You Can Be an Influencer – Part III
– Influencer: The Power to Change Anything
Have you ever felt like the above quote? Are you constantly using external rewards and punishments to move people forward? You may design a great external motivation program. It works, and people are responding. But, what happened when you stop the program? People often will stop doing. Or you design a great program, and people don’t respond at all. In this case, you may have the wrong motivator.
I recently experienced this with my daughter. She had a goal to exercise for 21 days. Each day she exercised, she applied a check mark on a chart. At the end of the 21 days, she earned a pet, a hermit crab. First, the reward fit for her, she was motivated. (If this had been a reward applied to me, I would not have even gotten out of the starting blocks!) Next, she happily exercised for 21 days and earned her reward, but what has happened since with her exercising program? No motivation at all.
Creating new experiences and motives
So, how do we build intrinsic (internal) motivation? One step is to encourage people to try new experiences. People are quite bad at predicting what makes them happy. For example, most people think that more money will make them happy. However, Dr. Daniel Gilbert has conducted research that has shown that the addition of a regular walk is much more likely to make people more happy than added income.
The key with trying a new experience is also giving time for people to develop appreciation for the benefit of the experience. For example, with my daughter, an external reward for exercise is a great way to get her to try it. However, she needs to be motivated to keep at it until she develops another intrinsic motivation attached to it that will keep her going. For example, I have a neighbor who used to never exercise, but now runs 4 miles a day. What keeps him going? He now intrinsically identifies with the rewards of increased energy and just feeling healthy.
You don’t typically feel the intrinsic rewards of increased energy or health after just one day of exercise. The key to developing the intrinsic motivation is to keep up the activity over time until the intrinsic reward builds. This includes making the activity engaging, like a game.
The authors of Influencer state, “Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, a researcher at the University of Chicago, has devoted his career to what he has come to call “flow” or the feeling of enjoyment that comes from losing yourself in an engrossing activity. He has discovered that almost any activity can be made engaging if it involves reasonably challenging goals and clear, frequent feedback. These are elements that turn a chore into something that feels more like a game.”
If you ever wonder how kids can spend hours playing a video game, the answer lies in the work done by Csikszentmihalyi. When trying to create influence, think about how you can use external rewards or consequences in a way that challenges people to build their own intrinsic motivation in the process.
How are you giving people challenging goals? Do they see how the goals fit into a greater vision or purpose for the organization, team or themselves? Are you giving clear and frequent feedback so they know they are reaching the goals?
Connecting to Personal Purpose
The difference between driving a four-cylinder engine vehicle versus an eight-cylinder engine can be significant. You can feel the difference in power when you push on the accelerator pedal. The same is true with motivation. There can be different levels of power. The most powerful motivation is when we evaluate our own behavior and accomplishments and meet our own personal standards. When people have a clear vision of who they want to be, they will exert great effort to get there. Why is this? Because when we are excelling towards who we want to be, we feel fulfilled and validated. I often see this when I ask people about their definition of success. It is not about money or toys, but at the core they want fulfillment.
The problem is that most of us go through the motions day-in and day-out without associating what we are doing to a greater purpose. This is like choosing to drive the four-cylinder engine vehicle versus the eight-cylinder engine. Now imagine you have a day that requires you to go up a big hill with a heavy load, the four cylinder engine won’t get you very far or by the end of the day you will just be exhausted. When we ask people to go the extra mile, engaging intrinsic motivation becomes even more critical. The problem is we have this reservoir of power that we never tap into because we just go through the motions.
I have a client of a mid-size organization who is a great leader because he keeps connected to his purpose. I have also spent time with a leader of a very large organization, and he attributes his successful leadership to purpose. However, he is equally passionate about the people in the organization being connected to purpose, and he is always developing creative ways for people to connect what they do to the greater purpose of their organization.
Are you clear on your organization’s purpose? Are you clear on your own personal purpose? I want to challenge you to write these down and look at them each day. Do you lead a team? Do your people know the team’s purpose? Do you support them in knowing their own personal purpose? Reflecting on our purpose does take time. It also takes investment into people. But, ignoring it will be denying yourself a reservoir of power. Are you going to choose the eight or the four- cylinder engine?
How do you connect to your eight-cylinder engine of intrinsic motivation? How do you get others to connect to theirs? Please feel free to share your ideas on the Imajine Unlimited Facebook page or email me.