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You are here: Home / business / The Myth of Motivation

The Myth of Motivation

by jlcollinsnh 19 Comments

Alec Baldwin, with his best flinty-eyed glare, announces the new sales contest.

“First prize,” he says “is a brand new Cadillac Eldorado.  Second prize is this set of steak knives.  Third prize:  You’re fired.”

The movie is “Glengarry, Glenross.”  Baldwin is the ruthless sales manager addressing his motley crew of losers and has-beens.  Their mission is to sell questionable land developments.  His is to motivate them.

Here lies one of the most pervasive concerns of executives everywhere:  How to motivate the troops.  An entire industry has been built around this question.  Contests and incentive plans abound.  Indeed, I’ve implemented and participated in my share over the years.  No question they can be fun, even useful.  But they can’t instill fundamental motivation where it doesn’t already exist.

Let me share with you a story.

Bob was a sales guy for a major mid-west company.  This company was fond of sales contests and Bob routinely won the top prize.  It got to the point where his boss, with Bob’s consent, would rig the contests so someone else could win occasionally; just so the rest of the troops wouldn’t get discouraged.

Not surprisingly, one day Bob was asked to address a sales meeting and share his secret for consistently turning in the top, winning numbers.  What, he was asked, do you do to win when a contest is announced?

“Nothing,” said Bob.  “While collecting the prizes is kind of nice, the truth is I find these contests vaguely insulting.

“The implication is that day-to-day, I’m not doing my job.  Not giving my best effort, not going after every sale I could.  Management seems to feel they have to bribe us to get our best performance.  Doesn’t say much for their view of our professionalism.

“So the contests come and go and I pay very little attention.  I focus on doing my job the best way I know how.  If that means I win, that’s OK, too.”

 “So what motivates you?”

“The most motivating thing any manger ever did for me was to say that the best thing he could do was to stay the hell out of my way and let me do my job.  And then he did just that.  I made him and our company a lot of money during those years, and loved every minute of it.”

A fairly striking response.  When I’ve had bosses like that it certainly worked for me.  For you too, I’d guess.

So, where does all this motivation come from?  There’s good news and bad news.

The bad news is that, despite everything you may have heard to the contrary, as a manager you have very little influence in motivating your people.

The good news is:  It doesn’t matter.

Years ago a major airline ran a TV ad with the tag line, “We don’t teach our people to be nice.  We hire nice people.”  What a great shortcut!

It strikes upon a profound truth:  People form their basic behavior patterns at a very young age.  Psychologists tell us that by the time we are five years old we have our fundamental personalities in place.  Some say it’s largely genetic.

If you want nice people, you had better hire nice people.  If you want motivated people, you had better hire people with motivation.  The harsh truth is there’s not much you can do to instill it if it’s not already there.

Fortunately for your company, and companies across the country, the vast majority of people already have a healthy dose of motivation built in.  They come to new jobs, new assignments, new challenges and new opportunities already fired up.

Unfortunately, in all too many cases, they then have it beaten out of them by the relentless bureaucracy and mismanagement of the very organizations they are trying so hard to serve.

My favorite business consultant is fond of saying, “Most companies succeed in spite of the way they are managed.  Not because of it.”  Put another way, given half a chance, most people are so profoundly self-motivated they rise above the way they’re managed.

Bosses should worry less about motivating people and focus more on making sure they and their organizations are not actively, if unintentionally, DE-motivating them.  Back off a bit and let people blossom.  Allow that built-in motivation to expand and grow.

If motivation is a fire, you can’t build it in others.  It has to already be there.  But just not throwing on a bucket of water works wonders.

Unfortunately, too many bosses and organizations are addicted to that water.  They may have been raised and trained on it.  Bad management theories have them convinced that if they just beat on people long and hard enough, they will “straighten up and fly right.”

It never works.  It’s like trying to teach a pig to fly.  You can only hope to fail, frustrate yourself and irritate the pig.

We might do well to remember the first creed of physicians:  “Above all, do no harm.”

Care to comment?  Just click on the circle on the top right of the post.

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Filed Under: business, Life

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Comments

  1. Gloria says

    June 8, 2011 at 10:55 am

    So true!

    Reply
  2. jlcollinsnh says

    June 8, 2011 at 10:12 pm

    sounds like you’ve been on the receiving end of water. 😉

    Reply
  3. Jnaine says

    June 9, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    Please, Jim, don’t stop. You are finding your new place in this world quicker than you know!

