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What drives us to work and achieve? According to Harvard Business
School professors Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria in their new book, Driven,
there are four innate drives that grew out of human evolution:
1. The drive to acquire objects and experiences
2. The drive to defend our loved ones, ideas, objects, and experiences
3. The drive to bond with other people in loving and working relationships
4. The drive to learn and make sense of the world
These closely mirror four of the five core values I identified in Motivate
Everyone:
1. The drive to acquire objects is about getting or having Things (Achiever).
The drive to acquire experiences is about Activities or doing (Doer).
2. The drive to defend is about avoiding or solving difficulties (Problem
Solver)
3. The drive to bond is about People and relating.
4. The drive to learn is about Knowledge - learning
5. I also suspect there is a drive to understand ourselves. It's about Places
and states of being. Perhaps that's just a subset of learning.
Evaluate for yourself if these drives, these values, make sense. Isn't marketing
and advertising about getting/having or avoiding the loss of something? Doesn't
most marketing encourage bonding: personal or professional bonding of some
kind? Doesn't most marketing inform us about features and benefits of products
or services?
Influence
So if you want to motivate someone to action, you'll want to know which of
these drives or values is key to their motivation. It's so simple; all you
have to do is ask someone:
"What's important to you about ______?"
What's important to you about work? Relationships? Cars (if you're selling
cars)? Vacation (if you're selling R&R)?
If you ask me: "What's important about your work?" I'd say: "Helping
people live better lives by upgrading their mental software." If you
dissect my answer, it's about people, achieving, and learning. Given this
answer, it should be no surprise that I like to author, speak, train and consult.
Get the idea? If I were your employee and you wanted to motivate me to work
on a project, just describe how the project will "help people live better
lives by upgrading their mental software." When people give you a phrase,
use it, because it's the phrase that pays!
If you ask me: "What's important about your car?" I'd say it has
to be reliable-it avoids or mimimizes failure. Notice it's not about status
or knowledge or people. To sell me a car, you'd want to talk about the car's
reliability, not who's going to ride in the car (people), how I'll look (status),
or all of the gadgetry (thing/learn). You might want to mention the dependability
and warranty, but remember, I said: "reliable." That's the word
I've got hooked to what I value in a car. Just keep using that word over and
over until I've associated it with your car.
Self-Knowledge
Consider asking yourself this question: What's important about _____? Once
you know what you value, what drives you, you'll be in a position to fuel
your own passion. You'll also be able to defend against other people using
your values to trick you into action.
Group Influence
If you're trying to motivate a group, you might consider that a group or team
will have all of these values. So you might talk about a new project in terms
of all of these drives:
"On this project, we'll learn some new and interesting stuff that will
enable us to connect directly with more customers, achieve greater goals,
and prevent additional problems."
Get the idea? Tailor part of your message to each drive in your audience.
So don't think about what you can achieve and the problems you can prevent
by learning how to use these drives to ethically motivate the people around
you to action.
Want to discover your own "motivation profile?" Go to http://www.motivateeveryone.com/profile/profile1.pl
where you can take the complete profile online. Compare your results with
your spouse, kids, or coworkers to determine where you are most likely in
alignment and where you conflict. You can also order printed copies of the
profile from http://www.motivateeveryone.com/orderknow.html.
© 2007 Jay Arthur, the KnowWare® Man, works with companies who want
to plug the leaks in their cash flow and people who want to master the mysteries
of the mind..
To have Jay Arthur to train your staff, contact Jay at (888) 468-1537, lifestar@rmi.net.
Order Debug Your Mental Software now:
Debug Your Mental Software Book $14.95 plus S&H
 Want
to discover your own "motivation profile?" Go to The
Motivation Profile and take the complete profile online FREE. Compare your
results with your spouse, kids, or coworkers to determine where you are most
likely in alignment and where you conflict. You can also order printed copies
of the motivation profile.
Motivation Profile $5.95 Plus S&H
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Your Copy of Motivate Everyone, from Amazon.com
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© 2007 KnowWare International Inc. (888) 468-1537
knowwareman@qimacros.com
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