Oops - the title of this article is incorrect. The bad news is that there is no way that you can motivate your team. There is, however good news also. You can, and indeed must, create a motivational climate writes Donal Brady.

In this climate you can give people space, confidence and authority to use their own skills, effort and application to achieve the organisation’s goals. You are not alone in this task - since time began leaders have tried to develop new ways to attract the willing co-operation of their followers.

All of the different theories developed over time can be placed into three broad categories of motivation:

• Fear

• Incentive

• Attitude.

Motivation through fear

The oldest method of motivation is fear. You are motivated to act because you fear a consequence if you don’t. Physical strength was originally the source of power, in primitive society the strongest person became the ruler. The whole Cold War was based upon threat and fear. Even today fear is used in the business world; undesirable behaviour is threatened with various measures from a note in the personnel file to outright dismissal.

Motivation through incentive

The lack of personal power to demand obedience forced would-be leaders to explore other methods of producing the co-operation that they wanted.

They offered an incentive, a reward system, the promise of some gain for those who complied. The use of incentive motivation is widespread in industry, and is generally regarded as a more enlightened approach than fear. Its weakness can be that this years incentive, can and frequently does, become next years right.

Motivation through attitude

Both fear and incentive motivation lack permanence because the motivation is applied externally. Attitude motivation, based on change, on the other hand is a permanent force for producing desired behaviour. It has the additional advantage of being internally produced and controlled. When people are willing to perform because they personally believe that a particular course of action is right, they are self-motivated. It is then unnecessary for anyone else to motivate them.

Creating a climate

So motivating people is a matter of showing them how to develop the power of self-motivation and then showing them the benefits of using that power to accomplish the organisation’s goals. This is what we mean by the phrase “creating a motivational climate”.

But remember when helping to set goals that the challenge should not greatly exceed the individual’s competencies or visa versa. Robert Browning’s wrote “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp else what’s a heaven for” and this is often used to encourage people to set ‘big’ goals. Initially at least, the amount by which the ‘grasp’ is exceeded should be small. In this way, you can build confidence and belief. The trick is to create a “motivation channel”, an area that the goal is a stretch but not so great that worry and anxiety builds.

As you can see, at one end when competence exceeds challenge, the result is apathy and boredom. At the other end, when challenge exceeds competency, the result is anxiety and stress. Obviously the area to operate in for optimum motivation is the narrow channel the “motivation channel” where the two meet – here individuals experience “stretch” in their goals, where the reach exceeds the grasp.

There are many tools available to aid the development of self-motivation from self help books, motivational recordings, personal trainers etc.

Some tools have withstood the test of time and include:

• goal setting

• affirmations

• visualization

Summary

The saying “seeing is believing” is very appropriate for describing the tools for self motivation. When you set goals, affirm your belief in your ability to achieve, and exercise the art of visualisation to picture yourself already in possession of those goals, you develop the belief and self motivation to succeed. As a leader you will need to help people to set realistic meaningful goals, help them to develop the belief that they can be achieved and visualise the successful moment in the future when the goal is realised.