Stop Imposing Motivation on Your People, Co-Hosted with Kate McCaffrey E9 HR.Salon Podcast

Rethinking Motivation and Building Sustainable Change in the Workplace

Kate McCaffrey and Andrew Biernat Co-Host this joint episode of the HR.Salon and Twisting Paradigms IRL podcasts. Together they explore how motivation is an intrinsic, collaborative process rather than something imposed from the outside. They delve into practical strategies for fostering lasting engagement, addressing systemic barriers, and creating cultures that inspire energy and high performance, especially in challenging times.

In this episode:

• The misconception that motivation is something you do to others
• The critical role of intrinsic motivators: autonomy, belonging, and competence
• How assessment tools can empower self-awareness and drive motivation
• The importance of ongoing conversations and embedding motivation into team culture
• Strategies for sustaining change amid organizational shifts and crises
• Practical tips for leaders to create space, set boundaries, and build resilience
• The power of pre-planning for hard moments and disruptions
• The paradigm shift: influencing motivation collaboratively rather than controlling it
• Key language cues to retire, like "I can't" and "I'm busy," to foster growth
• The significance of consistency and intentional reflection for long-term impact

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Welcome to Twisting Paradigms in Real Life. I'm really excited today to have Andrew Burnett here, who I've known for a few years now. And he has recently taken steps to create his own company and do some work in very similar ways in helping people just figure out how to be better in this crazy world. So, Andrew, I'm excited to have you here for people who are listening or watching to know. We're doing this as a dual episode. So you may, uh depending on whose episode you listen to, you'll get the same content for the most part. But Andrew, it's so great to see you.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

So great to see you. Thank you so much for for teeing that up, Kate, and for for those listening. Yeah, Kate and I have known each other for a while. We we especially got to uh get to know each other even even more during a leadership training program based out of our community. Uh she was heading that up and running that, and I was one of the participants. Yeah, so we've we've got a great connection there. And uh I'm super excited because we see things very similarly. We tend to work with some different clients out, but uh yeah, we're we're seeing a lot of the same problems out in the workforce, a lot of the same issues. And uh I'm actually especially curious to hear some of the things that Kate does uh to solve some of these. Uh, and I'll be sharing some of the things that I do. And I think in some ways there may be some direct overlap, but I'm I'm guessing too that there's gonna be some really specific or unique things that we're each bringing as well. So for those listening, uh, welcome to the show. Whether you're listening to Kate's episode or my episode, uh, it's the same stuff. We're gonna have a good time. Uh, the hardest part about a show like this is the co-co-hosting of it. So I think we're gonna do a great job though. But we're we're we're super well connected. So uh yeah, I'm I'm just looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Me too. Thanks so much, Andrew. You know, I think one of the things we've talked about and I hear often from people who are part of teams or are supervising teams, you know, across industry. And I think, you know, I work mostly in higher education these days and thinking about what's happening there. And one of the questions I often get asked, especially in a room where I'm doing a presentation at a conference, is how do I motivate my team when I know that they're feeling change, fatigue, burnout, overwhelm, or lacking some motivation to do the actual work? And so I think what we're talking about today in your new book that you just published, which we'll certainly get to, talks a little bit about that. So I'd love to hear your insight there. How do you help people figure out how to motivate themselves and other people?

