Karrie swears she is getting – and using – input from her people to make decisions. “The teachers and principals said they wanted these changes, so I approved them,” she insists. Karrie is a School Superintendent, with 8 School Principals reporting to her. One teacher disagreed, saying “We never had a voice in the changes […]
People are mad that Elaine avoids work – and sick of her “good excuses”. There are two different views about what their manager, Beth, should do: She should meet with Elaine at the start and end of every day to check on whether she’s doing her assignments or not. She should give assignments to everyone […]
We did a survey of about 25 managers, and one of the biggest problems they reported was “Getting people motivated, keeping them motivated, and/or having them motivated in the right direction”. Have you ever had anyone try to motivate you? Don’t you hate that? It’s more like a manipulation than any kind of inspiration or […]
I was in a good conversation the other day. Eric was leading a new team in the Purchasing department, and he told a small group of us – we were having lunch at Panera – that he was having trouble building good relationships with the new people on his team. “I want a strong team,” he said, […]
How much time do we spend waiting for other people to do something? I know a guy who just had a new floor installed in his house, and he was waiting to hear from the installer about completing the job. The moldings that connected the floor – a beautiful bamboo – to the carpeted areas […]
Here’s a failure in what I thought was a productive conversation. I’m thinking I’ll have to train everyone I interact with about the Four Conversations. Starting with myself. I told a person from the (radioactive) Waste Management Symposia – an annual conference where I participate and speak – that I was going to Saskatchewan to […]
Dear Everybody, I’m at a conference in San Francisco this week. I’ll be presenting at the Conference for Global Transformation, then visiting relatives, then skibbling around the city with my sister for a few days. While I’m away, it’s your turn to practice some stretch exercises with The Four Conversations. I recommend that you try […]
Now you know: motivation is really only about having people take action and produce results, with a commitment to honoring their word to you. It’s not about getting people to “feel” a certain way so they’ll like you enough to do something. And it’s not about your own personality or charisma somehow inspiring them to […]
“Motivation” is about motion – getting something, or someone, to move. Our research shows that the type of conversation you use will materially impact the likelihood of your success. Here’s how it works. Conversation for Understanding ONLY – Likelihood of Success = LOW. Using an Understanding Conversation on its own is the least likely to […]
We have found that ALL attempts at motivation involve either Understanding Conversations or Performance Conversations, or some combination of the two. When you think about it, that’s really remarkable. No matter what you are trying to get done, or whom you are trying to get to do it, every single attempt at motivation we have […]
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