In a workplace – as with in life, it is likely that you will come across individuals who are unmotivated, sometimes that individual is you. I’ve experienced this several times and most people I know have gone through phases during which they seem to be unmotivated. While attempting to motivate an unmotivated person, most people tend to start out by giving them a lengthy speech, but this rarely works because motivation has to start from within.
I’ve thought about this concept for a while – can you really motivate another individual? Can someone else motivate you? I believe that the answer to this question is no, I don’t believe that any person is able to motivate another person. I think people either are or are not motivated by what they do and you won’t be able to motivate an unmotivated individual. However, I do believe that you can inspire people.
Motivation vs Inspiration
While this may sound like the same concept, motivation and inspiration are completely different:
Motivation refers to a process of stimulating someone to act in a definite way to achieve a goal.
Motivation can be understood through “the carrot or the stick” metaphor, on the basis of the things that we feel the individual should be doing. It involves diverse forces that intensifies one’s emotions – stimulating them to take an action which will result in the achievement of a short-term goal.
Employers are better served to focus on rewarding employees for their actions rather than threatening punishment if they want to motivate them. Trying to scare people into action via threats about the bad things that are going to happen if they don’t act is likely to create more fear and anxiety, which can thwart motivation. While using external motivation can improve productivity and retention, quite often, these bonuses are only temporary. As soon as an employee feels they have advanced their career as far as possible within your organisation and they are no longer benefiting from training opportunities, it becomes likelier that they will look for employment elsewhere.
Inspiration is defined as an act of influencing people mentally and emotionally to do something creative.
In inspiration, you truly want something for which you have an enduring desire to achieve it, you are continually interested and committed to having it, you make time for it and you make it your priority. Inspiration is a powerful tool, but it isn’t easy to inspire people and it requires that you truly believe in your vision and what you are trying to get other people to rally behind.
Based on the definitions above, you can obviously you can say that you are able to motivate employees by offering them more money or by threatening them with punishment, which would be a motivator, but at the end of the day that won’t breed a healthy culture and it won’t provide you with loyal workforce. Usually when people are unmotivated, it isn’t always on them or something that they are doing wrong. Maybe they don’t belong in the culture, maybe they feel unseen or unheard, maybe they’re scared or unprepared. Are there unmotivated people? Absolutely, but I don’t believe that this is always the case.
What’s the point? Why should you aspire to inspire as a leader?
As a leader within an organisation or even just as a friend, I think that if you only focus on motivating people, then it will only provide finite output. You have to inspire people, you have to give them a cause and vision that their work is worth more, you have to make them feel like they matter and like they are seen, heard and understood. Inspiration at it’s core is built on a foundation of trust and a shared vision. If you can foster this shared vision then the people around you will feel more inspired and their jobs will no longer just be about the money, it will be about the culture.
Ultimately, both motivation and inspiration will help your employees be happier and more satisfied with their work environment. Motivation is used when you want people to act in a particular manner and act immediately, whereas inspiration is when people want to achieve something great, which will make them better than they are at present. While motivation is a good start, the most effective way to lead your team is when motivation is combined with inspiration. When you’re able to help support internal change, your team will become more driven to give their best effort and they will strive to contribute to your company’s vision and mission.
“If you want to change the way of being, you have to change the way of doing.”