Motivation: Get Others to Do What You Want Them to Do Because They Want to Do It

The psychology of motivating, persuading, and informing

 

Andy McFarlane, manager at Nucor in Seattle, believes he has to change his communication style to match the individual style of each crew member.  George Marinovich, wine expert, treats every worker, customer, and vendor with genuine respect and approaches all in a friendly way.  Both successfully motivate people by listening, understanding, adapting, and respecting everyone in his sphere of influence thus making each individual feel important—a basic human need we all have.  This is understanding the audience.

Understanding the Audience

To continuously improve in our ability to motivate and influence an audience, a good public speaker seeks to understand her audience.  This is a complex process that involves many moving parts.  For example, a speaker must know why she was asked to speak, who is in the audience, what they expect, what they need, what they know about her topic, how she can benefit them etc.  All this assumes she is knowledgeable in her field.

In matters of motivation, a speaker needs to know what motivates the people in the audience.  This is where the balance of art and science becomes tricky.  In advance, the speaker must determine the audience’s attitudes towards her proposition (the specific thing she wants the audience to do), what motivates the people in the audience, and convey the benefits to the audience by doing what she asks.

The Audience’s Attitude Towards Your Proposition

With any proposition, the audience will have a predisposition ( attitude) towards it.  According to Social Judgment Theory, your audience will be “anchored” in one of five categories:
 

1.      They completely agree

2.      They have a latitude of acceptance

3.      They have a latitude of non-committal

4.      They have a latitude of rejection

5.      They completely disagree. 

In the development process of your message, you ignore two categories: completely agree and completely disagree.  You must determine where they are anchored to determine your strategy to motivate them to action.  If you ask them to act too soon, you will move them away.  If you don’t ask at the right time, you will lose them.  They have to be in a latitude of acceptance to successfully motivate them, otherwise you are “too pushy.”  If they are not in a latitude of acceptance, don’t ask.  Your strategy is to incrementally move them, over time, into this category before you ask them to action.  The trick is to identify where they are anchored and proceed accordingly.

Motives

 

According to Abraham Maslow, a person’s needs can be identified in seven categories.  The scope of this article will cover three:

1.      Shelter and Safety

2.      Love and Belongingness

3.      Ego and Esteem

Shelter and Safety isn’t just a .357 Magnum under your pillow in a warm, dry, secure home.  It is much more.  It is a savings bank account, health insurance, retirement plan, reliable car, routine, certainty in life, steady job, comfort zone, etc.

 

Love and Belongingness isn’t just a partner.  It is being a part of something like a community, a church, a club, a social group.  It is being a fan of a specific sports team, of an author, of an actor etc.  It is wearing hats and shirts with logos, names of organizations, cities or states.  It is owning things other people own like the best-selling car, or computer, or cell phone.  It is anything that makes people feel part of something—included and like everyone else.

Ego and Esteem is more than being “full of yourself.”  It is being special, standing out, having a special parking space, an office with your name on the door, diplomas, certificates, trophies, recognition, large bank accounts, etc.  It is anything that makes you feel special and important and a little bit ahead of others.

Convey the Benefits to Doing What You Ask

 

The last ingredient to motivating the audience is asking in the right way.  Dale Carnegie developed what he calls the “Magic Formula.”  You ask the audience to action (it can only be one thing) and tell them the benefit they will gain by doing what you ask.  It goes like this:

I urge you to (action) because if you do, you will (benefit).

Andy and George continuously improve their abilities to motivate others by making their audiences feel important, knowing their dispositions to what Andy and George are asking, understanding the audience’s motives, and knowing when to ask them to action, then being better able to convey the benefits of doing what is asked.  You are probably doing this well right now; however, can you do better? Do you want to do better?

Healthy Self Confidence or Hubris?

Your mind has to be in the right place in order to improve

( 1st in a series of 6)
 

It was a big mistake on my part. 

I said, “That was a fine presentation you just gave.”

“Thank you.”

“You were very entertaining and interesting. I talked to other attendees and they too really liked your talk,”

I continued,  “I have one question, you covered a lot of ground in 45 minutes, what would you say are the three most important points out of all the points you made?”

At a large industry conference, I actually said this to a well-known and well regarded speaker.  Even though his face crumpled with a look of annoyance, he responded,

“All my points are important.”

Without monitoring his nonverbal expressions, I pressed on,

“Tell me your three most important points.”

His face became red, and he grabbed a paper with notes, and rattled off a few things in no particular order of importance.  Then he slammed the paper down and exclaimed,

“Are you satisfied?”  His last word started with an A_ _ and ended with _ ole.

I apologized and walked away. 

 

I felt bad; I had just criticized a speaker way above my pay grade.  He did not ask for my opinion and did not want my opinion.  I thought I knew better than to make such a mistake.

Public Speaking is an Art

He is an excellent entertainer and speaker with an implied depth of knowledge in his field.  He makes the audience feel good and glad they attended. 

A few remembered some funny lines, but nothing of substance.  Actually, I don’t recall anything of substance.  He may have but, if so, it was buried in his stories—often times the speaker must “connect the dots” when using stories to make a point. This is a shame because he thinks he is helping people with his vast knowledge in their businesses when in reality he is simply entertaining

Twenty to thirty people lined up after the presentation to tell him how much they enjoyed his talk.

This feedback might be the root of his over confidence.

He didn’t notice the 1,970+ that didn’t say anything—several even walking out early.

The purpose of the Conference was to help small business owners grow their business. Therefore, I suggest he could be more effective giving more consideration to the science of public speaking.

Public Speaking is a Science

As effective speakers, we must stick to one main idea and support it with a maximum of three main points—a good guideline that is flexible depending on situation.  Also, we must select the main idea based on the needs of the audience. This is the science of public speaking.

