“Fits and starts of motivation”

In the fourth grade, Mrs. Keshan described the early stages of my declining interest in academics. “Alan read early and is obviously very bright, but is overly sensitive to criticism, and plagued by fits and starts of motivation for any work outside the classroom.” I hated homework, which in fourth grade was a lot of mimeographed pages of word problems and sentence diagrams, and I still don’t like being dressed down in public. Was I unmotivated?

Motivation seems to be something Americans obsess about. When an athlete breaks some seemingly unattainable record, she is asked, “On all those early morning work-outs, what kept you motivated?” Whenever there is a horrific mass shooting, the news media immediately begins to speculate about the “motive.” Managers and leaders are seen as somehow responsible for “motivating their people.”

Sometimes managers and leaders are partially let off the hook by a description of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. What that means is, “you need to hire people with the internal drive to be productive,” intrinsic motivation. Then you won’t have to waste so much money on pay-for-performance systems, designed by the muleskinner who dangled a carrot in front of the mule, while whacking him with a stick on the hindquarters (extrinsic motivation).

“What’s my motivation?”

I first heard this from a freshman actor in a college production. All the upper-class students in the production cringed. We knew that our director, Dr. Hill, had little use for “method” acting.

“Don’t ask actors to “think.” The best ones learn the lines and “feel,” but they don’t know what they do.”

 “The Method” is a system of preparation that helps an actor understand his character’s motivation, what makes him or her behave the way they do in the play. The Method was created by Konstantin Stanislavski, a Moscow Art Theatre actor and director in the 1920s and 30s. It was later expanded by Lee Strasberg, a director at The Actor’s Studio in New York City.

Like many acting students I read Stanislavski’s An Actor Prepares. I idolized many of the actors and directors who used the method, Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, Paul Newman, Julie Harris, Arthur Penn and Marilyn Monroe. Like all my cast mates in this play, I kept my method preparation to myself and didn’t use the “motivation” word in front of Dr. Hill.

“Miss Seitz, do you know the line?”

“Yes, Dr. Hill.”

“Then I suggest you say it or be motivated to get off my stage.”

Still, I think that most leaders today would benefit from Stanislavski’s seven questions:

• Who am I? Consider your background, parentage, experiences, everything that gives you self-definition that others see, and your strengths and weaknesses.
• Where am I? Geography, place, culture that drives yours and others’ behavior.
• When am I? What is my place in the history that came before, and its impact on the present and future.
• What do I want? Clarity of goal and the ability to see the benefit to others, and communicate it, that is a defining moment for anyone leading people.
• Why do I want it? There may be benefits to the leader from the vision, and the ability to be transparent about anything not purely altruistic is a foundation of trust.
• How will I get it? The law of reciprocity, give to get, is something many leaders could learn. Neither leading nor following is a transaction, but it may start there.
• What do I need to overcome? For Stanislavski, this tension is the central conflict that drives the play. For today’s leaders, it is the competing demands on followers’ time, energy, and actions that must be overcome for them to choose to change and follow your leadership.

McClelland’s Motive Needs

It is useful for a leader to think deeply about the factors driving their own motivation and also of those they lead.

Early in my career as a consultant, I worked for people who were influenced by psychologist Dr. David McClelland, when he taught at Harvard University. McClelland’s motivation research identified three personal motive needs that he said all humans possessed to some degree:

• Need for Power (N-Pow), the drive to influence one’s surroundings,
• Need for Affiliation (N-Aff), the drive to build close relationships,
• Need for Achievement (N-Ach), the drive to succeed, to excel in relation to a set of standards.

McClelland said we all have all three of these motive needs that arise in different circumstances. Some people have a dominant need. For example, he noted that many entrepreneurs were N-Pow dominant, but had strong secondary N-Ach drive. And he noted that many institutional managers appealed to N-Aff, “We’re a team,” while setting N-Ach individual goals.

One of the ways that McClelland’s theory plays out in organizations is in goal setting. N-Pow people, driven by status, tend to set “stretch goals,” goals that will impress others by their “big, hairy, audacity.” N-Aff people tend to set “team-goals” focused on contribution to a greater whole. N-Ach people tend to set goals a little higher than average, but one that they will be able to make. N-Ach folks are all about the check-mark. Some of us, when we do something not on our to-do list, will actually write it down so we can check it off.

Another organizational circumstance where personal motive needs come into play is in receiving feedback. N-Pow people often like to be acknowledged publicly to increase their status. N-Aff people often like to share credit. N-Ach people may prefer private acknowledgement against the known standard.

Remember, we all have three needs, so if you want to know how someone wants to receive feedback, ask them.

Organizational Climate

One of McClelland’s disciples that I worked for was Dr. George H. Litwin. In 1967, he and his research assistant Bob Stringer conducted an experiment. They created three organizations using these motive needs as primary management styles, British (N-Pow), Balance (N-Aff), Blazer. In the simulation, these companies all manufactured identical products. Managers were told to appeal to these needs in managing the company. (See Motivation and Organizational Climate, George H. Litwin and Robert A. Stringer Jr, 1968; Harvard University Press.)

The N-Ach company substantially out-performed the other two, but began to show signs of stress over time. The N-Pow company started strong, but imploded. The N-Aff company, started slow, but came on strong at the end. These results have been replicated several times including a training exercise I was involved with building, used at British Airways, First Republic Bank and other clients.

The organizational climate research shows that management practice can relatively quickly change business results by appealing to motivation. McClelland maintained that because we all contain all three needs, balance was called for.

All behavior is motivated

Climate Change and clean tech, Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing, gene manipulation, CRISPR, biotech, Connectivity of everything, everywhere, all of the time, – the twenty-first century seems to be about change. We need people to do more of some things, less of some things, and some things differently. Leading change is likely to be a critical skill to develop.

“What’s my motivation?” I dunno. Help others learn to lead change or get off the stage?