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Yeah. And I think to dig into the the core topic here, right, the the paradigm twist is the the idea of motivation is not something that you do to somebody. It is not an action that you impose on another person. And for those who have tried to do it, you have probably struggled very, very mightily to motivate. And you often hear the carrot or the stick or right, the punishment or the reward. And ultimately, those are extremely simplistic ways of motivation. And we tend to get very simplistic results from that, and or short-term results from that, right? People will be motivated by the carrot until they get used to eating that carrot, and then it's not motivating anymore. They're motivated by the stick insofar as they're going to do the bare minimum to not have to deal with the stick, and then that's it, right? And so just within that typical structure of I'm imposing motivation on other people, it's it kind of breaks down in terms of how people are truly motivated. So there's been some great research out of the university at Rochester that's been digging into the core of human motivation. What is it that actually truly motivates people? Um, and it's a global theory, and it's such a big theory that there's like six sub-theories underneath it. Absolutely fascinating stuff. One of the core concepts in it I use in the way I teach people, I frame it as the performance-enhancing vitamins. And these are the three essential nutrients that every single employee needs. This isn't like a nice to have, isn't like a maybe, you know, when we start doing better financially, we'll start looking at this. These are employee needs. And if you are not addressing them, your employees are going to number one, suffer. Number two, withdraw. Number three, go find them elsewhere. Okay. That's typically the pattern that you'll see. And so the three vitamins are vitamin A, autonomy, vitamin B, belonging, and vitamin C, competence. And they need each of those three things from their work in order to feel motivated. And in order to engage with that, it's it's not a I'm giving you your my vitamins, right? I'm force feeding you these things. It's collaborative, right? They they have to be a part of that process in order to actually have that work for them in terms of motivation.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Yeah, that sounds great. I think the idea of vitamins, right? If we don't take them, we don't feel as good. And so, how can we create some of these analogies that you're doing is a good way to help people think about if we don't have these every day, we're not going to be able to perform in the best way that we can from a physical, mental standpoint. And I think right now what I'm seeing too is people are just not really thinking about how people are doing. And certainly there's, you know, a simple kind of thinking about, well, it's their responsibility to show up in a way that we need them to for the role that they're playing. But I also, you know, I think the idea of how do we in some ways prescribe what people can do from a from you know, taking these vitamins. Are there ways that you encourage people to think about taking them every day or incorporating them into their culture for their team?

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Yeah. So one of the things I do is I have a very simple assessment that I have teams do. And uh ultimately it'd be great if assessments like this or similar to it are baked into the culture, baked into what we do. Instead of this like yearly review where I'm scrutinizing you and I'm evaluating you and surprise, maybe telling you some things that you should have heard eight months ago, right? Or holding you accountable for things that uh that you've totally forgotten about. Instead of that type of management style, what I'm recommending and and teaching people is having these regular check-ins that happen at the very minimum quarterly, where the uh the team member is taking this assessment and it's it's for them and it's for the manager, right? So the individual can see where their motivation levels are at. And that's and that's I think an issue that a lot of companies run into is they gather data from their employees, but it's for management. It's for leaders, it's not for everybody else. And so employees send this stuff off into the ether and sometimes they never hear about it again. And that's that's another disheartening piece of motivation that they have to experience. And so part of the assessment is they get the results right away. They get to see where they're at and they get some quick training on what I can personally do to find more motivation for myself within this. They can start self-diagnosing because most people, I believe, they want to show up and they want to do their best work. And it's often the systems, the management, the red tape, the everything else that gets in their way and prevents them from doing that. And that becomes a demotivating factor for them. So, yeah, by doing an assessment, now the employee sees it, the manager sees it, now let's have a conversation about it. And it's not a, I'm on one side of the table, you're on the other side of the table. It is let's be on the same side of the table and let's look at the assessment together. And what are we seeing together? And now, how how can I, as a manager, help empower you to find more of your own motivation versus how can I make you motivated? Right. So it's really kind of flipping the way that you think about motivation in terms of motivating your team. Uh, and if you can do that, you will reap great rewards because people are gonna find that actual intrinsic motivation for themselves.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

And I do think, you know, assessments, oftentimes people, when I suggest them, and you may have had this experience to kind of roll their eyes and they're like, oh, not another assessment, personality test or something that's gonna tell me something. And, you know, I think sometimes too when I work with clients who've done disk or the change intelligence assessments that I'm part of, it's how do we incorporate this over the long term? So it's not just like you or me coming in and it's a one and done. I think sometimes too, it's like, well, this is data, right? It's data in a moment in time. So if someone were to take it two weeks later, it may be a little bit different when we have our own assessments. Because I use one that's around sort of thinking about capacity for readiness and for readiness for change and living in these changing environments. And I think that's where we talk about the self-assessment and then how do we talk about it as a group and where we're at before we do anything can be really beneficial. So I'm excited to hear that you're using an assessment as well, even if it's like a mini self-assessment. It's still data, and you can't really argue with that. I mean, you could.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

You can. It's it's and and and anytime someone's taking a self-assessment, there's going to be baked-in bias to that. Um, but that's also something you can talk about, right? Is like often some certain types of people are harsher on themselves than other people are, and other people maybe are a little bit more generous with themselves. And that some of that is actually personality related. But at the same time, you know, by by having the manager and the employee both speak about it together, right? Turn this into a conversation like Kate was just talking about, whether it's with a team, whether it's a one-on-one. Ultimately, it is how are we addressing this? How are we, in a sense, kind of pulling the skeletons out of the closet? How are we pulling these uh, you know, conversations that we might tend to avoid? And how do we have them in a collaborative way? And so Kate, I'm I'm kind of curious for you. We've been talking a lot about um, you know, assessments, but also, you know, how do we address that motivational factor? What are some of the things that you're seeing works and what are you doing uh to help in terms of uh helping managers find motivation for their employees?

