Keeping Them Driven: How to Ignite, Excite, and Drive Performance

We hear alot these days about motivating people. There are books, podcasts, and TEDtalks about it.  Motivation can be a misleading word; I prefer to call it DRIVING OTHERS.  It is the combination of factors that keep being willing and able to do their best work.  Whether they are your employees, volunteers, or even your kids, don't you want them performing at optimal levels every day without prompting?


Research shows that people are motivated by lots of things including interesting work,  promotion, and relationships at work. Of course, if you are someone's manager you can necessarily provide these things.  Indeed, some individuals even label motivation as happiness or job satisfaction. Whether or not someone like their job can be an ever-moving target. As a leader, you probably don't want to spend most of your time trying to make people happy.  There are some schools of thought that say motivation is intrinsic;  and as such it can't be provided externally.  If you subscribe to the latter theory, you may be thinking you there is nothing you can do.  Nevertheless, there are ways to drive others to  do their best work and give their best effort. 



Let's explore three must-have factors for sustained performance:



1.  Clarity - Clear expectations and thorough directions are essential to top performance.  This means articulating specific outcomes and results desired.  Your team also needs the right resources and tools to accomplish what's asked of them.  Just as importantly, they need to understand boundaries -- what they shouldn't do, spend, say, or risk. 
 


2.  Environment - One thing leaders can provide is a level of collaboration and support for their staff.  Providing a supportive environment could include being available to talk through issues, providing guidance when they run into barriers, or encouraging them verbally.  A collaborative environment also provides people opportunities to work with others, learn from others, and be exposed to different parts of the organization.




3.  Value - The people you lead need to know they matter and the work they do matters.  Leaders have to seek out the opinions of others. Valuing them also includes asking for their feedback on how you're doing; and giving them feedback on how they are doing.   Leaders also need to invest in their people's development and provide opportunities to learn and apply new skills. 


Keep in mind that drive is about performance and results.  As such, there are things leaders can do to manage and improve performance.  While, you can not completely control it, you can influence it on a daily basis.