Sometimes, when I explain what Motivation Matters does, the response is sharp and to the point – just hire motivated people surely!
If life comprised things that were immutable and constant, how easy it would be.
People do not think or sense in absolutes. I have difficulty judging distance, but I know if the dog is nearer to me than the lamppost.
Our motivation, our innate willingness, our response to the management and work context, is also relative, not absolute.
When we move to a new role, job, organization or manager we bring with us our memories of our experiences. We use those as the relative measure.
That is not to say that we do not vary, one to another, in our response to life’s experiences. We are all different. We are on a continuum ranging from positive to negative, volatile to placid, with good and bad experiences.
Research shows that people have the same range of basic motivators and demotivators. Our internal drivers are affected by cultural, social and economic circumstances as secondary factor.
This raises some rather curious considerations when we are recruiting.
If we recruit a well-motivated individual from a great organization, are we going to be able to deliver the same motivating work context? Will the recruit feel less well motivated and have their performance suffer?
Should we recruit a poorly motivated job seeker from a terrible organisation? At least the work context and motivation management will be so much better, the new employee should be delighted and strive hard to please.
Is it dangerous to use performance in a work situation to judge motivation? Is it better to search for demonstrable motivation in a domestic situation? Have they run a marathon, looked after an invalid relative, or recovered from some other life crisis? These are motivated people after all!
We know, don’t we, that performance in a job is the product of innate willingness and the management of that willingness? A poor score in either factor will produce poor performance.
Have you experienced this?