I randomly interviewed over 20 people attending (about 2,000 people were in the audience) and not one could recall a point or will make any change in their life or business after listening to his entertaining talk even though all 20 thought he was a good speaker. 

On one level, there is nothing wrong with entertaining; however, he could be so much more effective and a difference maker; but, he never will with his current attitude.  He is far from his potential; yet, he thinks he has arrived. 

This is hubris.

Of course who showed the hubris—me or him?  I think it was clearly both.  I was way out of line offering criticism to someone who didn’t ask, and clearly, he has a self-serving bias to his speaking ability.

As good as any speaker is, she can be even better.  Dropping all pretenses, stereotypes, and self-serving biases, where are you?  If you think you are a master of public speaking and don’t need to learn anymore, you won’t.  If you are fabulous, but think you can still do better, you will—no matter your ability and skill level.

Let’s define our terms

“Hubris is exaggerated pride or self-confidence” according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.  Investopedia.com goes further: “The characteristic of excessive confidence or arrogance, which leads a person to believe that he or she may do no wrong. The overwhelming pride caused by hubris is often considered a flaw in character. While these hubris feelings are often justified, they often cause irrational and harmful behavior.”

“Hubris is an excess of confidence: a boxer who shouts "I'm the greatest!" even though he's about to get pummeled,” according to vocabulary.com.  They go on to say “…it just refers to over-the-top self-confidence. If you call yourself the best in something, you better have the goods to back it up, since too much hubris can lead to embarrassment and humiliation.”

“Self-serving bias is our tendency to take credit for success (self-enhancing bias) and deny any responsibility for failure (self-protective bias). This helps to protect our ego. It also enables us to confirm that we are meeting our goals,” according to ChangingMinds.org.  For example, if we get good feedback from a talk, we take credit for it, if someone criticizes our talk we become defensive and dismiss the criticism as coming from a dumbass.

According to Communication Research and Psychology Today, a study was done to research a self-serving bias with a large random sampling of businessmen. Asked how they rate themselves in their abilities to get along with others, 60% rated themselves in the top 25% and an astounding 25% rated themselves in the top 1% of the USA population defying mathematical laws.  In leadership ability, 70% rated themselves in the top 25% of the population.

“Self-confidence is an attitude which allows individuals to have positive yet realistic views of themselves and their situations,” according to the Counseling Center’ website at the University of Illinois.

How does this affect you and me?

Hubris and a self-serving bias throw us out of balance.  We need self-confidence to improve; but, once we cross the line into exaggerated self-confidence we tend to focus on Aesop’s Golden Eggs (what is produced—such as our bias towards our ability to give great talks) at the expense of the Golden Goose (the capacity to produce—which in this case is our ability to speak in public.  We stop improving).  The late Stephen Covey argues we must balance both.

In order to balance, we must get our minds right and be open to seek out and embrace professional improvement in our public speaking skill.  It’s not only for our sake; but, also for the sake of the audience sitting in those uncomfortable chairs eagerly anticipating substantive and concrete information.

Public Speaking is a complex process that requires the following ingredients:  Preparation, knowledge, self-confidence, humility, and empathy combined in the right amounts that are different depending on the situation and how you relate to the audience.  That’s why public speaking is a balance of art and science. 

It is the absence of hubris and a self-serving bias.

Rod Mattson

Bibliography

Aesop and the Golden Goose http://www.umass.edu/aesop/content.php?n=14&i=1

Covey S. (1990) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People p.54 Simon & Schuster New York.

Hubris http://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hubris.asp#ixzz2MPtHCVow

Hubris http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/hubris

Myers D. (1980)“The Inflated Self” Psychology Today. May. pp. 14-16.

Self-Serving Bias http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/self-serving_bias.htm

Sypher B. and Sypher H.(1997) “Seeing Ourselves as Other’s See Us” Communication Research  

23 pp. 477-506.

Copyright March 2013 Mattson Communication Training

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Motivation:  Get Others to Do What You Want Them to Do Because They Want to Do It.

The psychology of motivating, persuading, and informing.

Leadership and Common Sense

Lee Iacocca writes about the 9 “C’s” of leadership in his book, Where Have all the Leaders Gone?  The ninth “C” is Common Sense.  It struck me as funny because I would like to know his definition of “common sense.”  It’s a term that any of us would struggle to define; however, we all know it when we see it, right? 

In fact, like Iacocca, other business/management/leadership authors use the same type of words to describe leadership:  character, credibility, competence, communication, charisma, conviction, courage, curiosity, etc.  These words all have the same problem as the word beauty—I can’t describe it, but I know when I see it.

The problem is that we all view the world differently and there is no single working definition of any of these words.  Even the word leadership fits into this category of words—I can’t describe it, but I know it when I see it.

If Common sense is so common, why do most of us have a different idea of its definition?  Men and women differ on common sense because we have different experiences, the different generations differ because of different contexts, people who live in different States differ because of different environments, people from different countries differ because of different cultures, people of different religions differ because of different beliefs, people of different social/economic levels differ because of different lifestyles, people of different education levels differ because of different amounts of information, etc.  Actually I have really over simplified the problem as all these differences affect the common sense of everyone. Additionally , many more factors are involved in our personal common sense such as race, ethnicity, attitudes, values, abilities, past experiences, etc.

We are all different, even children growing up in the same families have different definitions of common sense because they all had different friends, interests, role models, teachers, jobs, hobbies, and experiences. 

Clearly, good common sense says the there is no such thing as common sense and I hope that is what Iacocca meant.  Like art, meanings of leadership and common sense are in the eye of the beholder.  Once we realize each person interprets words, situations, and relationships differently, we will then begin to communicate, lead, and follow better.  For leaders to be effective, the leader’s job is to clearly communicate to people her/his meanings of words including common sense.