Simple (but effective) Ways to Create Motivation (Influence and Change 4 of 10)
Posted by Tim on May 3, 2011
(1 of 10) Decrypting the “Impact Gene”
(2 of 10) Find the Behaviors that Matter
(3 of 10) Communicate Key Behaviors
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink…or can you?
In the previous sections we discussed the vital importance of identifying the key behaviors that will enable the change, and how to communicate these behaviors in an impactful way.
Many of us have gotten to this point, but stalled. How do we get people to start using the key behaviors?
When we want people to do something, our first response is often to set up some type of extrinsic reward/punishment system – when they enact the behavior we want, they get a reward; if they do what we don’t want them to do, they don’t get the reward, or might receive a punishment. The problem with this approach is that once the rewards and punishments stop, the desired behaviors do too.
A more sustainable way to drive the desired key behaviors is to engage people’s internal motivation – make the behaviors and their outcomes inherently pleasurable.
When people are deciding whether or not to do something, they are asking themselves (a) “do I care to do it?” and (b) “am I capable of doing it?” Most people – consciously or unconsciously – operate with a return-on-investment mindset: “will the pleasure received be worth the effort exerted?” To make use of this, we must first understand what is meant by “pleasure.” Pleasure can be thought of in many ways, and is a much stronger influencer of behavior than simple extrinsic rewards.
Inherent Behavioral Pleasure
A simple way to make a key behavior more likely is to make it enjoyable to do. When people avoid certain behaviors, it is frequently because they perceive those behaviors to be inherently unpleasant or overly difficult. Examine the key behaviors that you’re trying to get people to use, and see if there are ways to make these behaviors more enjoyable or less difficult. In some cases people react negatively simply because they have never tried the new behavior – if you can get them to try the behavior and see that it’s really not that bad, you’re on your way to making change. Remember, when we have accomplished something once, we are more likely to believe we can successfully do it again.
Achievement Pleasure
Humans have a natural desire to achieve. Competition, desire to win, and the feeling of increasing levels of mastery drive us to engage in many behaviors that may not seem inherently pleasurable. How would you like to run as fast as you can, only to smash you entire body weight into another person who is doing the same? But what if doing so helped your team to get the ball across a goal line, scoring six points and facilitating a win for your football team? The drive to build mastery and succeed is a powerful force in shaping behavior. When you link the desired key behaviors to people’s concept of mastery, success, or winning something they care about, you develop additional strength and sustainability in these new habits.
To tap into achievement pleasure, consider how you can give the following characteristics to the key behaviors you’re trying to influence:
Clear sense of purpose (why this matters)
Clear linkage between actions (key behaviors) and purpose
Clear goals and frequent specific feedback mechanisms to help gauge progress
To tap into the pleasure associated with competition and mastery, consider whether key behaviors:
Can involve beating a personal best
Can involve winning a competition
Note: It’s important to be careful when using competition as a motivator. Small scale competition – to beat other people or groups within an organization – can sometimes undermine the big picture goals. Be sure that any competition you put in place supports the big picture as well.
Self Esteem
Humans are naturally driven to maximize self esteem. Our self esteem can be thought of as the congruence between who we’d like to be (desired self) and who we think we actually are (perceived self). It includes self-perceptions and values like, “what kind of person am I?” “How do I treat other people?” “What kinds of things do I care about?” and “What am I good at?” Self esteem is higher when there is more congruence between the perceived and desired selves.
When we feel a gap between our desired self and perceived self, we are naturally motivated to close this gap to maintain self esteem, which creates a natural environment for sustainable behavior change.
Here’s the challenge: humans are very good at protecting our self esteem by ignoring or rationalizing information that indicates that our desired and perceived selves aren’t as congruent as we may have thought. And verbal persuasion isn’t likely to change how this perception – in fact, it’s likely to put people on the defensive, making them even less likely to want to change. So what can we do to tap into the natural motivation created by a perceived gap between the desired and perceived self?
First and foremost, the people we are trying to influence must feel the gap. Two strategies can help the aspiring influencer in this case. First, remember the power of personal experience. Personal experiences are much more influential than verbal persuasion, so look for ways to provide experiences that provide concrete evidence of the value of change and the importance of the key behaviors. If direct personal experiences are not possible, remember the power of observation and of good stories. Connect people to the situation emotionally with the situation through vivid descriptions of real people and circumstances. Resist the temptation to try to persuade them with heaps of cold, impersonal logic. Help people to feel something about the situation, which builds in them the internal desire to change.
The second strategy can build on the first. Involve the people that you wish to influence in crafting the solution. Have them help to identify the key behaviors that will help to solve the problem. This way they will be more personally involved in the situation, and more likely to follow through with the actions they identified.
The bottom line
Whoever said “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” had it half right.
We can make all the desired key behaviors available, but that doesn’t necessarily mean people will change. In order to get people to actually start using the key behaviors that enable the change, we have to do more than make these behaviors clear. We have to give people a reason to use them – going back to the horse and water analogy, we have to help people to feel the thirst and want to drink. This isn’t done through rah-rah speeches or crafty persuasion – it’s done by making the key behaviors inherently motivating the people who need to enact them.
