Episode 8: Motivation, You are Either Feeding it or Killing it

A motivational environment is one of the best things that a company can create to maximize their employees performance. A manager or any leader in a space has control over the environment they create, but often they don’t know how. How can someone create an environment in which one can be motivated? What is the role of the manager or leadership in creating a motivating environment? Well, Harry is about to tell you!

*Disclaimer: This transcription was automatically generated so we would like to apologize for any misspellings or grammatical errors in advance

Justin: Motivation you’re either feeding it or killing it. Take one. Welcome back Harry. Thanks for joining us Harry I need your help on this one I want to feel motivated during this podcast. So what I’m looking for is you share with me, I want to talk about a topic that every business struggles with in some capacity and its motivation. And you told me something once and that its motivation is either fed or killed by the people in the industry or by the people in their business. And I want to kind of dissect the statement a little bit more(cross talk-wow I said that) yeah you said that . Can you as an individual motivate others and if so how?

Harry: I think after being in this business doing seminars, and lectures and consulting for three decades plus it’s the number one question. So glad you got around to it Justin, good man. So let’s talk about motivation and there are lots things that surround motivation. Sometimes people get attitude confused with motivation and some of these kinds of things but so let’s talk about motivation. The actual definition is the behavior, how you behave what you do so motivation refers to the behavior that you choose for yourself. So if that’s actually the definition which it is, it’s my definition of then in effect you actually cant motivate somebody else but what you can do is create an environment where he wants to motive them self. Let’s do what I always do which is start coming up with analogies so that we get this. I remember as a young guy in my late teens early twenties. I learned to play golf. Now it is not silly game and so let’s not argue or talk about it golf itself could be any of anything in your life and I think all of us are going to be able to relate to this. I remember as a young guy in my late teens and early twenties I learned to play golf and now it is a silly game and let’s not argue or talk about golf itself. It could be any event or anything in your life and I think all of us are going to be able to relate to this. I used to play once a week and we have a group of there was 4 of  us and we would travel to different golf courses which are stunning such a beautiful day in the park and I am a competitive guy and little bit athletic wasn’t a great golfer but I really gave it a go. I would focus and try to do really well but I just love the day I love the people I was with I love everything about it. Yeah. Now at the same time when I was 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, if you actually didn’t wake me up I could probably sleep for 4 days straight. I was one of those groaners when the alarm clock went off and had a drag my butt out of bed is was very difficult I just couldn’t get up easily except for the morning of golf. I had no trouble in fact I never needed the alarm once for a golf game I automatically woke up I willingly got out of bed I you know took a shower got myself organized, got my clubs ready and all my tees and balls and all the stuff organized my shoes I would clean and oh my god it was a big deal. Justin do you have anything like that your life? Where because I know that you can sleep you know forever. Is there something that just excites you so much that it gets you going?

Justin: Yeah whenever we schedule a podcast recording. I wake up around 5:00 am yeah.

Harry: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I knew that was it, I knew that was it.

Justin: I actually you know I mean honestly. I’m a hunter love going hunting nothing crazy and always for food but any day that I’m waking up to go hunting I can’t sleep the night before at all. It’s just gets I get so excited and yeah. I totally get it.

Harry: So does anybody need to tell you that you need to get up at a certain time and these are the actions necessary?

Justin: No, no not at all.

Harry:  Does anybody need to tell you that you need to get your equipment in absolutely top condition and ready to go so that you don’t fail right.

Justin: That was ready two days before the events right I’m like so prepared.

