Put Away The Carrot And Bring Out The Steak
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Nope, there isn't a typo in the headline. I did mean "steak" not
"stick".
 
You may have guessed - this edition of CleverNews is about
motivation. 
 
Before you can motivate yourself, or someone else for that matter,
you've got to use the right criteria or you may as well try to get
blood out of a stone.
 
To illustrate the point, let me tell you a story my brilliant
bookkeeper, Rita, told me. 
 
Some years ago, Rita hired a woman (let's call her X) to help her
with her bookkeeping business.  People told Rita that she was
making a mistake by hiring X, that X wasn't exactly the sharpest
tool in the shed and that she was untrainable. 
 
Rita heard them out but hired her anyway.
 
Admittedly, X, at the time, did not have much ambition.  When Rita
tried to teach her things beyond data entry, X made it clear that
she was not interested.  All she wanted to do was data entry
because that was what she knew and was comfortable with.
 
So Rita agreed to her wishes, and continued to give her data entry
work.  Unbeknownst to X though, Rita soon started teaching her new
things and before long X was reconciling books thinking that she
was only entering data.
 
I told you Rita was a smart woman. 
 
She did what many team leaders fail to do - use each individual's
own criteria for motivating them.
 
There's no point trying to lure others (or push them) with offers
that they are not interested in.
 
It's fine to entice a horse with a carrot, but if you've got an
Alsatian, bring out the steak.
 
In other words, use their own criteria, or what's important to
them, to motivate them. 
 
In coaching, I often use the Hierarchy of Criteria, a
Neurolinguistics Programming (NLP) technique created by Robert
Dilts to discover what would motivate my clients achieve their
business and personal goals.
 
An important element of this technique is discovering the higher
level criteria by finding out counter examples or exceptions to the
rule.
 
Example...
 
Let's say you're a business owner who wants a member of your team,
Mark, to attend networking functions as a way of generating new
business.  You know that it's absolutely crucial to keep expanding
your network of potential clients or the company would go bust.
(Your criterion: generating revenue)
 
However, using your criteria to motivate Mark to willingly attend
networking functions and get the outcome you intended isn't
necessarily going to work.
 
Here's a hypothetical example of how you could use the Hierarchy of
Criteria in that situation.
 
You:  What would motivate you to attend networking functions?
 
Mark:  If I didn't feel like I was trying to make a sale.   I
wouldn't mind it if I could be myself and not come across as a
sales person. (Criterion: being himself)
 
You:  What would cause you to stop attending networking functions,
even if you were being yourself? (Counter example to the criterion
Mark  just gave, in this example, to be himself)
 
Mark:  If it was a waste of my time (Criterion: making good use of
time)
 
You: Can you think of anything that would motivate you to resume
attending networking functions again, if you stopped because it was
a waste of time? (Counter example to the criterion Mark just gave,
i.e. making good use of time)
 
Mark: I would continue networking if I were enjoying myself
(Criterion: enjoyment)
 
You: If you were enjoying yourself, what would cause you to stop
attending networking functions again? (Counter example to the
criterion Mark gave in the last step, enjoyment)
 
Mark:  If I felt that it was not helping me improve myself
(Criterion: Self growth)
 
Using the Hierarchy of Criteria will enable you to find out what is
important to others (and yourself) and in what order.  In the
context of networking functions, self growth is higher in the
ladder than enjoyment for Mark, which is higher than making good
use of time, and so on)
 
Clearly, generating revenue isn't what would motivate Mark, so it
would be more productive if you and Mark could jointly discover
ways he could improve himself by attending networking functions.
(For instance, learning how to build rapport with people, observing
what good networkers do, etc).
 
Mark would be more likely to increase sales as a by product of his
self growth than he would by going to the functions begrudgingly
with your aim of generating revenue.
 
Bottom line: If you want to motivate others, use their own
criteria, not yours.  Similarly if you want to motivate yourself,
discover and use your own criteria are, not someone else's.
 
By the way, in case you were wondering what happened to X, she now
manages a busy retail store and is doing just fine.
 
Until next time, all the best.
Kathleen Alexander
Clever Fox