The power of progress
Money is an external carrot-motivator. It hangs out there offering a prize for a job well done. On the other hand, fear of staying late to complete a project is an external stick-motivator. Its dark voice grumbles, you better get this done or you’ll be here all night.
“Carrot and stick” motivators are powerful forces that trigger hard work. However, I’m thinking of something more powerful than carrots or sticks.
A sense of making progress is the greatest motivator of all. So says Daniel Pink in, “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.”
Every list-maker knows the power of making progress. Checking off another item on the list energizes them to attack the next task. Conversely, your worst days at work are days when you don’t make progress. No or slow progress DEmotivates. Feeling stuck discourages us.
Let’s apply Pink’s research to leadership.
You have the power to motivate
others by highlighting their progress.
Make progress by making “progress” the topic
of your feedback to others.
Check out See it say it for a concise explanation of giving feedback.
- Make positive comparisons between the present and the past
- Joyfully use the expression, “you’re making progress”
- Remind someone of a skill they recently developed
- Say, “we’ve come a long way in a short time”
Your sons or daughters need a good word. The people over you need a good word. Your colleagues and employees need a good word. Highlighting progress is a good word.
Leaders reach higher by highlighting progress.
Warning: Heavily focusing on the past while talking about the present may come off as a backhanded compliment.
*****
Can you think of other ways to celebrate progress?
*****
Leadership Freak
Dan Rockwell
One way would be to have some kind of visual to demonstrate completion of progress towards a goal. Our local United Way has a huge roll of “life savers” at a major intersection in town, and every time they reach a milestone they color in another “ring” on the roll. Measuring project progress is a little less obvious but with some creativity it could be done, and the development of the “visual aid” could bring people together in figuring out what the measurable milestones are in their project and how they should be celebrated.
Paula,
Thanks for bringing this up. Nothing like a powerful visual aid to bring a point to our consciousness.
I look forward to hearing more from you
Dan
Kelli, glad my blog was useful to you. All the best, Dan
The visual aid reminds me of the time I was in Military Academy. In the beginning of the eighties the leadership of the academy thoroughly adhered tot the stick- part of the Carrot&Sticktheory. This inspired us to put up a “penalty-o-meter” where we tracked our penalty progress. Every dollar fine stood for one point and a day curfew was good for ten points. Our company-commander hqd enough sense of humour to see the bright side of this idea, so he promised us a barrel of beer if we reached 10.000 points before the end of the academic year. As he was the guy handing out te punishments he made sure we stoppend at 9970 points. He showed sportsmanship in handing out the free beer anyhow.
Leadership lessons learned:
Not all progress is wordt showing
In a professional organisation it’s is possible to use the stick-method and still keep relationships good.
Hans…LOVE IT! Charting the progress of “stick motivation” totally cool and hilarious! Thanks for adding your comment!
Great post-carrots and sticks can work temporarily as we can see to drive our success or fear of failure but you’ve got straight to the heart of it here with progress. Doesn’t every human being want to see a better version of themselves really and with the right Line manager/coach/partner/mate or combination of all then we all have the best possible chance of reaching our potential. Progress marking and encouraging is just so much more positive and grown up and it sticks !
I’m a Coach for (single) parents of teens and young adults. Your ideas here are absolutely invaluable and I’ll be referring folks here to read this post. Affirming progress is so often left out of the communication stream, but is intensely powerful! Thank you for articulating it so clearly.
~RJ
RJ,
Thanks for leaving your first comment on Leadership Freak. I hope to see you again soon.
Best,
Dan
Thanks for this reminder
Looking to train in coaching and feel like crawling along at the moment to find the right route -I want to be a credible sincere coach
And seek a genuine and sincere training course
Hi Trish,
Best to you in your pursuits… thanks for leaving your comment.
Dan