THE MYTH OF MOTIVATION - by Dave "Giff" Gifford

    • 993 posts
    February 14, 2014 12:28 PM PST

    This article has been excerpted and updated by Dave "Giff" Gifford for RSC members.  

    It originally appeared in Giff’s “The Graduate School For Sales Management”

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    Was former General Electric CEO Jack Welch a great motivator? If his inspirational leadership influenced people to do what he wanted them to do, most business people would agree to that characterization. But by those standards so too were Genghis Kahn, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Osama bin Laden, Abraham, Buddah, Jesus Christ and The Prophet Mohammad great motivators.

     

    Yet in my view, none of those  momentous  figures motivated anyone. Jesus Christ and The Prophet Mohammed never motivated anyone? Preposterous! Not preposterous.*  Some useful definitions:

     

    Motive: A need or desire which causes a person to act (self-motivated act)

    Motivate: To provide with a motive.

    Activate: To make active or more active.

    Actualize: To achieve a personal objective.                                               

    Attitude:  A settled way of thinking or feeling.

    Behavior: The way in which people behave.

     

    Back to the example of Jack Welch, by definition “inspirational leadership” and the ability to “influence” people does not “provide with a motive”.

     

    For the purpose of clarity, here are the four absolutes for what follows:

     

    1  Management can not motivate.

    2  Management can only activate.

    3  Management can not change attitudes.

    4  Management can only change behavior.

     

    Notwithstanding thousands of people I have managed, trained (educated), consulted, and/or whom attended my seminars in eighteen countries and 49 states—some convinced I motivated them personally—I never motivated anyone in my life and, as a sales manager, neither have you or will you.

     

    From this point forward I invite you to "argue with the author"—Me!  On the pretense I’m presenting the above case in court, you play Judge & Jury. Are my contentions absolute or not? It's your call.

     

    Already I hear someone grumbling on your staff, "Those are just your opinions, Giff!" No, they’re not just my opinions; renowned human behaviorists still disagree as to whether or not managers can motivate.

     

    On the face of it, I’ve got a lot of nerve engaging in a debate with such credible sources as Peter Drucker, the late guru of management gurus; Warren Bennis, known for his watershed books on leadership; behavioral scientist Abraham Maslo; clinical psychologist Frederick Herzberg; social scientist Douglas McGregor; and John Adair, one of the world's foremost authorities on leadership and leadership development from England…and you would be right. Nonetheless…

     

    Years ago Bennis defined motivation as communicating a vision others can believe in, then helping people convert that vision into organizational gains. Really? I don’t buy it. Whether it’s an entire company, a given department within same or a small project team, who among us possesses a single vision universally accepted by “others” willing to commit to that vision? All of them? Obviously, Mr. Bennis never managed a newspaper sales department.

     

    Drucker counseled that if you "Manage by Objectives" (MBO) you motivate by encouraging communication at all levels. Maybe, maybe not. What if the communication is miscommunicated? The failure of a vision sent but not received is usually the fault of the sender, not the receiver. Wrong words and/or wrongly placed words and/or wrongly expressed words are what miscommunications are all about. Although I consult management by a delineation of MBO—MBP: Management By Priorities—I’m at a loss to understand how encouraging communication "provide(s) with a motive".

     

    Maslo, Herzberg and McGregor—the nay-sayers in this "Yes You Can Motivate"/"No You Can't Motivate" debate—agree that inasmuch as motivation has to come from the psyche of the individual, motivation in the workplace (as most people think of it in its conventional context) cannot be achieved without first satisfying an individual's higher needs—the want satisfactions (Google Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs) opposed to basic need satisfactions: oxygen, food, water, shelter, clothing.*

     

    John Adair has a different take (his "50-50” rule), a modification of Pareto’s Law (80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes) in which Adair contends the influence of leaders are equal in importance to serving both need and want satisfactions. Some would say Adolf Hitler validates Adair’s philosophy, i.e, infamously ranked among the most powerful rulers in recorded history, the Nazi madman is also perceived to a great motivator. Let’s test that assumed axiom in its proper perspective…

     

    ITEM: In effect, following Germany’s defeat in World War I, the psyche of the German people may have influenced the cause of World War II more than Hitler’s influence. Dethroned as a World Power, the German people were, 1. Bitter over the perceived unfairness of the Treaty of Versailles.  2. Uncertain of their future as a country without a national identity. 3. Being lead by an incompetent and unstable government threatened by Communism and, 4. Mired in The Great Depression. Consequently, at that time in history the German people were starved for leadership, any leadership! Hitler filled that void with his intoxicating persona, inspiring leadership, and his incendiary oratory. But was it Hitler’s influence that motivated the German people or was that motivation already cocked in the psyche of the nationalistic populace? When Hitler emerged as a political entity, the German people didn’t want another war, they wanted restoration from the last war. The definition if the word “syncretizing” is “to attempt to unite and harmonize, especially without critical examination or logical unity”.

