Welcome back to this series on motivation. Over the past few weeks we’ve been taking a look at the many aspects, 
or faces, of motivation and how you can use it to reach your personal goals and personal success.
We left off with Part IV Attribution and Achievement Goal Perspective’s. Today we’ll discuss:
How to Motivate Others To Help Them Achieve Their Personal Goals
Last week, we saw that how we explain past events affects our motivation for the future: internal-stable attributions for success and external-unstable attributions for failure give the greatest emotional benefits and subsequent motivation.
This week, we will turn to the very important topic of motivating others. I’ve semi-addresses this issue here and there within the earlier posts and today we’ll pull it all together.
Motivating others is vital for all of us!
As we age, we assume more and more roles that require being in charge of or mentoring others, including perhaps the roles of parent, manager, personal trainer, coach, and teacher.
I’m sure at one time you’ve asked these or similar questions:
- What is an effective and proper way to motivate others so that they, and I can reach our personal goals?
- How can we get others to want to do what we ask them to?
- What really works?
Today, we’ll find out.
If you think about it, motivating others is contradictory. You have motivation, and you are trying to transmit it to another. You want your own motivation to be “contagious,” so that it infects another.
But this may be impossible!
Your motivation cannot be somebody else’s motivation, only they (and their brains) can have motivation. So the question becomes, how do we create a process in other people in which they develop their own motivation that continues…even when we’re not around?
We’ve already touched upon one answer to this question when we discussed Self Determination Theory. Again, SDT addresses the “why” of motivation using the externalization range. People generally internalize motivation ranging from amotivation (helpless) to external (reward) to introjected (guilt) to identified (belief) to intrinsic (enjoyable) motivation.
When motivation has been internalized it has been fully taken into the self, so that the person wants to do the behavior for their own reasons, not because they feel forced to.
According to SDT, the key to internalization is “autonomy support” from motivating authorities.
Autonomy-supportive establishes two basic things.
- First, they take the perspective of those they are trying to motivate. For example, a math teacher might say “I know you may not want to learn these trigonometric functions, I remember how boring they seemed when I first encountered them.” The goal is to show that you acknowledge and respect the other person view of the situation and the way they think and want to establish a connection between the two of you.
- Second, they try to provide as much choice as possible in the situation. For example, the teacher might say “You can work on the problems alone, or in groups – it is up to you.” Also, you can choose when to work on them “it’s OK if you do the work at home, instead of here.” In NLP we would call these ‘double-binds.” The goal here is to help students feel that they are the cause of their behavior, when they are behaving. Feeling that “I’m doing this because teacher is making me” is not as conducive to learning as feeling that “I’m doing this because this is when and how I want to be doing it.”
Of course, choice-provision (double bind) is not always possible. First, it may not be possible to offer choice about the basic activity – math’s students need to learn these trigonometric functions, and that’s all there is to it. Office workers need to hand in expense reports, even if they aren’t particularly fun to complete.
Second, it may not even be possible to offer choice about the “when” and “how” of the activity. Consider an upcoming standardized mathematics achievement test that the students must take, at a certain time, and in a certain way – there is no latitude for choice-provision here.
This could be just as true of the office that has a specific protocol and deadline for workers to complete standardized forms. In these cases, it is crucial for autonomy-supportive authorities to give a meaningful rationale for the lack of choice.
Why must the test be run this way?
To give the same conditions for all which will allow the scores to be fairly compared.
Why is trigonometry important in the first place? Because it is essential for all higher forms of math, and you will be much better off with these skills. This process essentially differentiates between the “I told you so” approach and the more mature school of “I owe you an explanation.”
Some of you may be thinking “This is obvious. He’s just saying to be ‘nice’ to those I am trying to motivate.”
You’re right – it is obvious.
However, it is far from easy.
Those in ‘authority positions’ are tasked with the job of motivating others face their own demons…er…difficulties.
First, they have the power in the situation – they are in charge. It is simple human nature to enjoy and make use of such a “one-up” position and, as we know, “power corrupts.”
Second, those “in charge” of motivating authorities have not only power, but also, responsibility. If the teacher, manager, or coach fails to produce the desired result, it is their job and reputation that is on the line. This creates a tendency to force the issue, to wield one’s power to try to make happen what one wants to happen, i.e. “You’re going to have fun whether you like it or not!”
Unfortunately this can and often backfire as you can most likely see why, can’t you?
Third, the person who is “in charge” of motivating others must have patience. By providing some degree to of choice to the individual things may not happen as quickly as the motivator would like, or in the way that they would like.
