21/06/2022
Motivation: how do I get it?
Daniel Goleman, seminal architect of the concept of Emotional Intelligence, unpacks motivation into four core components: personal drive, commitment, initiative and optimism. Check out our series The Resilient Auditor for more on these and their importance. In the meantime, let’s take a whistle-stop tour through some practical tips to courting and inspiring motivation.
Begin with the end in mind. Do you know what the end goal is? What does success look like? Can you visualise the ultimate achievement? This applies equally for self and team motivation, start by investing some time in engaging your imagination and setting a clear, alluring objective.
Find the motivator. It’s not always obvious and it’s not always easy but if you can find a why, articulate the benefits and express these with passion, then you have powerful means of generating excitement and inspiration and harnessing drive and energy to get started and keep going.
Carrot or stick? Passion and excitement are not the only drivers. Motivators that express what you don’t want can be similarly effective in some instances. Letting down the team by blowing the audit budget might be a deterrent for one while another might get more fired up by beating budget. Psychological research does tend to point us towards the benefits of positive motivation. Not only is it more sustainable, better for mood and wellbeing, it can also pack an energising rush generated from the buzz of achievement. But ‘the stick’, that’s negative motivation, all about the avoidance of pain, can have its place too. Fear of being sacked might be a little extreme but the shame of an incomplete management report could well do the trick.
