The Science Behind the Motivation and the Performance
Probably we all wish to find a magic solution to improve the performance of the team or boost the motivation across so everyone in our organization would work with high motivation and perform at peak.
Well; the traditional leadership approach didn’t much take the responsibility for the motivation but felt responsible for the success overall delegating the individuals their responsibility on achievement through the task management. If they signed the contract, well then, they should perform what they are supposed to do was the common belief of the behavioural driver. We can apply different management tools and well then it is totally up to the individual to decide, whether to be in or out.
Let’s look at the motivation from science perspective for a while; there are 2 sources of motivation; intrinsic – personal reward and extrinsic – external reward. Self Determination Theory describes the intrinsic motivation in 3 components: autonomy, mastery and relatedness. According to the study 2014 meta-analysis by Cerasoli et al. that intrinsic motivation and performance are positively correlated meaning that the more motivated you are the better performance you will perform. Then they found the extrinsic motivation boosts the intrinsic motivation too. However, when well-being, ethical behaviour, teamwork like value based achievements were in place then the extrinsic motivation did not boost the performance as it was expected.
Challenging tasks that require a specific skill, clear and immediate feedback create intrinsic motivation. In order to boost the intrinsic motivation, we can use coaching to clarify the motivation of the person and provide them the structural and emotional support.
So to translate it into our words; there is something much powerful than using carrot and the stick to motivate people. The external motivators do work well when there is inner motivation in place and does not work when there is no inner motivation in place. Today we are discussing values, happiness, well-being, health of people more than just transactional goal achievements. Why? Because we discovered that the inner motivation as described in the self determination theory has the biggest impact on sustainable success and peak performance. Self-discovery is the basis for the success. Values based living/ working, creating the winning culture and being part of it is crucial for thriving.
The pandemic has created a deeper awareness in us. The traditional leadership will not work anymore. The system has changed, and the rules has challenged as well.
People started to question their north star and the “why“ since the pandemic forced us to look for a meaning in overall what we do, how we do and more importantly why we do it. Today we are discussing the values before the culture in business. What are our values and why are they important for us? Because values drive the behaviour. That is so simple as it is. Value kicks the action. Values make you either wake up with a light sleep or sleep deeper in the evening. They are such powerful. As we discover the importance of values in business; we start to identify them and see if they do match or mismatch with what we do for life.
So, for peak performance, we need to identify the values, individual mission, and vision. Then we can set up the goals as next step. However, setting up a goal and achievement needs a deeper look into the 3 factors of goal achievement what I share now with you. So, we need to build on the infrastructure of self-awareness to achieve our goals.
As I just mentioned most people set up goals and do not achieve them despite they are achievable goals. Why? Because there has the be the will, way and wont clarified to achieve any goal. Will is the driver; it sets the clear motivational and emotional reasons why you want to achieve the goal. The way clarifies the cognitive skills, the information, knowledge you will require to achieve the goal. The wont directs the actions. What behaviours and action you need to develop or have in order to achieve your goal.
If there is a struggle to achieve the goal, we need to diagnose the source of the struggle.
As old proverb says “where there is a will, there is a way“.
Highly performing successful people do set up goals for regularly since setting goals increase the motivation, self-esteem, and self-confidence as well as autonomy (Locket & Latham, 2006.
There is a strong connection between goal setting and success as it was studied in research of Matthews in 2015. To add to this research finding, I would like to mention that goals clarify the direction and the required actions to achieve them. By practicing daily set actions, we master the skill by slowly building the muscle of new set of skills on the way to mastery.
I would like to also mention the E-E-E Model of goal setting that is a very person centered approach that clearly explains how goal setting grows the person. The model is from the journal of American Psychological Association (APA) from year 2017. The journal is “ Beyond the Goal Setting to Goal Flourishing. Written by Nowack K.
The Model suggest that goal setting;
Enlightens us by providing meaning insight to our strengths and weaknesses. Encourages us by motivation, skills building and implementing the steps to achieve the goals. Enables us with setting the goals and achieving develops the self-confidence, social support and evaluation.
Nowack also mentions the importance of being motivated and readiness to achieve the goal makes the real difference in achieving the successful results. These people who are motivated and ready for change will always translate their stated goals into practice plans.
This model clearly states the relation between the development and the goal setting.
The science behind the motivation, the performance and the impact on the new emerging leadership concept will be discussed a lot in the upcoming days and will be implemented to the training models for motivation and performance.
Ebru Sznapkova
Founder and Leader Prague Training Academy
