Motivating People

“Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.”

Malcolm Gladwell

What makes a job interesting? How can you motivate people to do more? How can you keep your team happy? These are the questions that anyone in a leading role asks. What motivates people is a question that has intrigued humanity for a long time. What makes this subject crucially important is that once you know what motivates people, you can benefit in several ways:

• You understand people better and as a result can create an environment that is more ideal for them.
• You can influence people based on what motivates them to change their behaviour towards a desired direction.
• You can learn to motivate yourself, so you can become more productive and satisfied.

All three are so useful and important in life that the topic deserves a significant amount of focus. This course aims to provide a structure that can be used to address all of the above three areas.

The course is full of case studies and examples. Many principles are presented along with a report of representative or significant studies that support them. The aim is to help people memorise the practical guidelines in this course using association. The studies also show why the topic on motivation is quite complex. At times, certain established practices on motivating people sound fine until of course a significant study uncovers what really happens when that technique is used; sometimes leading to surprising and very interesting results.

This course is based on the latest research in psychology and sociology and provides useful guidelines to implement the findings from these studies and apply it to people you want to lead and motivate.

The course comes with a variety of exercises so delegates can get a chance to apply what they learn during this course to their workplace environment. The course can be used for any context where you need to motivate and energise people.

In this highly practical course participants will learn:

What is Motivation About?

• What are you aiming for when you want to motivate people?
• How do people view motivation?
• What leads to a lack of performance?

What Are People’s Needs?

• What is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?
• What motivates people?
• What makes people satisfied?
• How does lack of specific needs lead to change of behaviour?

Accountability and Responsibility

• What does it mean to be accountable?
• What does it mean to be responsible?
• What is the difference between accountability and responsibility?
• How does the difference help you to do things that motivate people?
• What are the “Five Areas of Handling Expectations”?
• How to communicate expectations?

What Motivates People?

• What psychological frameworks can you use to predict and influence human behaviour?
• What are the contrasting views of managers on how to motivate people and what does this lead to?
• How can you increase people’s satisfaction?
• How can you make a specific job satisfying?
• What is the effect of salary increase as a motivator and what critical areas should you be aware of?

Types of Rewards

• What are the various types of rewards and how do they compare?
• Which rewards work and which don’t?
• Why poor rewarding is popular and how can you avoid it?
• What types of rewards should you aim for and what is the most effective way to motivate people?

Thoughts Become Things

• What does it take to motivate yourself?
• How can you use self-motivation techniques to help motivate people?
• How to engineer your environment to increase your persistence, determination and focus on what matters the most
• How to take advantage of the power positivity
• How to attack negativity

Helping Others Set Goals

• How to help people develop a sense of purpose
• Is having a purpose enough?
• What workplace strategies are useful to help motivate your team?
• What strategies to consider when conducting performance appraisals

Audience: Anyone

Prerequisites: None

Course Duration: 1 Day

Course Level: Beginners & Intermediate 

By the end of this course the delegates will be able to:

• Understand why motivation matters and how people view motivation when it is applied to them or when they apply it to others
• Use a structured approach to analyse human needs and determine the root causes of people’s behaviour
• Use the power of accountability to motivate individuals and learn how to formulate expectations
• Evaluate what motivates people based on a number of established theories on human behaviour and motivation
• Focus on the right type of motivators as opposed to common ineffective rewards
• Use the power of positive thinking to motivate yourself and learn powerful strategies that help you reach your goals
• Use a series of proven strategies to help people set goals and become motivated

This course is designed from the ground-up to provide memorable examples for most of the guidelines presented in the course. When it comes to motivation, people tend to use whatever system was used on them in the past by their parents, teachers and superiors. Research shows, that despite the popularity of some of these motivational techniques, they are quite ineffective and actually damaging in the long term. Although the research is not new (about 30 years old) it is not widely used and is mainly unknown. This course aims to bring such research to the attention of the participants, as well other established techniques, and help to update their view on motivation.

Numerous examples and exercises in the package along with elaborate and entertaining slides help you to deliver a memorable and hopefully effective course on workplace productivity and ultimately employee satisfaction and wellbeing.