Passion | Behavior Matters! - Part 2

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A New Motivational Model Using the 4-Drives: Upcoming in 2011

Ok, this is a little bit of a teaser…we are in the process of doing a major overhaul of how we look at the 4-Drive Model.  We’ve talked about the need to update this model before (see here and here).  We are underway in getting that developed and should be launching it the first quarter of 2011.

Here is a sneak peak…the four main motivations as we’ve defined them are now renamed and constitute different elements:

1.  Personal Motivation- focus on the intrinsic motivators that we have and encompasses the Drive to Challenge & Comprehend

2. Reward Motivation- focus is on the extrinsic motivators that we have and encompasses the Drive to Acquire & Achieve

3. Social Motivation- focus is on the social drives that motivate us and includes the Drive to Bond & Belong

4. Passion Motivation (this name is still being hotly debated – but for now its what we are running with)… – focus is on the motivational element of purpose and passion – including defending one’s honor and tribe

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Empowered or Entitled? guest blog by Paul Schoening

Increasingly we are seeing data that engaged employees drive business success.   As the economy recovers at the current snail’s pace, companies are also looking at their employee engagement scores deciding they’d better do something about it now before wholesale exodus occurs by their greatest resource.

Proactive talent managers planned for this factor 3 years ago.

Where are your engagement planning efforts at currently?

Emotional Engagement

Just this week, another study was released by The Brand Union, a brand strategy and design consultancy. This recent study surveyed 680 U.S. professionals revealing emotional engagement outweighs other forms of employee interaction, offering critical insights for executives who want to improve employee engagement health and create business efficiencies during lean times. 

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Motivated by adversity: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

First, if you have not watched Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog starring Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day, and Nathan Fillion – please,  please do.  It is funny….ha, ha, ha, he, he, ha…. (ok, I need to work on my laugh – you’ll see the connection after watching).

The Spark

Joss Whedan on why he developed Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog:

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Passion or Lunancy – You Decide?

I was in South Dakota last week on a family vacation.  First off, I forget how beautiful South Dakota is and all that it has to offer.  Secondly, there are some really, really humongous carvings there…

Mount Rushmore

The original idea for Mount Rushmore is credited to South Dakota historian Doane Robinson who thought that it would increase tourism (he was a pretty insightful man).  His idea was to carve local famous people into some of the granite mountains of the Black Hills.  In 1924, after working on Stone Mountain, GA, sculptor Gutzon Borglum was brought in to carve the mountain.

Mt. Rushmore

Borglum expanded on the original idea and wanted it to be a National monument that focused on our presidents.  He insisted that his life’s work would not be spent immortalizing regional heroes but insisted that the work demanded a subject national in nature and timeless in its relevance to history.

Borglum started work on Mt. Rushmore in 1927 at the age of 60.  He worked the rest of his life on the mountain.

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South Dakota

I just spent the last week in South Dakota with my family.  It was a needed break from the day-to-day stuff that has been going on for the last six months.

A time to unwind and relax.  A time to reconnect and think.  A time to focus on things other than work and obligations…

Buffalo

Buffalo at Wind Cave National Park

REFRESH

I’ve talked taking time off before in order to recharge ourselves (see here: refreshabbatical).  I’ve realized that it is very important that we do this – and yet it is so hard.  I wanted to take the time off completely – without checking in or doing any work.

Oh well…

I ended up needing to be on some conference calls, figuring out a problem with one of our rental units, and checking back into see how an issue was being resolved at work.  As a result I was up way earlier than I wanted to be while on vacation.   Putting it mildly, that sucked.  Setting an alarm for 5:00 AM while on vacation to take a conference call is not my idea of fun.

But by doing it early,  I was able to spend all day with the family – every day.

And I didn’t check twitter, or my blog, or the internet or even the news.  It was almost blissful!

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What Drives Meaning?

What is it that drives meaning in work?  True, real meaning that goes beyond the obvious “completed this project” or “achieved that goal”?  I have some ideas, but would love to hear what other people have to say first.  I’ll keep a track of the responses we get and put up another post on this with some ideas at a later time.

So please, leave a thought in the comment section!

Why I Hate Training Wheels

Riding a bike

My 4-year old son just got his bike a few weeks ago.  He is in heaven.  Ask him what his favorite thing in the world to do is, and he will tell you, “Ride my bike!”  He wants to ride it everywhere…which is fantastic. He is definitely motivated!

I have one problem…he won’t ride it without training wheels.

We tried.  The first four days I was out with him every day, running up and down the sidewalk, holding on to the bike as he peddled.  But he was too scared.  He would stop peddling anytime the bike tilted.  He would always look back to make sure I was there (which caused him to turn the wheel and tilt the bike to one side and then stop peddling).  He would stop and say he wanted to go slower.

And the problem was he was actually doing a good job riding on his own.  He was able to go a fair way with me just running beside him and not supporting the bike.  I would let go and he would be riding just fine.

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Unmotivated and staying that way

Are there certain people who just can’t be motivated?  Are there Wally’s who render the motivation fairy powerless?  While I would like to believe that isn’t the case, I have to wonder…

Motivation is Personal

One of the core beliefs that I have is that motivation is very personal.  People are individuals with different motivational triggers and drives.  While there are basic underlying motivational drives (see 4-Drive Model), those drives impact each of us differently and create a unique motivational profile.

This implies that if one can understand that motivational profile of a person, one should be able to understand what to do to motivate them…right?

That is the implication…however I believe reality is a little different.

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How to start a movement – Dancing Man at Sasquatch

Derick Sivers (sivers.org) has some great insights on leadership – all garnered from watching a shirtless man dancing at a music festival.

We literally watch a movement start with one person out there baring his soul and his bad dancing with everyone to see.  But doing it with a passion and an abandon that is compelling.  This act of enthusiastic dancing draws another to emulate him.  Now it is more than just one crazy dancer, maybe there is something there.    Then the third person joins in, and now it is definitely something more.  People start looking at this as something different.  It is something that they could do to.  Something that looks, not so much like a crazy man dancing, but something that is fun and free.  In fact, as you watch what happens after that, you might just call it a movement.

And friends, as Arlo Guthrie states in Alice’s Restaurant:

“And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say “Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.” And walk out.

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.”

So lets go start a movement – will you be the first to dance or the first to follow?

Personality and motivation – findings from my dissertation and how I was wrong

As some of you might know, I am working on my PhD in I/O Psychology and have been for many years.  Too many years actually – which is why I think my wife insisted that I attend a five day Dissertation Writers Retreat held by Capella University just outside of Chicago.  So for the last five days I’ve been working on Chapter 4 of my dissertation which is the results section.   I’ve been having a blast inputting data, crunching numbers, running statistical tests and analyzing the results and what I found out is surprising…at least it was for me.

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