SPEAKER_03 9:53

I think part of it is thinking about the why behind what we do and really getting back to understanding that from a personal professional space, as well as thinking about how do I then become present in the group that I'm in or with the leaders that I'm in. And so I, you know, I think part of it too is understanding where people are. So oftentimes I may do some type of mini assessment too when I'm beginning a coaching conversation with someone that's not necessarily a formal one. It's sort of to get them ready to do a more formal one, whether it's a 360 or something else that we're gonna use to help identify their preferences around their behavior. And I find that that understanding opens doors to new self-awareness, which I think is first in helping people really see, okay, what do I need to be doing differently for myself? But then how does that translate to other people? And how do I stabilize myself or anchor my own values, beliefs, mission, drive first before I can translate that to others? And I think that's where oftentimes, and you may see this too, I see where leadership isn't fully in it to win it. And so therefore the team is just phoning it in for whatever reason. And or there's a lack of clarity, right? There's a leader who may have a great vision and be able to say, here's what I want to see, here's what I want to have happen, but then they're not really good about figuring out, okay, what do we need to do every day to get there and to achieve that? And I think that's what I'm seeing most often is this lack of clarity, lack of consistency around the how and the what changing so much because people are leaving or organizations are shifting from a structure or even a merger. And so I think how do we navigate those types of changes in ways that can really understand where people are at first, and then how does it translate to other people? And how are we training them to really do this work is another piece that I think can be can be difficult because it takes time, it takes money, it takes t energy. And so I think that's also often the first things to go is investing in the people.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

100%. Yeah. Anytime there's a market downturn, learning and development professionals often see uh see either getting a haircut and they're getting paid less, or they're a percentage of them are looking for jobs, right? Uh because it's it's seen as this we can we can spare it for now. You know, we'll circle back around when we're back in the good times, but when things are hard, let's not do that. And I always look at um, I I gather a lot of business wisdom from a lot of different people. And uh Warren Buffett uh has a quote, uh, something along the lines of um, you know, in terms of when other people are greedy, be cautious. When other people are cautious, be greedy. And the sense of that is the market is gonna trend toward doing a certain thing. So at the time of our recording, the market is trending towards more layoffs, more kind of just pausing and waiting on things. And I believe that the organizations that are gonna see great success three years from now are the ones that are making investments ahead of some of the things that are coming up for them. Instead of cutting staff, there may be retraining staff. Instead of uh, you know, hiring freeze, there may be hiring smart and kind of looking two years ahead. How can these people uh be adding value for the organization? And so um I would I would encourage those that are that are listening to consider are you doing this because your peers are doing it, or are you doing it because this is actually a business need? And and have you vetted that out? Have you fully fleshed that out? Because uh, you know, we're you're and you're and it's tough, right? Because you're talking to two consultants slash learning development professionals. We love training, we love teaching, we understand, and I've seen it in my career when when you add that jet fuel of new thought, new ideas, that new spark, that new understanding, that new camaraderie, whatever it is that that's been injected into that team through training or or through through these outside insights, it's like this catalyst. But it often, it often doesn't happen immediately, right? It's not like cool, I brought in this person, we spent X amount of dollars, and then the next quarter we saw, you know, a bajillion-fold increase and it was amazing. It's usually a curve, right? It's usually this upward trend and it builds on itself and it accelerates. But Kate, I think you brought up, I think probably the most important thought of this whole thing, and that is the idea of consistency. The the thought that cool, like for me as a consultant, whenever I go in and I'm working with a team, my goal is when I pull back from this, right? If I disappear, is this just gonna be a little flash in the pan? And Andrew was here, he did a song and dance, and we were motivated for two months and it was great. Or have I left left a lasting impact within the organization and they have new systems, new ways of doing things that they're gonna stick with, that they're gonna be consistent with and that are actually gonna make lasting change. And so I guess for for you, Kate, in terms of that consistency conundrum, how do you help organizations with that?

