Motivate You & Your Team

If you are struggling to get moving on a project or finding a lack of motivation in your team, you need to figure your the “why” behind the task. You need to discover your motive.
 
A motive is something that causes a person to act such as:

• Fear
• Money or
• A swift kick in the butt

 
At work, those truly aren’t the best motives. Even money doesn’t work to encourage people.

​What does work to get motivation?
Getting connected to why you need to do what you need to do is the strongest motivator there is. If we can’t understand the importance of what we are doing, connected to the bigger picture, there is nothing to pull us forward.
 
Many of you have heard the following parable. I think it’s worth repeating here:

A man came upon a construction site where three people were working. 

• He asked the first, “What are you doing?” and the man replied: “I am laying bricks.”
• He asked the second, “What are you doing?” and the man replied: “I am building a wall.”
• As he approached the third, he heard him humming a tune as he worked, and asked, “What are you doing?” The man stood, looked up at the sky, and smiled, “I am building a cathedral!”

​What is your team's cathedral vision?
We need to connect the brick we are each laying at this moment to the cathedral we are building together. You need to do this for yourself and your team. They need to understand why they are doing the task in front of them. People want to know they are part of something bigger. They want to know their part matters to that larger vision.
 
Dig for your "Why" by writing
The way to connect everyone to that larger vision is to spend time excavating the “why.” Set aside 5 minutes to ponder the questions listed below. Write your answers. Yes, write them down. The act of writing will completely transform this exercise from a waste of time to saving incredible amounts of time. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to try it. Then, tell me below if I was right or wrong.

The questions to ponder
When you are struggling with a lack of motivation, write down the answer the following questions:

• Why bother doing this?
• What is important about this?
• Why does it matter that we get this done now?
• What is the change that will happen if we do this?
• How is this project connected to what our team loves to do?
• What is the incentive behind this?
• If we do this, what happens next?
• How does completing this project move us forward?
• What is the driving force behind this initiative?

I swear if you take 5 minutes to write down the answers to these questions you will save yourself and your team hours of frustration. If you take 15 minutes to do this exercise with your team, look out! You’ll be in for some incredible insights.
 
Motivate by finding your "why"
When you are struggling with motivation, connect to the reason you are trying to do the work in front of you. What is the desire, urge, or inspiration to do the task? Why bother? Take time to write down answers to questions that help you to open up your thinking. Save yourself time and frustration by investing in connecting to your motive. You’ll spark that motivation in both you and your team.

Question:
When you actually wrote down the answers, what did you discover?