Self Motivation And The Culture To Nurture It
Nesh Thompson | May 13th, 2009 - 12:01 amAbout a month ago I went to the garden centre and purchased some seeds. I planted the seeds in a tray with some top grade compost and placed it in a prominent position in the green house making sure every day that the compost was watered enough and not dried out. Short of singing to it every day, I provided all the ingredients necessary for growing healthy plants. Yet, weeks later nothing grew. With a little disgust I dug up the seeds and found out that they were barren – I had wasted weeks trying to grow something that wouldn’t grow. No matter how much I provided the right environment, I was never going to get a result.
The analogy to be drawn is that in some ways people in general need to have that initial spark within themselves that you can motivate. There are many ways of motivating people to succeed but the kernel or spirit of success comes from within. Very deep, but you can motivate as much as you like but if a person you are trying to motivate isn’t inclined to improve or change or try… then you will undeniably waste your time.
The most productive and successful people in any field are the ones who are personally driven; they need little encouragement because they already have the ambition, the drive, the will to achieve. However, along the way they have learned from their mentors and have been encouraged and motivated to learn until they realised a certain truth, that they were incredibly capable people in their respective field. The confidence you have that you know you are good at something, you have the tools to make things happen and that you possess the skill to fulfil is one of the greatest motivators – and ultimately that realisation has to come from the individual and no one else.
What can be done to help those who haven’t attained this confidence? The greatest asset one can give any person is a business environment where that person can learn, build and realise. I was drawn to a particular article this week courtesy of Christian Maurer on twitter (@camaurer) on HP’s reaction to motivating sales people in the recession. I was mentally applauding the attitude that a corporate company could take by making a ‘human’ decision to revise sales targets and create the opportunity that a recession provides in learning. Many companies now are responding to the recession by offering more pressure and the weaker, newer, greener, potential sales people are being driven out before they have had a chance to bloom. The HP case acknowledges that in a recession the ones who are being de-motivated are the sales people – the life blood of the company – putting more pressure on them isn’t motivating but disheartening. In this case, HP have created a work atmosphere where sale people have the power and self-motivation to learn and prosper and what could be more motivating than that?
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2 Responses to “Self Motivation And The Culture To Nurture It”
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Very well written. Unless we enjoy what we do and find happiness in that we can never excel or have a good life.
Thanks very much for your comments. I think a lot of what mentors and coaches do is essentially very selfless ie. concentrating on bringing out the potential in another person. I just think that it doesn’t necessarily have to be down to a single person but can be part of the company psyche.