How to motivate self and others ? A simple question but possibly the biggest challenge which most employees are facing post the pandemic. Employees have lost jobs and Managers have lost members of their teams. In both cases, its a huge crisis and after all that, how to keep oneself motivated is the key question ?

I was taking a session for a group of managers of a multinational corporation this week. While I was requested to design and take this session, I was told that they do not want to listen to theories on motivation but on “How to motivate team members and self after we face difficult situations at work ?

I was a bit stumped. But, after having worked in industry for almost four decades , I sat down and reflected on what motivated me, what demotivated me, who motivated me and tried to answer these questions to myself, based on my own personal experiences at work and life.

I realised that I had all the answers but still found it difficult to implement them in real life. So, I decided to ask the participants the very same questions which came to my mind, while designing this session. The outcome was fascinating. Let me summarise what I learnt from this session and how I found answers to these fundamental questions in life.

On my first question on “What motivates people ?”, I asked them to reflect on any incident in their personal or work life, where they felt highly motivated. What happened and what were the factors which motivated them at that moment. The answers revolved around freedom at work, challenging opportunities, empowerment, recognition, opportunities to experiment and fail and so on.

The next question was “What demotivated them the most ? “. The answers revolved around micro management, public criticism, lack of recognition, lack of freedom at work, routine and ritualistic work and so on.

My next question was “Who ultimately helped you bounce back in life or work ?”. While many shared it was their parents, siblings, friends, colleagues or bosses, most of them felt that it was ultimately the individuals themselves.

This whole session was engaging for me. When I then moved to some of the basic theories of motivation like Maslow, McGregor and Herzberg, they realised that all these theories point to the same factors which motivate people, demotivate people and so on. So, the inference can be that, we know all the answers in life and work. So, what prevents us from asking ourselves the right questions at the right time ?

It may be important to realise that the factors which motivate or demotivate us as individuals, are not very different to what it does to others. So, the answer is simple. We need to do to others , what we want others to do to us. This is equally true at work and in life.

Then the participants said that it is easy to conquer the world but may be more difficult to conquer oneself. That is the crux of the matter. It may be easier to advise others rather than oneself. It is also fun to give advise rather than implement any idea.

Another important lesson from my corporate life is that your followers at work or your children at home follow what you do and not what you say. It is better not to say anything and make them follow by doing things, which you want them to. Leaders always lead by example not by quotes.

So, I decided that I need to share this great insight with as many people as possible. Let us sit down and reflect. Let us look within ourselves. May be we have the answers for the most challenging questions in life. We also need to realise that we are responsible for bouncing back in life and work and whether pandemic or otherwise. Everyone else can support us but it is upto us to stand up and get back.

Lets look within.

S Ramesh Shankar

28th Oct 2021