    Reply
  4. Janine says

    June 10, 2011 at 12:12 am

    Jim,
    I just read both your posts. I am HOOKED! You are very motivating and your thoughts apply to the masses on many different levels. Keep up the good work. You have found your niche. It may seem odd, but often I think of people as to whether or not I would invite them to Thanksgiving dinner. Would I want to open my home and share my family and friends with this person? Would the conversation over green been casserole be interesting – even it if were just about the weather? My reject list is long. My invite list is short and oh so varied. Well, my friend, you are invited for Thanksgiving dinner.

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      June 11, 2011 at 11:57 am

      Thanks Janine…

      I’d have Thanksgiving or any other dinner with you anytime!

      Reply
  5. Trish Rempen says

    June 10, 2011 at 7:31 pm

    I love this.
    I came to the same realization not too long ago (pretty pathetic, for someone who’s run a business for 26 years-) — and figured:
    1. I can show the salespeople
    …what we sell….details, selling points, etc
    ….who they should be seeing….with all the contact info, addresses, websites, etc…
    2. and if they don’t take it and run, get someone who will.

    No point trying to change anyone.
    You can only lead so many horses to so many watering holes.

    Thanks for the reminder.

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      June 11, 2011 at 12:01 pm

      don’t feel bad, Trish…..

      …that’s the way most of us are managed and so it’s the way we manage in turn. at least at first.

      I’d love to have back all the hours I wasted trying to force the horses to drink. and I bet they wish even more to have the hours they spent refusing back. 🙂

      lose/lose. 😉

      Reply
  6. Lee- EntrpreneursKorner says

    January 2, 2012 at 2:00 pm

    Awesome post. It’s true, your either going to be motivated or not, that depends on the individual.

    Reply
  7. SavvyFinancialLatina says

    September 18, 2012 at 5:50 pm

    I agree with you here! Motivation is not taught, it comes naturally. You are either a motivated person or you are not.

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      September 18, 2012 at 6:33 pm

      funny, this is an old post and I was just talking about the subject with a friend today.

      wish somebody had explained it to me when I was 22! 😉

      Reply
  8. financialblogger23 says

    March 20, 2014 at 4:21 pm

    Damn Right!

    Reply
  9. vorlic says

    December 24, 2016 at 8:58 am

    I like the picture and quote from Office Space 1999. Boy, that film changed my life… second place to your Blog of Wisdom.

    Merry Christmas to you, Mr Collins.

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      December 24, 2016 at 9:21 am

      I’m an Office Space fan as well. It never gets old…

      “Jumping to Conclusions”

      “I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob….”

      Merry Christmas to you and yours!

      Reply
  10. Garrett says

    October 29, 2019 at 10:18 am

    Everything in this article is so spot-on. I’m getting water thrown on me these days right as I’m igniting my own motivational fire. Constant micromanaging and stupid management decisions are pissing me off, particularly because I’m one of the top sales reps in my organization. A+ article.

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      October 29, 2019 at 10:58 am

      Thanks Garrett…

      …glad you liked it.

      This is a key reason you need F-you Money! 🙂

      Reply
  11. vorlic says

    October 12, 2020 at 6:50 pm

    Hello Mr Collins,

    This Lockdown crap and all that it’s causing is really get me down. So I came to your blog for a dose of calm optimism.

    It did the trick.

    When’s your next article?

    I hope you, yours and Steve MkII are well.

    Best
    Vorlic

    PS I threw much more than normal at the market between mid March through June. It was really hard, felt totally wrong, but I gritted my teeth… and lo! I passed my first true test 😊 The good lady did the same. And both of us with VanguardInvestor.co.uk .

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      October 13, 2020 at 8:38 am

      Hi Vorlic…

      Always nice to see you here, especially on an OG post like this one!

      No plans for another post just now. That flurry around the market/Covid volatility last spring was enough to last me. 🙂

      We are doing fine and waiting out the plague at Kibanda until we can resume our nomadic ways.

      Hope you and yours are doing well too!

      Reply
  12. Patrick says

    May 7, 2022 at 12:54 am

    “If motivation is a fire, you can’t build it in others. It has to already be there.”

    Probably the best way I’ve heard this put. For me, it was about finding out what/where my motivation was, and then kindling it. You can’t force it, you have to find it.

    Cheers!

    Reply
  13. AD says

    November 25, 2022 at 12:37 pm

    This is profound. I know this is true but never heard it worded like this. I wish Elon Musk would be amenable to such constructive criticism. But alas he is one of the many assholes in the sea.

