| “People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals –that is, goals that do not inspire them.”
–Anthony Robbins, American motivational speaker & writer |
How compelling are the workplace goals you have set with your team members? Are they motivated and inspired to work towards them? Or do they have other more personal goals that are their real reasons for effort (or lack of effort) in the workplace?
One of the keys to highly effective coaching is to help coachees identify and clarify goals that stir them to action: goals that speak to who they are so that they can bring all of their energy into fulfilling them. Inspiring goals bring out the best in people.
So I’m not talking about goal-setting, the standard management tool. I’m talking about creating goals that reach people in a much more personal way.
What makes a goal personally motivating? Well, of course, the answer is personal!
But here are some tips on how to find highly personally motivating goals. And let’s start by looking at your goals. It will be easier to help your team members improve their goals if you have first maximized the impact of your own.
Tip #1: Find goals that express what you really want, not just on what you ‘should’ want.
It’s easy to think our goals are our own, but on closer examination you may realize that you are aiming for something mainly because of outside influences.
For example, I had a client recently who asked me to help him improve his leadership skills so that he could get promoted to a higher level of management. He had been working at a supervisory level for years, had watched many of his colleagues get promoted before him and was keen to identify and address the limitations that stopped him from being promoted.
So he had his goal already in mind when we started working together. But I still questioned him on it. I wanted to know why he wanted to work at higher levels of leadership. His answers were firstly for the money, and secondly to meet the expectations of his family.
As we discussed this further, it became obvious that he could make more money more easily in the long run by doing what he most enjoyed (not by managing others) and that a large part of his goal was unconsciously imposed by others. When this became clear through our conversation, he immediately changed his goal. He decided to become better at the job he really loved rather than pushing for something that wouldn’t satisfy him in the long run.
This goal was much more motivating to him because it connected with what he truly wanted, not just what he thought he should want.
From this example you can see that uncovering naturally motivating goals takes a deeper conversation. But once the better goal is discovered, it will provide lasting motivation.
Tip #2: Find goals that are bigger than personal needs or organizational demands. These goals are for the greater good and speak to the greatness in you.
The majority of your everyday goals are probably focused around what you need and what your organization needs. Those are the goals that are on your ‘To Do List’ and that are written in your annual performance appraisal. Some could be concrete goals like sales targets and others may be personal development goals like improving your public speaking abilities. These are all excellent, practical goals.
But if you ask yourself, really, why you get up in the morning, you may find there is a bigger reason. Perhaps it’s for your children and their futures. Maybe you feel a joyful desire to explore the world or extend yourself. You may be inspired to create prosperity, peace, loving kindness or other great values. When you think about those goals that have great personal meaning to you, you may feel a motivation welling up from a deeper place.
All of us have the potential to connect our day-to-day goals to those much bigger goals that inspire us to greatness, that make life worthwhile. With each effort and interaction we make everyday, we can be working towards the things we most desire for our loved ones and the world.
How do your greater goals connect to what you do every day?
And what inspires your team members to live their lives to the fullest? It will be something different for everyone.
Many people have little experience expressing this kind of motivation and so they may need some encouragement. One way to start is by discovering and expressing your own higher motivations for being on this planet, and then by identifying ways that you express those higher goals through your everyday activities. By setting an example, you can begin to stimulate the thinking of others.
Tip #3: Make goals that are big enough to be exciting, and possible enough to feel real.
All of us have different comfort zones around goals.When the goal is too easy, it doesn’t demand our attention and has little impact on our feelings and actions. When the goal is too hard, particularly if someone else imposes it, it can cause us to resist and become de-motivated. Or if the goal simply seems impossible then it loses its attraction; it fades and becomes unreal.
You can adjust your goals by testing their motivational power over you. Double the goal and see how it feels! Double it again! Or make other adjustments to test the impact until you have a goal that stirs you without overwhelming you.
You can also try suggesting adjustments to the goals of your team members and watch for their responses. If their faces light up when you suggest a much bigger goal, you know you’re on the right track. But if you see a glimpse of fear or pulling back, add some realism to the goal. Even better, ask them to tell you what goal would motivate them.
Conclusion:
Well-designed goals can be highly motivating, inspiring and fun. Goals that truly move people express personal desires, not just others’ expectations. They connect to each person’s higher motivations for the greater good. And they are sized to compel, not to overwhelm.
To help others discover those goals requires deeper conversations built on strong mutual trust that goes beyond the ordinary level of workplace conversations. If you have the willingness to form truly supportive coaching partnerships with your team members, you can use conversations about goals as a way to deepen your relationships.
The coaching challenge, as usual, is to listen fully and accept without judgment the true goals of your team members. Identify their deeper goals, and you will surely find a way to make powerful connections to their work that will motivate them for the long term.
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