Just about every framework of employee motivation tells us that a sense of meaning and purpose is what drives this precious internal energy.  There is no doubt that this explanation is solid and has scientific proof. The problem I see is not the concept of meaning driving motivation, but the advice most authors, speakers, and trainers give for how to help a person make meaning and connect to his or her purpose while on the job.

A person’s sense of meaning and purpose can only be defined by that person. It is not organizational mission, vision, program, or a set of values that give a person meaning or purpose. Rather, it’s the connection between a person’s internal sense of meaning and purpose with the organization’s sense of mission, vision, and values that can activate the motivation.

It seems easy to create this connection with employees since we assume we know what gives people meaning and purpose in life. However, recent research tells us that people find meaning and purpose in differing ways. There are many factors that drive our sense of meaning, purpose, and ultimately what we value.

Believe it or not, there are people who find purpose in building wealth over altruistic endeavors. I know we don’t like to think this is true, but it is. There are many who find meaning in tranquility and relaxation, while others are bored to tears or feel lazy pursuing these activities.

Some find meaning and purpose in saving and conserving resources while others find moderate or no meaning in these endeavors. Some find meaning in the continual pursuit of learning and understanding and others find it lacks fulfillment.

A popular myth of motivation is that we are all highly motivated by personal growth, social justice, or family-oriented activities. Many do find great meaning and sense of purpose in these, yet not all do.

Dr. Stephen Reiss of Ohio State University has spent the past two decades investigating the internal drivers of motivation. Through valid assessment of thousands of people around the world, his studies have derived 16 basic desires that drive our motivations, values, behavior, personality traits and sense of meaning and purpose.

Reiss and his colleague Susan Haverford’s investigated 320 desires that made up a base-line of possible human drives that would explain motivation. Through a process of confirmatory factor analysis this list was reduced to 16 motives that are significantly different than one another, are consistent across cultures, and have psychological significance. Here is the list of the 16 desires.

To truly appeal to each person’s sense of meaning and purpose, leaders must not overgeneralize what constitutes meaning to a group of people. Secondly, leaders must become familiar with each employee to better understand what is meaningful to that person and appeal to this meaning within the work environment. This may even involve moving a person to a job that better aligns to the person’s values and enables the person to better pursue his/her basic desires.

In my next post, I’ll share the 16 Factors that drive intrinsic motivation and that are core to what each of us find meaningful and give purpose to our lives.

Most people believe motivation is a process by which one person instills energy into another. This is why so many believe we need motivational speakers, inspiring communication strategies, and energetic leaders to drive achievement and results.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with calling ourselves a motivator, the fact is that effective leaders do something more important and influential.

It’s time to rethink motivation. The research is clear. If we cut through the motivation madness we understand that motivation is not about instilling energy or driving it into another person. It’s not about some kind of secret sauce that, when applied, instantly engages an employee in an activity, goal, or mission. It is simply enabling a person to awaken what he/she already has inside. There are 3 specific ways we can begin to rethink motivation as leaders.

3 Ways to Rethink Motivation

1. Think Internal More Than External – All motivation is derived internally. You cannot make someone motivated. You can only activate what is already present. Environment is important to enable motivation, but internal motives elicit energy to act and are more powerful than the external environment. We have all experienced a time when our environment didn’t support our motivation to do something, yet we broke through that environment to achieve and succeed.  The environment can certainly hinder our internal drive, but internal drives are, in most cases, more powerful than the external environment.

2. Think Customized, Not One Size Fits All – Every person has different levels and combinations of natural desires and motivators. The research of Dr. Steven Reiss of Ohio State University reveals 16 basic desires that drive our natural intrinsic motivation. Each person has different intensity levels for these desires, thus making each person unique in what motivates us. To activate a person’s natural motivation, we must help the person progress towards fulfilling their unique desires. The cookie cutter approach doesn’t apply to unleashing people’s drive and energy.

3.  Think Growth Process, Not Instant – Because our motivation is internal and unique, we have to seek to understand ourselves before we can optimize our personal motivation. Likewise, we have to help others understand their unique desires so they can effectively motivate themselves. This process is not simple, nor is it quick. It takes a process of learning, deeper self-understanding, and personal growth. Likewise, as a leader it will take time and intentional action to understand what it takes to enable the motivation of each person you lead.

Motivation is one of the most interesting topics to people because it is at the root of our behavior, values, and personality.

It seems everybody has an opinion on motivation. Talk to any human resource generalist, business leader, or manager and you’ll find a person who has given a great deal of thought to this concept.

Whether elaborate or complex, people naturally look for what moves or drives others to action.

