The BTS ‘How To’ Guide

No. 8 Achieving Natural Motivation

Ever met someone who doesn’t seem to care? They care all right, just not about what they’re doing now! Recent insights into job design show how to re-fit the task to the truth about the person doing it. When you get it right, it taps into an endless source of motivation.

The Truth About Anyone

You know how they say you only remember the good times? Well, it’s at least partly true. And it’s just as well that memory works this way, because our character is strongly influenced by our memories, good and bad.

Our natural tendency to remember the good times also reveals the truth about ourselves. Because experiences we judge as favourable and therefore remember with joy long after the event, are indicators of what we truly like doing.

Configuring a job to include as many of those likes as possible makes the job naturally motivating for the person doing it.

The Untruths About Motivation

Does this view of natural motivation contradict the common teaching of the motivation industry? Frankly, it does.

Much motivation is simply program material designed to stir the emotions. Emotions are made to be stirred. It’s certainly uplifting to sing the national anthem at an international sporting event, cheer your horse down the straight or be swept along by a brilliant film or novel.

But like all moods, these come and they go. And when they go, you realise that the true motivation to doing what you promised you would during an emotional period is no closer.

Missing the Clues

The stirring stories of Abraham Lincoln initially losing election after election or Roger Bannister finally running the four minute mile miss the point.

Such highly motivated people were doing what they liked. But that does not mean we achieve the same thing by trying to be like them.

The real message in those stories is what would have happened if you forced Abraham Lincoln to try to run the four minute mile. Or Roger Bannister to try and run for political office.

These great leaders would then be just as de-motivated and miserable as the people you know who are trying to be a square peg in a round hole.

Finding Your Real Likes

Things people like doing are genuinely motivating, and it’s a motivation that does not come and go with mood changes.

So how do you find these natural motivations? They are revealed in memories, particularly childhood memories. There, a person’s inner voice was stronger. And they had not developed habits of thought based on what society or their parents expected.

Digging for Gold

Once you start digging for memories of experiences you found enjoyable, satisfying, rewarding, encouraging, uplifting and fulfilling, patterns start to emerge. These patterns can then be applied to job design and recruitment, with substantial benefits.

Simply put, people do something better if they like doing it. But since work is seldom the same as play, it would seem difficult to design too many likeable elements to any job.

Wrong! Workers don’t necessarily need to like the activity if they like the subject matter of their job. Or they don’t need to like the subject if they like the outcomes, and here lies the secret…
Applying Past to Present

Try this yourself before encouraging existing or prospective staff to do the same. Photocopy the form as often as needed for your own use but kindly do not reproduce it in bulk or republish it. If you have a BTS business coach, do the exercise with them.

Part A is to recall your earliest and most significant memories of the experiences or accomplishments you found satisfying (eg. captained soccer team, built cubby house, learned clarinet, overcame disability) and rate them on the form. Do this with as many favourable past achievements as it takes to average out into recurring patterns.

Part B is to repeat the exercise with your present job (or any job being analysed). Compare the job analysis with your analysis or satisfying memories, which are the truth about you. Mismatch permit some highly informed job-design and recruiting decisions.

1. Subject Matter

In the recollection of a satisfying past achievement (or the present job being analysed) how much are you enjoying the subject itself? Example from past experience: (ie Part A) you have hated practicing the piano but loved music. The subject would then score highly even if they process does not.

Example from present job: (ie. Part B) a veterinary assistant may hate cleaning animal cages (the process) but love animals (the subject).

Least Important   1   2   3   4   5   Most Important

2. Process

Example: Wendy is a successful oil company rep. She has no interest in oils and greases and has never worked on anything mechanical. Bus he loves travel, working outdoors and meeting a range of people. She therefore scores the process highly even if the subject matter scores low

Least Important   1   2   3   4   5   Most Important

3. Outcome

Example: Learning to speak without a list or stutter was frustrating for you (process) and you hated even thinking about speech defects (subject). But you were delighted when you could talk normally. The outcome therefore scores high even if the subject and process do not.

Least Important   1   2   3   4   5   Most Important

4. Leader-Follow

This is not a score but a point in a continuum. Neither end of the scale is wrong: leaders need followers and vice versa. What’s wrong is to fail to not understand which point on the scale is the truth about you.

Followers   1   2   3   4   5   Leader

5. Solo-Group

Often confused with leader and follower, this continuum is more a measure of whether you like to work alone or function best in a team.

Solo   1   2   3   4   5   Group

6. Familiar-New

Again, there is nothing right or wrong about being at either end of this scale. Some people like to master their field, which means sticking to familiar subjects. Others are pioneers and want the issues to be new and constantly changing

Familiar   1   2   3   4   5   New