create the environment so that they are motivated. Allow them to have autonomy! Create the conditions that motivate them so that they move in the direction you hope. Etc.

There is a lot of control involves in all this! Now let’s be clear, am I saying that you should not do it? No.

But there is something else that you might want to approach for yourself and your team!

Going beyond motivation and mobilization

Let’s go back to personal example to lay the fundamental understanding of the perspective I’d like to bring here.

Let’s say that you are trying to lose weight! How many people do you know that have set this as a new year resolution and fail to go through with it. We all know someone right! Why does this happen? Sometimes even very good apparent reasons seem to be sufficient to motivate you. Let’s say you're out of shape as a new parent or grandparent! Your new priority is to play along with the child and do so for a long time, that’s highly motivating. Yet nothing changes! Why?

You can come up with as many reasons as you can. Once you go deep enough to understand man’s predicament, you will soon realize that it has to do with human inability to do their inner work! Behind your addiction to food is a distracted consciousness and inner blockages that are preventing one to be motivated enough to change their situation! It’s much more a question of conscience and willpower.

The same goes for you as a leader and your employee! If you need things to look and feel in a certain way so that you are motivated at work, something is up inside. But for most people, they are so preoccupied by looking at what they want, their hopes about their work, their dream about the perfect job, the salary that they should get out of such efforts, the team members that would make it so much easier, the lack of purpose about the company, etc., that there is no more bandwidth to look within and figure out why is it such a mess inside!

It’s More Than Business, and Motivation

Rare are the leaders and business conscious enough to see it that way! It takes one with great awareness, and one that has done a fair amount of inner work that dares to open that conversation. You need to dare! If you can’t navigate that yourself, but are aware of it, ask for help! That’s a beautiful sign of your own evolution.

Imagine this, a business led by people who are aware enough and secure enough in their own insecurities to openly bring that conversation to their team! What will that create? What will they uncover?

It might be a slow process, all the things we talked about at the beginning might still be useful, but eventually you’ll start to see and experience a very different kind of dynamic within your business. It will change our distorted views on work, which is often about getting something and not being of service. Listen to this podcast in that regards.

You will start to create a business where people go to work for the sake of offering what they have to offer! No special environment, or autonomy will be needed, because it will happen naturally on its own. It will flow like that. Just like the person who needs to lose weight will do it because there is no good reason not do it. As a matter of fact, it is what is being asked of them.

It’s a Fine Dance

There is a strong powerful force behind working with what life/business is offering you. Your job is to work with life (you go to work, you embark on new challenging projects, you have that difficult conversation, etc.), and meanwhile and most importantly, you allow it to work with you.

At every corner, life will present you (leader and employee alike) opportunities to become greater! You’ll do that by letting what needs to unfold. You don’t have to seek anything, nor get out of your way. It will happen naturally. Work with what is being giving to you for the sake of freeing yourself from that little part of yourself that is so demanding. This needs to happen so I’m happy at work. That needs to take shape in this way so that I’m okay with how things are going on. That’s your ego running your life!

What happens then?

When you shift your consciousness from your egos demand to your soul’s calling, you soon realize all the nonsense around finding your purpose! There is only one purpose for you on this earth and it’s to “die to be reborn”! Die to what? Your little self, your ego. To be reborn into what? Which you already are but have forgotten about it. A great soul that is free from all this melodrama that we create in our very short existence.

That doesn’t mean that you do not have something special to offer (that’s typically how people see purpose). You certainly do. Then offer it by all means! But for life sakes, again, don’t reduce yourself to this tiny idea that what you should be doing here on earth is related to your profession, or the mission you make up for yourself or your business!

When you evolve enough to start grasping what I’m sharing here with you, your whole life starts to change without you doing much! It’s quite fascinating.

Bring That Consciousness in Business

Start playing that game in your business and with your teams. Open up that conversation and you’ll see things change drastically. Not everyone will play along, that’s expected. They’ll be so uncomfortable that they will probably want to play elsewhere, and that’s fine. That will leave room for those who are willing to tag along in such a beautiful way of navigating business and life.

Rest assure you are not alone. Conscious capitalism, L’entreprise libérée (the free business mouvement), Reorganizing Organization are all ways that suggest approaching business in a much more spirited way.

I’ll be honest, I’m not shying away from telling you that if you make yourself and help others become more spiritual, so will your business be. And by working with yourself individually, and collectively; by doing what is just business-wise for everyone implicated (employees, clients, suppliers, etc.)… yourself, your employees and your business will grow tremendously.

🙏💜

MasterClass: Conscious Leadership

In leadership or like any other situation, we are often our own worst enemy!

Start by watching this MasterClass and if you’d like me to come and talk to your team about it, I’d happy to serve that way!