Harry: That’s exactly right, that’s exactly right. Now I always felt that way about scuba diving as well I mean there is nothing like breaking the mass strap and the, you know right before you jump in the water and your day is over. I mean these kinds of things are just absolutely horrendous. So were not only excited we are prepared, yes? And you need no supervision to do that. So that’s an activity that you want to do that you are going to be successful at. So let’s tear that apart, it has to be an activity that you want to do, okay. So you are never going to have motivated sales people who have a protest a personal protest that being a sales person or doing what it is that sales people do. If they have a protest meaning inside their own mind and their soul they hate doing this. They will never be great at it right they will never show ultimate motivation it’s impossible. And the second part of that is they have to actually have to have the skills, ability and knowledge to be fairly good at it. So we know that burn out a lack of motivation stems if it’s not a moral issue meaning that you have a protest with it then it probably stems from an individual inability to do well at it. So we often think of things like well if I get him motivated he’ll sell more. This is absolutely wrong. Here’s the update, here’s the headline, get them to sell more and they will be more motivated. So actually it’s the production of sales that created this motivation it’s not the motivation that creates the sales. So one says well I don’t know if that’s true, I don’t know if that’s true. Yeah well it’s true. So let’s take a look at people who I always ask this question it’s the same subject as golf and I say, has anybody in this room here played golf just once? And inevitably a huge number of hands go up and I go let me tell you exactly what happened and so I might have 10, 15, 20, 50 people that put their hands up and I’ll tell them what happened. How is that possible? Well its easy golf unlike bowling or even hitting a baseball or throwing a baseball or football any of that is a very complicated weird kind of athletic thing. The vast majority of people will whiff a ball right you know what I mean that will swing at it never even hit the ball because of the hand eye coordination and how it all works. But all the people that said they played golf once. Were people that said that somebody said to them hey let’s get out on the golf course and let’s go play golf and every guy does yeah man that’s sounds great. I never played golf before this is the coolest thing in the world let’s go. And they go to this gorgeous golf course because all go courses are really beautiful and they pay their money and they get their cart which just cool all in its own right. You get travel around in this little golf cart cool you got you know rented clubs or borrowed some and get up to the first tee and it’s a disaster. 99.99 percent of all people who played golf if they were to go on a golf course will fail.  Now how do we take this guy to the driving range and give him a couple of trips without being you know going all coach on you but just knew but just give a couple trips.  Get him into contact with the ball up maybe hit a couple blockages, the chance of him being successful on the golf course just went up by about ten thousand percent. So the reason that they only went out once to play is because when they got out there they failed so miserably why would they ever want to play again. And we do this with sales people of course we put them in a situation of selling and or well adding on and they have no clue we need to put people on the practice range which is training in advance of asking them to be successful, and teach them to be successful. Motivation is about being successful think about this or the hope to be successful because you’re prepared. Think about that if you’re prepared you’re ready and you’re trained and you dig what you going to do. Motivation is not an issue.

Justin: Well two questions. The guys like you know I’m a huge fan of Tony Robbins right. Since there any inspires people and motivates people is he actually the reason for the motivation? You know think about you know what I think about what he says and everybody that’s in that room and how crazy everybody gets and they all leave there and just I’m going to go do some stuff and that’s why they’ll go right. They all go to get motivated.

Harry: Okay so what he’s doing is creating an environment where you want to make that choice to be motivated. The actual seminar itself isn’t it we’re confusing things a little bit. Its motivation to cause you to be motivated on your own, he does nothing he leaves he goes back to his hotel room or he does whatever he does after one of these speeches. I know I’ve given about 10000 of them myself. And people get real excited but in the end you still need the tools, correct? And in some cases he gives some tools in some cases he doesn’t  … I mean when I heard and analysis his presentations but in the end, in the end doesn’t the individual have to go out and perform it?

Justin: Absolutely I am sure there are plenty of people that have left feeling inspired and have done nothing to change their life because they just made the choice not to do anything. Right

Harry: Okay that’s right. So there is no mystical there is no hoping you are going to be a great sales person you actually have to develop the skills ability and knowledge to do it. True?

Justin: True.

Harry: Yeah so all I’m saying to people let’s say I’m doing a motivation speech you know upon stage and I’m talking about. Well here’s the thing salesmanship can be learned. It’s fascinating it’s a lifelong you could take it at any level you want I’m still learning every day I love a new technique or strategy from time to time I hear them and I just embrace them and I love it. I love to talk to people about deals that we’ve closed and problems that we’ve had and how we’ve overcome them and all those kinds of things. I absolutely adore that stuff. So I talk about those things I talk about the idea that you can be a retail sales person making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, what would be wrong with that? I know lots of them that make tons of money, so what do you want to do? You  got no one is going to hand you a couple hundred thousand bucks a year to say can I help you, it doesn’t work like that. So we color it we tell a story and but they still have to do the work and if they do the work and they start seeing success there and then they will get motivated. And I think that’s what we really, really, really, really talking about, I think we’re talking about the difference in attitude it’s how you look at things your attitude, your morale. Those are all important parts of it but motivation is actually a behavior that you choose so either you choose what you, you behaved motivated or you do not behaved motivated regardless of your attitude.