SPEAKER_03 14:43

Sure. I think that is one of the biggest challenges. And it always is, you know, I always do some follow-up later in when I hear, well, we haven't really done anything with what we did with you because new leadership, new priorities, or X, Y, or Z crisis happened and we had to shift all of our resources towards that. And I think again, I work mostly in higher education, and I think what's happening on campuses now is that they may be investing in people. And then what I often am working with them after the fact is okay, so how do you incorporate this into what you're doing on a regular basis? Is it a once a month come together, have dessert and coffee? Because that doesn't cost as much as lunch or breakfast, and talk about how are we implementing what we talked about on this particular training day? Or do we have a theme for this six months, three to six months that we're incorporating? So then everyone's focused on the same topic, I think can be really beneficial in helping people create that sustainability around the growth and the content. And I think that's the hardest part is time is our greatest resource. And if we're all busy, but how do we really be intentional if we're going to invest in something like you or me? How do we do that? And how do we create space for that? And you know, I think sometimes too, I'm encouraging people if you are a leader who likes to have an open door policy, how do you create boundaries around that so you can have your own space and time to do your own work too and really think about that from an intentional standpoint? And maybe it's an open door policy three times a week for 40 minutes and that's it. Or it's an open coffee hour in a conference room where you're just there working from there, or people are dropping in to be able to ask questions so that we're not disrupting that valuable resource of time, because I think that's where our energy gets sapped too, is you know, I think it becomes the crisis of the day or the moment versus are we being intentional about making sure we're incorporating the things that we're learning into what we're doing every day. How about you? What do you recommend for people to do in order to sustain what you do with them?

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Yeah, so that's always the hardest part, right? Especially when you circle back, like, hey, how are things going? We dropped it, right? We just stopped doing it or whatever. Uh, those are always the hardest to hear, especially when you've like worked with them, you trained them up, you've shown them that this is what we got to do, and here's how you're gonna sustain it. I I found, and this is from a multiple previous job experiences. I used to work in sales, I used to work as a personal trainer for a while. And one of the uh one of the things within sales is you you pre-sell certain ideas, you pre-sell against future objections and you you kind of you know scaffold things in such a way so that when that future objection arises or that future challenge arises, you've already laid the groundwork so that we can really easily address that together. And when I was a personal trainer, I saw people trying to make life changes, right? And they're and they're working on their habits or they're they're trying to change, in a sense, who they are and how they show up in the world. They're trying to move from, you know, maybe not as fit to being more fit. And that that takes behavior change, that takes consistency, it takes this new way of operating. And in order to do that, the the thing that you're pre-selling against or the thing that you're coaching against is this idea that there will be hard times. You are going to want to stop. You are going to be extremely tempted to stop. That is a part of your journey. And there's a ton of great research out around habit building. And it's not necessarily the easy days that build a habit. Because when it's easy, you just get up, you throw on your shoes, and off you go to the gym. It's when there's a blizzard and you didn't do the laundry and whatever else, right? There's a million things in your way stopping you from getting to the gym. It's on that one day, that singular day where everything seems to go wrong, that is the day that builds your habit. That is the day that proves who you are. That is the day that decides what type of person you are. And so what I saw was the people in the fitness classes that I taught, the ones that showed up on the snow days, they showed up all the time. It didn't matter. It was who they were. Whereas other people they would, they would say, you know, well, I'm not going to go on a snow day, but they pre-decided that, right? They said, you know what, for safety's sake, I'm not going to go on that snow day. And they experienced just as good a result because they had they had already made the decision ahead of time versus waiting until that hard time came and then making the decision about it. And so when you do bring somebody in or when you are making a change within your organization, you need to decide ahead of time that when the hard times come, this is what we're going to do. Okay. And it may be it may be a slight restructure, it may be a slight change of something. And that's okay, but you've planned it ahead of time instead of reacting to that change and usually derailing your behavior change or derailing your change initiative or whatever it is that you're working on. Uh so whatever it is, figure out ahead of time how you're going to operate and then follow that plan. Stick to that.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

And what I what do you say to people when they say, well, here's where I get stuck? Or I can't do that for whatever reason. Or, you know, kid is sick, mom is sick, I have to step in. How do you what do you do and encourage people to do in that scenario when they come back with those types of reasons for not fulfilling their habit?

