motivating employees

When I was researching my book on self motivation, I first studied motivation in education, next in athletics, and finally in the job setting. Though the research in these three fields mainly focused on one person motivating another person, it provided a basis for the model of self motivation that I created.

One source for my information on motivation in the employment setting was the work of Thomas L. Quick, presented in his book, The Quick Motivation Method.

In Quick’s model the boss decides what the positive choice is in a particular situation, and then the boss motivates the employee to view that same choice as positive to the employee as well. The boss does this by increasing the motivational value of that particular choice. Quick has five pointers for increasing the motivational value of a choice:

1. People have reasons for what they do.
2. Whatever people choose to do, they do it to gain something they believe is good for them. The achievement must be sufficiently important for them to choose it.
3. The person has to perceive he or she can attain the goal.
4. The conditions under which the job (the activity) is done (the situation) can affect its value to the doer or his expectation of success.
5. The manager can increase the employee’s motivation by increasing the value of the goal to the employee, increasing the employee’s expectation of reaching it, and enhancing the situation surrounding the performance.

There are similarities between Quick’s five pointers and the model for self motivation.

The first pointer is the underlying assumption for the vision, that people need a reason to do what they do. The second pointer states that the reason people do a certain thing is because it is important to them; it is valuable.

The third pointer is similar to successability, the person’s confidence in their competence. If the person does not think he is capable of achieving the thing they want to do, they will not be motivated to try.

The fourth pointer relates to the power of the environment in which the person is doing his work. In the self motivation model we deal with both the physical environment (the place where the work is done) and the social environment (the people and organizations available to the person).

The fifth pointer explains that the boss can increase the worker’s motivation by fine tuning the other four pointers, that is, by making the goal more valuable to the worker, by increasing the worker’s expectations of success, and by enhancing the environment.

In the self motivation model, rather than having someone outside of us take these steps to increase our motivation, we are in charge of doing it. By taking charge of our own motivation in this way we can be assured that what we are moving toward is what is truly valuable to us, and not just valuable to someone else.

That’s what taking control of your life is about, making your own decisions, pushing your own buttons, and making your dreams come true.

What in your life do you want to take control of? If you would, leave a comment below sharing your answer to this question.