People Are Always Motivated

Being a transformationalist I do a lot of change management work for a living. One of the things I hear from clients is, “people aren’t motivated so there is no way we can change.”

Consider: People are always motivated! To say that somebody isn’t motivated is just a racket to avoid having to face negotiating the possibility of conflict on the way to change. As long as people are breathing they are motivated to do something and their actions don’t lie. The question is will you notice what they are telling you about what is motivating them?

“The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.”
- Eric Hoffer

Consider: Motivation is “brain driven.” People choose their behavior.

Consider: Motivation to change is influenced by many sources from within people and from without.

What if our actions are not an accident? We humans anticipate when deciding what to do. We look to the future and ask, “If I do this, what will I get? We always chose the action we think will get us the best result. Since any choice will produce a wide variety of results (some advantageous and some not advantageous to our desired outcomes) we assume that the sum total of the “consequence bundle” will best contribute to our desired outcome.

If you want to influence how people are motivated in any situation you must see how their behavior will yield a better “consequence bundle” as well as understanding how continuing the current behavior will increase the prices they are paying for the current “consequence bundle.”

Then you can exercise the skill of making the “invisible visible!”