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Yeah. And that's one of those things where it's going to be a natural part of your life. So I've I have four children, uh, they are delightful, but they are it's like this, it's it's like a random machine. Like I never know what's gonna go wrong, but I can't anticipate that there will be things that go wrong.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

And so as part of that, and you you alluded to some of this earlier, is kind of this capacity building, right? Is you need to build in space so that the inevitable disruption that comes isn't going to completely derail you. And so if I'm trying to get into a fitness routine, that's an easy example, right? I've got four kids. And so I need to be able to plan on what am I gonna do when one of my kids is sick? Am I instead of going to the gym, am I gonna do a five-minute at-home routine? And instead of saying I'm gonna do a 50-minute at-home routine, five, zero minutes, right, or an hour-long routine, I say I'm gonna do a five-minute routine because I know if I have to do an hour routine at home, I'm not gonna do it. Right? I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna follow through. But if it's five minutes, okay, you know what? We changed the plans because we had a disruption, and I know that I can still stay on track. I'm just gonna get this five minutes in and I'm gonna keep moving forward. So I think what's what you're bringing up is often there will be objections, often there will be challenges. We know that there's going to be challenges, we know there will be disruptions, and how are we planning to respond to those? Have we built it enough capacity that we're not completely thrown off of our project if someone goes out on maternity leave or something? How, how have we structured things so that we can move through this and still be okay?

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Right. And how do we do it in the different time frames, right? I think for you to say, I if I don't have 50 minutes, I'm gonna do five and that's enough. And how do I just be okay with that and say, or what are we gonna stop doing is one of the things I'm often talking with clients about is so you're gonna try and do this, whatever this is, whether it's building a motivated team or implementing a strategic plan, priority. What are you gonna not do that you've always done while you're doing that in order to be able to make space and capacity for it? Because if you keep doing everything, nothing's gonna be good at good. It's already not working.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

And so just adding more isn't going to fix it.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

Isn't going to fix it. No. I think that's always been. And even, you know, as a former administrator too, that was always one of my challenges was limits and boundaries and thinking about capacity. And, you know, I was always the one who would be like, have great ideas, lots of good ideas, but how can we, you know, be more logical and more realistic, I think, about what our capacity is, especially given the current sort of climate of things when it's people are just tapped out in so many ways.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

So, you know, on the on the capacity front, what are some what are some recommendations you have? What are some of your typical things that you're advising teams on? How can you build that capacity? How can you, you know, maintain elasticity to be able to respond to challenges?

SPEAKER_03 23:05

Well, I think I've definitely seen some patterns in the work that I'm doing. And I'm working on sort of, you know, working on publishing this idea too. It's around thinking about this idea of pause, right? How do we just take a beat and really kind of think about for ourselves where are we if we were to give ourselves a one to five scale of our energy level? Are we low or high on any given day, on any given project? So we're thinking about, you know, how do we measure our own motivation or willingness? And then it's really reflecting on what's going well. And then what do we need to capitalize on or strengthen first? And then where's the data? Are we assessing what we have to understand where we may be headed and why we're doing what we're doing? And I think data can really help us inform that, whether it's personal assessment data or actual real data from surveys or, you know, market research or whatever data might be important for us to pay attention to. And then it's really thinking about from that analysis, then what do we want to do? What are some small things we can start to do in the next 14 to 21 days? And then again, repeat the cycle, pause, reflect, analyze, support. What do we need to know? And then how do we really implement in a way that can be both sustainable but then manageable too from a process standpoint? So I've been really thinking about that a lot and seeing some consistencies in the conversation, even though the words might be different.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

