Identifying motivation direction

FOR A long time understanding the way the mind works has been evading perfect understanding. In any system it is the quality of the human interaction which produces measurable outcomes. It is not just any outcome that will produce value to the society, but the outcome that is required at a given context.

In order to meet the challenges posed by the economic reforms and globalisation, Indian organisations are faced with the only choice of either becoming globally competitive or leaving the business field altogether. In order to survive the world-class business scenario, an organisation should either export 80 per cent of its products or to offer 80 per cent of its products as import substitution. There was a time when an organisation chose to become a world-class organisation or not. But given the present globalisation context, there is no choice-an organisation has to become world class.

This means that an organisation should offer products and services matching world-class quality, cost, delivery and service parameters. Doing business in the next era is going to be a different ball game. In the era of perfect competition, the following imperatives confront any organisation, which has to face the challenges of the change:

* To substantially increase the volume of output with least input cost

* To reduce the rejection rate from the conventional parts per hundred to parts per million

* To substantially improve the service and delivery parameters to match the world class organisations

* To compete with the multinational organisation not only in the world but also in this country

Indian organisations took nearly three decades to become national players. However, the time available to achieve global presence will be just three to six years! Given this challenge of time, many organisations find themselves in a very tight situation to adapt to this reality and prepare the necessary mindset to a achieve world-class recognition.

In seminars on Managing Change, I find that the appreciation level of this context is not uniform across the organisation. While the top-level management is fully aware and desperate to bring about changes in the organisation, the employees in the lower levels of the organisation do not feel this anxiety. The need for change is not in the priority list of the union leaders and the workmen segment. Unless the urgency and the context for introducing changes is understood uniformly across the organisation, there will be resistance and friction during the change management process.

Neuro Ligusitic Programming

The major issue faced by many organisations in the above context is: how to motivate the employees in the organisation to accept the need for change as a way of life. The employees have to put the organisation before them and accept the painful process of change and be ready even to sacrifice their present comfort. In this context there is an immediate need to understand the concept of motivation from the perspective of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP is the latest breakthrough technology in understanding how the mind and the brain interrelate with each other to result in an external behaviour.

Several theories have been propounded by several experts such as the hierarchy of needs, the two factor Theory, task centred and people centred leadership style, Theory X and theory Y, to name a few. NLP has a different of way of understanding the motivation direction among people. One of the NLP Presuppositions is: 'behind every behaviour is a positive intention and people work perfectly.' If we understand this in presupposition, we will be able to offer different methods to understand and motivate people in an organisation. These may be called the ' motivation direction', some of which are discussed below.

a) 'Moving away and moving toward': There are two basic human instincts which motivates any one: pain and pleasure. We will do a thing or abstain from doing a thing either to avoid pain or to seek pleasure. People are different and their motivation directions are also different. Go and ask a person why he wants to buy a thing, for example, a computer and watch the answer. From his answer you can infer if he is a 'moving toward' person or a 'moving away' person. A moving toward person will say that he wants to buy a computer to get some thing by answering: ' I want accuracy', ' I want to be computer literate' etc. On the other hand, a moving away person will answer that he wants to buy a computer so that he can avoid some thing. His answer will be some thing like this: 'I don't want mistakes', ' I don't want to be left behind in the computer age' etc. A moving toward person will do physical exercises ' to keep fit', whereas a moving away person will do the same so that ' he does not fall sick'!

If you have to motivate a moving toward person, you have to tell him what he will get by doing a particular activity. On the other hand, if you have to motivate a moving away person, you will have to tell him what he will avoid by acting in a particular way.

It is not to be misunderstood that one pattern is better than the other or one pattern is good and the other pattern is bad. Both motivation directions are present in people and we have to understand to whom we are talking to. Depending on the motivation direction of the person, we should decide our strategy of communication.

b) 'Self-internal' and ' others-external': Ask a person the question: how do you know if you have done a good work' and listen to the answer. Some will say: 'I know when I did a good job and I will feel satisfied'. They are called self-internal people. Their reference point is themselves. They are motivated do to or not to do something depending on their own internal assessment of the situation. For the same question, some others will answer: 'I know I have done a good job when others say so'. These people are called others-external people. Their reference point is outside them. They will look to others to check how they are doing. They will look forward to the approval and feed back from others.

These two types of people differ from each other in respect of their internal programme. 'Self-internal' people may not expect too much of praise and direction from others. They may even feel embarrassed if they are praised too much. On the other hand, the ' others-external' people will expect feedback and praise from others and if they do not get enough of it, they may even be de- motivated. We should know to whom we are talking and accordingly use our communication effectively.

c) 'Sameness- difference': Show some one some shapes which are more or less similar and ask them to say as to how they are related to each other and watch for the answer. Some will point out the differences between them and some others will point out what are common between them. The former is called 'difference' people who will watch for how things are different from each other. They will be able to notice the exceptions and deviations. The later are called the 'sameness' people and they will be more interested in knowing how things are related to each other and noticing similarities between them. When you want motivate a 'difference' person, you have to say how he will be unique if he does something in a particular way. On the other hand, if you want to motivate some one who is a 'sameness' person, you will have to say how he will fall in line with others who do the same thing. Depending on who is in front of you, you will have to frame your communication pattern.

d). 'Detail-overall': Ask a person how he will choose to purchase a particular brand of TV or fridge and watch for his answer. Some will explain the various parameters one by one and tell you all the details very meticulously. They are called 'detail' people. Some others will say how they will decide by the overall performance and the feedback of others and make the buying decision. They are called the 'over all' people. When giving directions or while motivating people, you should know as to whom you are directing your communication. If the content of the communication does not match the internal strategy, the quality of motivation will not be effective. A 'detail' person will look forward to a lot of detailed guidance to do his work which may irritate or be redundant to the 'over all' person.

e) 'Proactive-reactive': Give some useful tips to some one and watch for the response. Some will take the advice and immediately act on the same wanting to take advantage of the information. They are called 'proactive' people. They are action oriented and need very little follow up and reminders. On the other hand, some others' response will be lukewarm and they may not show immediate response. They are called ' reactive ' and their response time will be slow and may not take immediate action and may not display the speed. Depending on the nature of the person in front of you, you will have to decide the content and speed of your communication. The strategy that you adapt to a proactive people may not suit the reactive people.

Neuro Linguistic Programme is a very interesting and emerging field to understand the internal programmes of people. People are different and their motivation directions are different. One of the important presuppositions of NLP is 'the map is not the territory'. This means that just like a map may miss out some details about a real territory, we may also miss out some important internal parameters of people while dealing with them. NLP can be used to understand the concept of motivation from a different perspective. Some of the dimensions are given in this article. While dealing with people, it will be very useful to be sensitive to their internal processing of information rather than getting disappointed with the external behaviours.

N. C. Sridharan

(The author can be contacted at: timeline@md3.vsnl.net.in)

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Business
Previous : On diesel consumption
Next     : Philips India's instrument gets P1 plus