WHY MOTIVATION MATTERS MORE THAN TALENT
The Five Motivational Flames
Being Fired Up', 'being passionate about', being strongly motivated' refers to the energy and fire that lies behind every success, and yet we know so little about what it is.
The Cambridge English Dictionary gives two definitions of motivation:
• The enthusiasm for doing something, and
• The need or reason for doing something
In her research, leading to her pioneering book about what fires us up, 'Find Your Flame, Why Motivation Matters More Than Talent', Mrs. Sophie Bennett defines five different Flames of Motivation.
That might tell us what it is, but doesn't move us any closer to the big questions about how we get more of it when we need it.
One of the most respected researchers in the field Dr Edward L. Deci, Professor of psychology and the University of Rochester and director of its human motivation program says in his book Why We Do What We Do - Understanding Self-Motivation that, "self-motivation, rather than external motivation, is at the heart of creativity, responsibility, healthy behaviour and lasting change."
It turns out that intrinsic motivation is an important thing for all of us. I also believe (having studied so many motivated people) is that, ironically, it is something you need to cultivate.
Even intrinsic motivation doesn't last and it's how we manage our thoughts and emotions, how we set goals, plan and measure our progress that becomes the difference that makes the difference.
The challenge is that we are all motivated by a slightly different set of factors, and I set out to work out what they were. The key to motivation has always been a holy grail of leadership."
In her research, Sophie Bennett found 5 motivational drivers:
Flow, Inclusion, Results, Expression and Discovery.
Each of us has all of the drivers in different amounts and in a slightly different order of importance. It turns out that there's a code.
Think of it like a motivational DNA that's simple, elegant yet infinitely diverse. It's a code that expresses itself without your conscious intervention most of the time (there will be times when you need to find motivation from nowhere so you can get stuff done and we will get to that), but there are some things that we are motivated to do without thinking about it much – if at all. We find some things effortless to get started, and then the power of momentum takes care of the rest. That's what the code is about, understanding effort-free motivation, and what gets in the way of it.
LDpe has created the Motivation Flames Report with the intention to provide leaders and leading professionals with a thorough insight in the status of their motivational flames: what ignites them most and helps them cultivate their intrinsic motivation. Below you'll find an example.
Cultivating the Motivation Fire
More and more of us want to be our own boss and we want to become the master of ouyr own destiny.
Dutch entrepreneur and futurologist Christian Kromme has a chapter in his recent book Humanification called The Rise of the Entrepreneur. A reference to his book, you will find on our page 'The Nature of Innovation' under Innovation & Change.
Christian points towards a strong trend of independent entrepreneurship and voluntary collaboration with others and that we are moving to a world where more and more of us are driven by purpose and less by money. In order to stay successful in life, we all will have to become more and more self-motivated and self directed.
Cultivating your own Unique Triggers
Knowing about what your own unique motivation triggers are, will help you to cultivate and develop them. The Motivation Flames Report, based on the measurements of your behavioural preferences (by a personality questionnaire), like we do at LDpe, will help you to become aware of how strong they are.
And even if the basics of your character generally will remain rather constant, you will during your professional life, as a consequence of your experiences and learning, gradually develop your preferences.
The above Motivation Flames Report can be run stand alone for those who only wish to know their own patters of motivation flames.
LDpe has also built in the Flames reporting in the LDT-based Career Counseling process, as described in the former chapter. We there make use of the simulation module, helping you to speed up your personal develoment.
That's why we also show to the participants, what the consequences of the simulation scenarios will be for the motivation flames scores. An example of this you can see below.