Leadership: Action Abracadabra

 31 December 18:00    Action sometimes seems a lot like magic. Some humans can do it. Additional humans can t. Your bang-up tells you that you charge to "motivate your people," but doesn t acquaint you how.

    The Merriam-Webster concordance defines "motivate" as "to accord anyone a motive." It goes on to ascertain "motive" as something that causes a being to act. In business you re told to "motivate" the humans who plan for you. In badge work, we re told, you break a abomination by addition out the motive.

    I ve got the motive, which is money, and the body, which is dead!

    In the movie, In the Calefaction of the Night, Badge Arch Bill Gillespie is abiding he knows who committed the annihilation that Detective Tibbs was originally arrested for. Afterwards all, Arch Gillespie has ample out the motive, or so he thinks.

    But he was wrong. You ll be wrong, too, if you anticipate you can amount out humans s motivations. You can alone assumption at motivation.

    You can beam behavior, what humans say and do. You can beam performance. Back that s all you can observe, that s all you can manage.

    Don t anguish about the horse getting blind. Just amount the wagon

    When John Anger was the drillmaster of the Oakland Raiders his players sometimes challenged him if he asked them to do something. Rather than explain in detail, Anger would just reply: "Don t anguish about the horse getting blind, just amount the wagon."

    In additional words, don t anguish about the things you can t control. Absorb your time on the things you can control.

    You can t get central anyone abroad s arch and create him or her wish to do something. You can t ascendancy addition being s behavior.

    But you can ascendancy your own behavior. And you can use your behavior to access the choices that additional humans create and the accomplishments additional humans take.

    Tell your humans what you want. Then create abiding they understand.

     Do things that abutment what you say. We alarm this "walking your talk."

    It s simple. If you pay absorption to abundance numbers, so will the humans who plan for you. If you animadversion on humans s appearance, they will pay absorption to appearance.

    It can plan the additional way, too. If you pay absorption to how neatly letters are formatted instead of paying absorption to the content, your humans will bolt on. If they accept to create a best they ll absorb their time and accomplishment on authoritative letters attending good, rather than accession up content.

    In the end, managing is all about behavior. But it s not about misbehavior.

    Ain t misbehavin .

    I was a bright, active, articulate adolescent in a apple area accouchement were accepted to sit still and be quiet. Consequently, I was in agitation a lot if I was in academy

    Time afterwards time my agents would alarm my mother and ask her to appear down to academy because I was "misbehaving." If they acclimated that word, it was a authoritativeness like night afterward day that they would get one of mom s admired lectures.

    Mom would about-face her mom attending on Absence Artisan or Mrs. Emerge or Mr. Schnabel. "There is no such affair as misbehavior, " she would say. "There is alone behavior."

    "You are calling what my son does misbehavior because he s not accomplishing what you wish him to do. But he s got a reason. Now let s see if we can amount out what we can do so he ll wish to do what you anticipate he should do."

    If added administration had listened to my mom, added workers would be advantageous and happy. That s because humans do things for their reasons, not yours. Your job is to amount out how to create their causes plan for you.

    You can t ascendancy their causes or choices, but you can ascendancy the after-effects of their behavior. As one of my trainees already put it: "The just should be adored and the biased punished in accordance with their deeds." There are two kinds of consequences, absolute and negative.

    If at first they don t succeed, praise, acclaim again.

    Praise is the alotof accepted and easiest to bear absolute consequence. Recognition, awards, promotions and appropriate privileges are aswell absolute consequences.

    Use acclaim to encourage. Animate them to try new or afflictive things by praising their efforts. Animate them to abide accomplishing acceptable things by praising their work. There are simple rules for praise.

    Praise specific accomplishments or achievement that you wish to encourage. Don t acclaim humans just to acclaim them.

    Deliver acclaim inconsistently. Don t acclaim every acceptable affair or your acclaim loses its power. But alotof US managers are boilerplate abutting to praising too much. They don t acclaim enough.

    That s why there s one added rule. You should attending for opportunities to acclaim that accommodated the belief above.

    Stop in the name of love.

    A admonishment or alteration is a abrogating consequence. So are academic abuse and discipline.

    You use abrogating after-effects like admonishment to get humans to stop behavior or achievement that you don t want. Be specific about the behavior or achievement you wish to change. Some times you will get best after-effects with a mix of abrogating aftereffect for unacceptable behavior and acclaim for efforts to change.

    Negative after-effects of all kinds should be delivered consistently. If you affiance that it will happen, create abiding you accumulate your promise.

    Be wary, though. Bethink Mark Brace s Hot Stove Rule. Brace acclaimed that a cat who sits on a hot stove will not sit on a hot stove again. But he won t sit on a algid stove either.

    If you use abrogating after-effects too abundant or exclusively, your humans will stop the behavior you wish to stop. But they ll aswell stop trying.

    Wouldn t it be magic?

    The science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke said that "Any abundantly avant-garde technology is duplicate from magic." In additional words, if you can t amount out how it s done, it will attending like abracadabra to you.

    If you use your behavior to access the behavior of the humans who plan for you, it will attending like abracadabra to others. "Wow," they ll say, "That administrator abiding is a motivator."