    Reply

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      • Consignment Shops: Best business model ever?
      • Cafes
      • Stocks -- Part XVI: Index Funds are really just for lazy people, right?
    • ► January (5)
      • Social Security: How secure and when to take it
      • Fighting giraffes, surreal landscapes, dancing with unicorns and restoring a Vanagon
      • My plan for 2013
      • VITA, income taxes and the IRS
      • How to be a stock market guru and get on MSNBC
  • ► 2012 (53)
    • ► December (6)
      • See you next year....until then: The Origin of Life, Life on Other Worlds, Mechanical Graveyards, Great Art, Alternative Lifestyles and Finding Freedom
      • Stocks -- Part XV: Target Retirement Funds, the simplest path to wealth of all
      • Stocks -- Part XIV: Deflation, the ugly escort of Depressions.
      • Stocks Part XIV: Deflation, the ugly escort of Depressions.
      • Stocks -- Part XIII: The 4% rule, withdrawal rates and how much can I spend anyway?
      • How I learned to stop worrying about the Fiscal Cliff and you can too.
    • ► November (2)
      • Rent v. owning: A couple of case studies in Ecuador
      • So, what does a month in Ecuador cost anyway?
    • ► October (4)
      • See you in December....
      • Meet me in Ecuador?
      • The Podcast: You can hear me now.
      • Stocks -- Part XII: Bonds
    • ► September (6)
      • Stocks -- Part XI: International Funds
      • The Smoother Path to Wealth
      • Case Study #I: Putting the Simple Path to Wealth into Action
      • Tales of Bolivia: Calle de las Brujas
      • Stocks -- Part X: What if Vanguard gets Nuked?
      • Travels in South America: It was the best of times....
    • ► August (1)
      • Home again
    • ► June (4)
      • Yellow Fever, closing up shop for the summer and heading to Peru y Bolivia
      • I could not have said it better myself...
      • Stocks -- Part IX: Why I don't like investment advisors
      • Happy Birthday, jlcollinsnh; and thanks for the gift Mr. MM!
    • ► May (6)
      • Stocks -- Part VIII: The 401K, 403b, TSP, IRA & Roth Buckets
      • Mr. Money Mustache
      • The College Conundrum
      • Stocks -- Part VII: Can everyone really retire a millionaire?
      • Stocks -- Part VI: Portfolio ideas to build and keep your wealth
      • Stocks -- Part V: Keeping it simple, considerations and tools
    • ► April (6)
      • Stocks -- Part IV: The Big Ugly Event, Deflation and a bit on Inflation
      • Stocks -- Part III: Most people lose money in the market.
      • Stocks -- Part II: The Market Always Goes Up
      • Stocks -- Part 1: There's a major market crash coming!!!! and Dr. Lo can't save you.
      • You can eat my Vindaloo, mega lottery, Blondie, Noa, Israel Kamakawiwo 'Ole, art, film and a ride on the Space Shuttle
      • Where in the world are you?
    • ► March (7)
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part V: Sold! and the taxman cometh.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part IV: I become a Landlord.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part III: The Battle is Joined.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part II: The Limits of the Law.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part I: Impossibly Naive.
      • You, too, can be conned
      • Armageddon and the value of practical skills
    • ► February (6)
      • Rent v. Owning Your Home, opportunity cost and running some numbers
      • The Casanova Kid, a Shit Knife, a Good Book, Having No Regrets, Dark Matter and a bit of Magic
      • What Poker, Basketball and Mike Whitaker taught me about Luck
      • How to Give like a Billionaire
      • Go ahead, make my day
      • Muk Finds Success in Tahiti
    • ► January (5)
      • Travels with "Esperando un Camino"
      • Beanie Babies, Naked Barbie, American Pickers and Old Coots
      • Selling the House and Adventures in Staging
      • The bashing of Index Funds, Jack Bogle and a Jedi dog trick
      • Magic Beans
  • ► 2011 (22)
    • ► December (1)
      • Dividend Growth Investing
    • ► November (2)
      • The Mummy's head, Particle Physics and "Knocking on Heaven's Door"
      • "It's Better in the Wind" or why I ride a motorcycle
    • ► October (1)
      • Lazy Days and School Days
    • ► July (2)
      • The road to Zanzibar sometimes goes thru Ecuador...
      • Johnny wins the lotto and heads to Paris
    • ► June (16)
      • Chainsaws, Elm Trees and paying for College
      • Stuff I’ve failed at: the early years
      • Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
      • The. Worst. Used. Car. Ever.
      • Top Ten reasons your future is so bright it hurts my eyes to look at it
      • The Most Dangerous Words Your Customer Can Say
      • How not to drown in The Sea of Assholes
      • What we own and why we own it
      • The Ten Sales Commandments
      • My ever so formal and oh so dry CV
      • How I failed my daughter and a simple path to wealth
      • The Myth of Motivation
      • Why you need F-you money
      • My short attention span
      • Why I can’t pick winning stocks, and you can’t either
      • The Monk and the Minister

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