This does not mean that they have to settle for less than they want; instead, they have to keep providing feedback, and be willing to take the time required. Autonomy-supportive mentoring is about negotiation. The key is promoting internalization – the sense that “I am doing it,” and not “My situation is making me do it.”
Again, this can be quite difficult! Autonomy-support is a skill, which takes a lot of practice to develop.
Let’s address real quick what autonomy-support is not.
First, autonomy-support is not permissiveness. One doesn’t let a person do anything they want, or get away with anything counterproductive or dangerous.
Autonomy-supportive does not mean to have no rules, expectations, and standards, and no consequences for misbehavior.
Instead, it means to communicate rules, expectations, and consequences in a way that the individual understands and accepts them, instead of resisting and rejecting them.
Being in control (i.e., “I don’t care whether you like it or not, you have to do what I say”) is not the same thing as having rules and standards; instead, it only breeds resistance to the rules and standards.
Second, autonomy-support is not the absence of structure. There can be plenty of structure in the situation; the key issue is how that structure is communicated and carried out.
For example, an autonomy-supportive personal trainer might have a wide variety of training programs that the client can choose, each of which prescribes a very precise set of steps and rules. People don’t mind this, and in fact, sometimes prefer to have a step-by-step plan to follow, one that is known to work. This may be why self-help books describing some specific program or diet are so popular! The main thing is that the trainee personally identifies with following this plan or program.
In terms of the SDT and goal systems perspectives, the Self must own the program, rather than vice versa. You can think of it as the “menu approach” to motivation. There are several structures to choose from, and the individual has a choice, but the choice is limited by what gets on the “menu” in the first place.
So, the way to positively motivate others, according to SDT, is to support their autonomy and sense of self in the situation.
What about the achievement goal perspective? The answer is fairly simple, have the person focus on learning and mastery goals.
More specifically, when guiding our clients, students, employees, or children through achievement situations, don’t overemphasize the prizes, admiration, or approval; instead, emphasize the process — what will be learned from the experience.
When “failures” occur (as they will), emphasize what is to be learned from them, instead of being critical or blaming. Talk about doing better next time.
Let’s Review.
This recap can serve as a “quick guide” of empirically-supported motivational techniques.
- Support autonomy, by seeking ways to engage the person’s sense of self in the task. Take their perspective, provide choices, and provide meaningful explanations for the requests you are making.
- Avoid being controlling, or using one’s power to “force” the desired outcome. Have patience: it is a negotiation, not a command.
- Emphasize learning and mastery goals; give performance goals a back-seat.
- Avoid providing feedback about the person’s seemingly fixed ability, even if the feedback is positive — instead, give feedback on the person’s effort, learning, and perseverance. Support incremental, not entity, theories of achievement.
- If you want to focus attention on an individual’s characteristic, acknowledge their specific strengths, not their general ability. Let them know how their talents contribute to the overall goals of the team or organization.
- When failure occurs, focus on what can be learned from the failure, and what can be improved in the future. Make internal-unstable attributions for failure.
Easy Reference: Key Factors in Motivating Others
Below are some further recommendations from earlier posts and I have put together in a “cheat-sheet” for you:
- Frame assigned tasks in intrinsic rather than extrinsic terms (“This will help the company” instead of “This will make you money”). This concerns the “what” of motivation.
- Promote internalized (intrinsic or identified) motivation, rather than external (reward-focused) or introjected (guilt-focused) motivation. This concerns the “why” of motivation.
- Be aware of self-regulatory deficits and planning gaps in the goal systems. Help them to be sensitive to what is needed, and help them to develop the concrete skills and plans they need to succeed. This concerns the “how” of motivation.
- Do not assign conflicting goals, and be on the lookout for pre-existing conflicts that might interfere with the person’s performance. This also concerns the “how” of motivation.
- Always display confidence in the individuals abilities to do what needs to be done, and do not be too quick to dismiss their loftier ambitions. This breeds confidence and self-efficacy.
- Create an environment that automatically primes goal-relevant action; including helping people to create implementation intentions that cue action automatically when the right circumstances emerge. This lets motivated behavior occur without conscious thought.
- Use approach rather than avoidance framing, whenever possible. It is better for people to know where they are trying to go, rather than what they are trying to prevent.
- Help the person select self-concordant goals – ones that express their natural dispositions, talents, and interests.
References:
- Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (1987). The support of autonomy and the control of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1024-1037.
- Dweck, C. S. (1999) Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. New York: Psychology Press.
- Mueller, C. M., & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Praise for intelligence can undermine children’s motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 33-52.
- Rath, T., & Clifton, D. O. (2004). How full is your bucket? Positive strategies for work and life. New York: Gallup Press.
So, what do you think? Have these posts helped you? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below
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