     

    ITEM: History talks. In fact, there were hundreds of thousands of Germans not so moved by “the little corporal”. Beginning with the arrest of Hitler’s political enemies immediately following his takeover in 1933, 13 of 42 assassination plots to kill Hitler occurred in his first two years as Chancellor—a total of 29 assassination attempts before the US entered the war. In retaliation to the July 20, 1944 bombing of Hitler’s bunker in Rastenberg, East Prussia, 5000 German officers (military officers unmotivated by Hitler) were executed. Less than a year later, following the liberation of concentration camps throughout Europe and the eastern territories, Hitler’s maelstrom of terror ended with Germany’s cities reduced to rubble.

     

    ITEM: Given how few soldiers jump on live grenades to protect their buddies on the field of battle, obviously those who failed to take the same action responded to a different motivation, right? Assuming they were aware of the danger at the time, what motivation? Since there is no greater interest than self-interest, very likely the motivating instinct to take cover. Either way, whether their response was motivated by instinct or by a conscious decision, their strongest motive was self-motivated.

     

    ITEM: People who succeed in life succeed for only one reason: they can't help themselves. They have to succeed. Tony is an example. Where does that commitment come from? It comes from within!  In contrast,  as an external force, there is nothing a sales manager can do or say to motivate an unmotivated salesperson. It will not take, period. And given the #1 reason newspaper salespeople fail during  the first year is because they weren’t fully committed to the job in the first place, uncommitted is unmotivated!

     

    ITEM: Keeping with this theme, as a manager you didn't get up this morning to fulfill your company's "mission statement", did you? Nor did you get up for your salespeople, isn’t that also true? No, you got up for yourself and those dependent on you. and Is it any different for your salespeople? Increasing company sales, elevating the company’s Top Line, and jacking up the company’s Net Value are not the highest aspirations of the individual salespeople on your staff. As a consequence, management needs to come to grips with its limitations.

     

    ITEM: As a sales manager you need to manage your sellers’ behavior, not their attitudes! As a manager, you cannot manage change! You have to sell change! Management can change behavior, management can not change attitudes. Which translates to another management issue: managing change. Fact: salespeople will not do what you want them to do, willingly, without their consent. Why? Because whereas you can change behavior with incentives, accountability systems, policies, discipline, etc., the only person who can change your attitude is…you! Ditto for your salespeople.

     

    ITEM: In my forever scholarship of human behavior on the street and in the workplace, I came up with a thesis that human beings respond to eighteen predominant personal pressures— stimuli of atoms that prompt behavior—all conveniently beginning with the letter "P”: Pain Pride Profit Praise Power Passion Pleasure Principles Popularity Protection • Philosophy Performance Participation Peer Pressure Partner Pressure Parental Pressure • Professional Pressure.   

    ITEM: You can train (educate!), influence, challenge, coach, prompt, push, probe, encourage, inspire, and show recognition and respect for your salespeople, etc. But to achieve meaningful organizational gains, your real challenge is to activate the trigger mechanism of the self-motivated salespeople on your staff. That is activation, not motivation. The answer is to hire self-motivated people.

     

    ITEM: Hire self-motivated salespeople and this “Yes You Can Motivate/No You can’t Motivate” debate is moot. And there is the irony. The success of every radio company in business today is totally dependent on its salespeople, yet only an small percentage of radio operating budgets include a budget for testing sales applicants. What better way to explain radio’s high turnover of sales personnel other than lousy hiring followed by lousy training? Note: Test finalists only.

     

    FOUR LESSONS IN SUMMARY…

    1  Management can not motivate.      

    2  Management can only activate.

    3  Management can not change attitudes.     

    4  Management can change behavior only.

    AND ONE BOTTOM LINE:

    Trying to motivate salespeople when instead you should be hiring self-motivated salespeople is a waste of time, money, and energy.

     

    Finally, given how demotivated employees get when they fail to get proper training, your salespeople don’t need inspiration, they need inform-ation.

     

    I rest my case.

     

    Giff

     

    * Needs satisfied by religion and/or by religious leaders: the need for belief in a divine creator, faith, forgiveness, hope, healing, inclusion, inspiration, judgment, meaning, nurturing, purpose, reincarnation, salvation, search for truth, self-acceptance, self-discovery, self-fulfillment, security, spiritual expression, spiritual well being, stimulation, support, to be at peace, to believe in something, to learn about the great religions, transcendence, unconditional love, understanding, etc.

     

    Dave Gifford/DGI © 2014