Couple this “arm-chair psychologist” phenomenon with the multitude of consultants that know there is a great deal of money to be made by helping companies increase employee motivation and you get a hodgepodge of information including books, articles, and training programs. We’ve reached a point of  motivation madness.

While there is nothing wrong with having many different perspectives and thoughts on the nature and application of motivation, the problem is that human resource and business leaders have a difficult time knowing what ideas and concepts really work.

Unfortunately, where we stand today is that the field of employee motivation and engagement is overwhelmed with information that is not backed by sound research and is speculation at best.

So the question remains. How can we cut through all the academic and popular culture motivation information to really know what motivates people?

First, we must start with determining what works based on solid scientific evidence. Scientific study helps us understand what works and what doesn’t. To truly understand what works consistently we have to use studies that utilize reliable and valid measures, that have been peer reviewed, replicated, and has consistency of environment and context for which we want to apply the principles.

A person can’t just say, I have a set of principles I created from my observations. There have been hundreds of books and articles written on the topic of motivation, leadership, management, and performance that rely on educated guesses. Over the years, we’ve found these observations to be misguided and some flat out wrong.

The motivation system I use is based on two contemporary theories that provides what I believe to be the clearest picture of the phenomenon of human motivation yet. These two theories have the sound research findings (including my dissertation research) and give solid insight into the two overarching factors that drive human motivation. First, the internal motives that each person is born with and that drive a person’s desire, values, and personality traits. Second, the external environment that will either support or hinder optimal energy and effort towards a person’s internal drives.

The two theories that I use are the Basic Desires theory created by the late Dr. Steven Reiss, a former professor at Ohio State University and Self-Determination Theory (SDT) created by professors Edward Deci and Richard Ryan at Rochester University. While these two theories have differences, I’ve gleaned the most applicable concepts of each to create a balanced and applicable system.

I’ll continue to talk more about these perspectives in future blog posts and explain how you can unleash your natural motivation and the motivation of the people you lead.

For centuries people have contemplated the origins of what motivates people. Before the term motivation was created, people just wanted to know what made people act with energy in certain ways.

People continue to seek the answers to the following questions to better understand how to motivate ourselves and others.

• What can we do to increase a person’s interest in doing what we want them to do?
• Why is it that some people are drawn towards behaving in ways that others are not?
• Why do some people seem to get great joy out of pursuing certain goals and others do not?
• Why are some people more “driven” in life and others are less ambitious?

These questions remain at the forefront of psychology and the study of human behavior.

Socrates and Aristotle pondered the foundations of human behavior and motivation, yet did not have scientific methods to test their theories.

It wasn’t until the late 1800’s that William James and Sigmund Freud began to theorize the explanation of human behavior, drives, and motives in the field of study we now call Psychology. In the twentieth century, The study of psychology, sponsored by many prominent universities, created a deluge of thought, theory, and research on personality and behavior, dysfunction, therapy, and motives.

Harvard University Psychology professors William James, William McDougall, Henry Murray, and David McClelland, over a period of decades, sought to better understand the fundamental motives that drive behavior. While their ideas and theories were both interesting and enlightening at the time, they were only based on observation and ethological studies.

Abraham Maslow created one of the most popular theories in Psychology in the 1960’s called the Hierarchy of Needs Theory proposing 5 levels of motivation that were linear and progressive. Maslow believed that one level of motivation must be met before another level would be ready for fulfillment.

While the theory provided good insights to our understanding of basic human needs, studies conducted in the later part of the twentieth century did not support Basic Needs Theory. In fact, studies found that people are different in their level of desire for each of these needs and a lower level of motivation does not necessarily have to precede a higher level.

Other theories of motivation include incentive theory, drive reduction theory, Hertzberg two-factor theory, and Alderfer’s ERG theory. Unfortunately, rigorous scientific study found many of these theories insufficient to fully understand motivation. Measurement reliability and validity were also absent.

Over the past 20 years, however, the psychological community has found means to better measure behavioral phenomena and study people and behavior in a reliable and valid way.

So where are we to go to both understand motivation and increase it for ourselves and the people we lead?

First we must realize that human behavior is complex and we can’t expect a quick and easy explanation for such an intricate concept. We have to seek to understand humans through a lens of individual difference based on desires and environmental factors that both support and hinder natural motivation.  While there are many theories of motivation, we are best served by looking to the theories that have the best scientific grounding and application value.

After more than 15 years of my own study and research, I have shifted my thinking to a more balanced perspective gleaning principles from only the scientifically valid theories that can be applied to work and life. I’ll talk more about my perspective of motivation and even what we can do to move beyond typical motivational techniques in my upcoming blog posts.