Two Simple, Scientific Approaches to

Motivational Leadership
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rochellebailis/2014/10/29/two-simple-scientific-approaches-tomotivationalleadership/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=222&utm_content=7318
Whether youre directing a small team or an entire company, you already know that one of the most persistent challenges of
leadership is motivating people. Youve probably experienced a host of universal frustrations: Why do they lose steam when
Im not here? Why arent they pushing themselves more? Iknow they can do better. Heres a secret: they know this too.
90% of your job as a leader is relentlessly encouraging people to do the things they already know they should be doing. Sure,
leadership requires strategy and vision, but truly successful leaders also develop their ability to inspire, push and motivate
their team in countless, imaginative ways.
To help you in this quest, here are a few simple motivational techniques based on scientific studies, some of which had rather
surprising results. These tactics can have lasting effects on the productivity and happiness of your teamand maybe even
yourself.

Make the Fruits of Your Labor Tangible

A week ago I was fortunate enough to meet Dan Ariely, a renowned behavioral economist, TED lecturer and Duke professor
(formerly a researcher at MIT). Much of what Ariely impressed upon our team was the importance of making
accomplishments more tangible.
I considered how to apply this notion of persistent visibility not only to our customer experience, but to our own productivity.
Especially for professionals whose work is primarily conceived, created and distributed on a computer, it can be hard to feel a
concrete sense of accomplishment when all of your projects are stored in the cloud or a database.

Many of Arielys studies confirm that without consistently seeing our creations, human beings tend to lose motivation to
continue producing things. In his TED talk, Ariely recounts an experiment where he asked participants to build Bionicle
Lego robots for decreasing amounts of money.
For half the participants, the experimenters put their completed Bioncles aside and mentioned theyd be dissembled later. In
the other group, once the participants began building a new Bionicle, the experimenters disassembled the previous one and
put it away.

Participants whose Bionicles remained temporarily assembled chose to create over 50% more Bionicles, in spite of the fact
that both groups were being paid equally and all the participants knew their Bionicles would be disassembled.
Even in situations where we rationally know that it makes no difference, human beings inadvertently feel a heightened sense
of progress simply by seeingsomething that we have created. How can you mitigate this subconscious motivator in an age
where much of our work is digitized?

Many project managers, designers and programmers unintentionally do this by printing out their wireframes, project plans or
design mocks, and taping them up around the office. On the editorial side, I encourage my team to record on a white board the
number of articles weve produced above our goal number for the week. This number serves as a constant reminder of where
we are, and where we have yet to go. Drawing a sharp line between our progress and our end goal is another psychological
trick Ill delve into next.

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Celebrate Accomplishments, Not Progress

Did you know that simply announcing your goals makes you less likely to achieve them?

You would assume that publically sharing your intention creates a sense of obligation to accomplish it, but studies by NYU
professor Peter Gollwitzer show that this is not always the case. Humans have a strange way of patting ourselves on the back
after even the slightest bit of progress towards our goal, to the point where simply announcing our objective feels like a step
worth celebrating. The problem is that the act of celebrating, or even acknowledging your progress can actually undermine it.
Why does this happen? University of Chicago psychologists Ayelet Fishbach and Minjung Koo conducted several studies in
which they found that to-date thinking, which means recognizing how far you have come in pursuit of your goal, can actually
spark a sense of premature accomplishment. Weve all been guilty of this type of thinking; whether its rewarding ourselves for
sticking to the first few days of a diet, or feeling proud for finally getting started on a project that weve been putting off. This
feeling of reflective achievement, even if its subconscious, actually diminishes our drive to finish our goal.
The challenge manifests differently for leaders. Obviously your employees cant abandon their assignments due to a lack of
motivation. However, a culture of to-date thinking can lead to depreciation of productivity, efficiency and creativity. Luckily,
it is within your power to prevent your team from losing steam. Instead of praising them for how much theyve accomplished
so far, employ to-go thinking; direct their focus to their end goal, and help them plan the next steps that will help them
achieve it.

While its important to acknowledge an employees achievements, Fishbach and Koos studies find that the majority of their
praise should come after theyve accomplished their mission. If your employee is in the middle of a tough project, consider
how you can frame your encouragement around what they are going to accomplish next, and how much you believe in their
ability to tackle this challenge. If their project is ongoing, break it up into achievable benchmarks so that they can celebrate
milestones but are also perpetually looking ahead.
Create Something to Reach For
If you ever find yourself frustrated with the momentum of your team, your student, or even your child, remember that their
stagnation may not be due to laziness. Most people actually want to do better and achieve more, but their variety of ambitions
and desires causes them to lose focus.

As a leader, it is your responsibility to help people overcome the very human conditions that hamper their motivation, and to
leverage the right psychological approaches to encourage follow-through. You need to make both their accomplishments and

their ambitions real. Paint a picture of a goal that feels so possible, so close and so tangible theyll want to reach outand keep
reachinguntil they can touch it.