Justin: But a manager also has the opportunity to create the environment in which someone feels you know valued as an individual. Correct. And therefore motivated to work for the company not just to be independent financially successful. Right there’s a deeper way you can motivate your team as a manager. Correct.

Harry: Yes of course this is a big deal. First of all the sales person and the manager have to align with goals what’s the game that they’re playing. Where is the finish line? Where is the, how do you win? You have to define winning. And a manager can do that a manager could say well here’s how you win. And if you produce at this level it’s a loss. So let’s get your winning. And then a manager provides coaching and feedback and consequences for the positive and negative through the behavior that the salesperson has. But only criticizes behavior, let’s get straight on this. Only criticizes behavior once the manager knows that the sales person can successfully accomplish that behavior. So it’s a very demotivating environment, demotivating environment when a manager criticizes someone’s behavior when in fact it was never trained to begin with or validated as being successful. So that’s a big issue isn’t it?

Justin: I mean yeah that’s one of the complications when people say, how do I create a motivating environment? Doing that you know most managers do a poor job. And this would be why one of the reasons why at least.

Harry: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah okay so let’s take a look at Nick Saban is his name right I think

Justin: Yeah.

Harry: He is just like a hottest damn coach on the planet he’s got a million although he lost the national championship last year the guy is just a total winner. You agree with that? The guy is a winning coach

Justin: A hundred percent with that.

Harry:  Without a doubt and I don’t know if you’d been privileged to listen to any of his motivational speeches. But they are fantastic this guy is so good I could listen to him forever. But in fact that’s great that which makes a good television show and it gets everybody kind of in sync and (unclear 1:22:29)  all that stuff but I got to be honest with you the hard work is done Monday when on he on the practice field with blocking and tackling that’s where the action is. So it is a reaction footballs a reaction to training you don’t think when you’re on the football field you react and you react based on the input from training. Nobody says oh my here’s a red light I will take my foot off the gas pedal and put it on the brake no, no, no, no it’s a reaction. Someone snatch you, you snatch him back it’s a reaction so there is cause and effect. The effect is how you perform on the field the cause is the habits that are drilled into you in training and development. So even though its listen there has been plenty of very, very successful teams where the coach wasn’t famous for his locker room give me one for the Gipper speech I assure you. Those are the ones that are kind of fun because we all love those kind of articulate motivational guys I mean it’s terrific it’s fun. To hear them it’s actually fun to give those kinds speeches which I’ve been blessed to be able to do. But Justin man it’s Monday on the field blocking and tackling over and over and over again which creates the winner and doubt that’s what a manager can do if he can get everybody trained up real well going in a common direction. Hello Success.

Justin: So as a final thought. The tools the company can use or manager can use to foster a motivating environment. One is training. Two is clear direction. Is there any others?

Harry: Accountability

Justin: Accountability

Harry: Feedback, feedback coaching right.

Justin: Making the person will feel valued through those things right it takes all of those (cross talk-absolutely) yeah.

Harry: Well first of all better if a sales person can’t connect what he’s doing to the value that it has them he becomes quite unmotivated as well. I mean you got to give things a reason for being right there has to be a reason that I’m doing this and the reason I’m doing that a manager who creates value in the tasks at hand also helps with that motivation. But ultimately speaking look let’s just strip it down to the simplest stuff a manager who provided negative and positive consequences for the behaviors after training although those things yes, yes, yes. I mean we have this detailed out at nauseam in our management books about motivation, we have a whole chapter on motivation you’re going to come to one of our 3 days management courses to have their minds blown completely about how this all works. But in the end, in the end the simplest way to get a guy motivated is to grab him just kidding you don’t grab anybody it’s figuratively speaking. Its teach him how to sell it’s just that simple, teach him how to sell and if they sell, bing bam boom you’d be surprised how happy people can get. That’s the answer Justin. You don’t have to like it but that is the answer.