Motivating people

Over years of observing people, you begin to see that we’re complex and made up of many parts. Along with the adult you identify with day-to-days, there’s also a teenager, a child, an infant, and others. As a sidenote, our childhoods matter throughout our lives because that part of us lives on forever. Nostalgia too comes from those parts of us that remember meaningful and interesting times where we felt fully alive. Like Pixar’s Inside Out showed characters for the different emotions, we can think of our different life stages/ages similarly.

For the purposes of this post, we can look to these different parts of ourselves or people on our teams to find how to motivate them. One of the motivators for the child is a treat. As adults we have a high-minded view of ourselves and the idea of being motivated by a treat feels uncomfortable but pay attention and you’ll find yourself looking forward to many simple things: a favourite meal, the next episode of your favourite show, or a drink on the dock on the next long weekend.

Each one of your team has treats that motivate them. It’s worth paying attention to them and taking note.