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 […]
This will be a multi-part post about “motivation”, i.e., getting people into action. Here’s the starting point: What does it take to get people to do what needs to be done? How do you get people into action? Why are people not doing what they are assigned? We often get these questions from managers who […]
“Nobody is accountable here,” Shelly told me. “I used to work in a company where people kept track of their requests and promises, and they were responsible for making sure they got what they needed and did what they said they would do.” I’ve heard this more than once, of course: some people are just […]
“I wish I could fire this guy,” Evan told me. “I ask him to do something – I’m very specific – and then he doesn’t do it. I asked him to finish that survey and bring it back to me. I get nothing. Is he lazy? Or is he stupid?” I asked Evan to tell […]
I’ve heard two complaints recently that seem to come from the same root cause: reluctance to make a request. #1. A technical specialist– let’s call her Sara – tells me that both she and her Supervisor agree that the Senior Manager of their department is a jerk. This Senior Manager makes decisions without consulting the […]
Shawna has been a senior manager in a state government agency for years, and confessed that the people in her department seem to ignore many of their assignments and her requests for them to produce results. “In fact, it seems like they don’t even hear me.” She was right: they weren’t listening. “They don’t take […]
A manager in a recent Four Conversations training session approached me and asked, “One of my employees frequently fails to accomplish the things I delegate to him. Do you have any suggestions for improving his performance?” “Sure”, I replied, “but first, when you say he fails, what do you mean? Is he late, is the […]
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