When you lead others you’re taught that you need to tap into your team member’s passion and find methods that will motivate them to accomplish a stated goal.  Sometimes you’re taught that you need to dangle a proverbial “carrot” in front of them so they will chase after a stated reward.  That should motivate someone towards a goal, right?  It works.  Sometimes. Short term, maybe.

So you might be asking yourself, how do I motivate others at work?

There are lots of methods that sound great in theory.  You read them and they make total sense, and yet, many of the people you need to get things done still aren’t doing them.  If it sounds so easy on paper and in class, why is it so hard in real life when you try it?

Because it’s not easy.  Easy is the one thing we really want to be true about motivating others and it simply is not.

People are complicated.  They have different behavioral styles, different motivators, varying degrees of strengths in the phases and approaches to their work.  They come from different backgrounds and have had completely different experiences than you have.  They possess different skill sets and levels of IQ and emotional intelligence.

What sounds easy when you are in a meeting talking about what tasks need to get done may be extremely difficult to execute once you leave there.  It’s much easier to look at a sheet of music and mark down which notes and rhythms you need to play on the flute.  It’s completely different for someone to have the skill, which they build through countless hours of practice, to actually play that music as the composer intended it to sound.

We use three foundational assessments to determine someone’s strengths and abilities to contribute at work.  They don’t measure emotional intelligence or IQ or their skill sets, all of which are also important factors in understanding the person.  The three base assessments we utilize simply tell a leader the team members’ behavioral styles, the motivations or driving forces behind the team members’ actions, and how they prefer to work on a team.  There are 20 markers (scores) that are derived from those assessments that we look at to determine the person’s preferences, where their “genius zone” lies, and how to predict how they will contribute, or not, in the future in the situation at work they will be placed into.

The methods we use help take the risk out of hiring the wrong person for a job and contribute greatly to coaching a team member or new hire to operate at their potential.  Being able to predict how someone, based on their behavioral DNA, so to speak, along with their experience and skill set, reduces the risk of making decisions at work when it comes to the true driver of business success, the people that power it.

Here are a few references for the assessments referred to in this article:

What are the DiSC and Motivators assessments?

How DiSC is used as part of a hiring process.

 The Science behind the DiSC, Motivators & Team Work Cycle assessments

How to quickly identify a DiSC style at work