I love that. And and you look at that idea of a pause. It's so difficult as an individual to actually hit the pause button, especially in crisis or especially in hard times. And sometimes it feels like organizations kind of, you know, continually manufacture constant crises so that it's like there's always a crisis. Like we're always in panic mode. Everything is urgent. And when you're in that spot, it's so difficult to just punch pause. Like I'm literally just gonna take two hours today and just figure out what's going on. You know what I mean? Like I'm gonna figure out my workflow. Well, how many people do that? They just hop from one email to the next, they're responding to one thing to the next, right? I got this other deadline, I got this, right? And it's not stopping to say, like, what's actually important, right? Like when I get to my year-end review, like which of these things actually made a difference for the company? Which of these were busy work, which of these were other people's priorities that could have been handled possibly by somebody else? And uh, and I think that ability to pause is number one, a great individual skill. And I think those that can do it see significant dividends. And you look at calm under pressure, right? So much of that is that ability to take that pause and notice for a minute what is happening. And because you look at first responders, right? Is there's so much data when they get somewhere, right? Maybe there's a fire, a car accident, there's an injury, right? There's there's so much going on. They need to assess. And some of that's experience, right? You come in with your experience and your gut feel and instinct, but lacking that gut feel of exactly what to do next, take that second and then go through what is our top priorities? What is most important, right? What is our organization listed as our big rocks for this year? And are the things that I'm currently working on aligned with those big rock initiatives, right? Am I bringing those things further forward? Because if I can't justify that, if I can't connect that, I'm putting myself in trouble. But then I'm also putting the organization at a disadvantage as well because my workflow is not focused on those core initiatives.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

Agreed. And I think taking that time to both pause and reflect. And I think, you know, the crisis response analogy. I mean, we're in it and all the time. And, you know, I think when I was an administrator, someone called me a crisis junkie. And at first I was like, ooh, I don't like that. And then I really thought about it. I was like, oh, they're right. Because once you get into that mode, our brains stay wired that way. And it's really hard to get out of it from a neuros, neuroplasticity, neuroscience standpoint. I won't go into all of the brain stuff, but I think I've learned a lot about that in the last few years and understand it much better than I did when I was an administrator trying to lead through crisis and through changes in ways that weren't really going well. And that's why I do what I do now is because I knew that there were better ways to do this. Um, either as a middle manager, understanding what the top wants and how do I integrate it into what the bottom bottom of the organization, if we're thinking in traditional hierarchy, and thinking about how do I do that in a way that really fits who I am and my values. I think sometimes those get lost when we're in crisis mode too. It's because we're just doing, doing, doing and have to react. And then our brains just become wired that way, almost like we're waiting for the other shoe to drop every time something comes up or someone pokes their head in our door. And that's no way to be. It's not sustainable, it's not good for us from a health or mental health standpoint. And so I appreciate that you brought up the the idea of this crisis response and how do we get out of this reaction mode? And sometimes we have to, right? Some of us are in roles where we have to react, but knowing what that is and having the systems to help us support moving out of it when we're done can be really valuable. I'd love to hear more about your book. Let's shift gears a little bit here. Tell me, just released and recently. So I'd love to hear uh about the process, why you have it, where people can access it, and what you hope it will bring to the world.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

100%. Yeah. So it's called The Team That Loves Mondays, How to Build a Culture of Energy, Engagement, and Extraordinary Results. And the the core of the book started when I had my first job. So this is many, many moons ago. Uh, first role out of college. I was not aligned with the organization, uh, wasn't a huge fan of the company, what we were doing, and I struggled. I struggled mightily in that role, even though great pay, great benefits, uh, decent culture. Um, but overall, there was a lot there that a certain individual may have loved. I couldn't find myself loving it. And I I just struggled. And that that stuck with me because I wanted to know why. Like, why is it that I couldn't get that role figured out? And I've always always experienced these ups and downs in my in my workflow over the course of a year or two years or three years, where sometimes I'm just really engaged, really fired up, really excited. And other times I'm just punching the clock and I can't wait to go home and do something else. And I consider myself a highly motivated person. And so for me in my mind, a highly motivated person to be experiencing this, what's it like for people that maybe aren't as highly motivated in any given given moment? And so, you know, I had to start researching myself, understanding human behavior, what is it that's going on within me that's causing this? Um, but it's also reaching outside of that is okay, what's what is the research that's going on out there? What is this data that's out there? How, how are people responding in these type of situations? And so it's pulling kind of all of that experience and insight together into one book. And the intention behind it, right? The team that loves Mondays, number one, I believe it's easier to get a team to love Mondays than it is to get an individual to love Mondays because there is so much of your work that is dependent on those around you. And if those around you aren't with you in this plan, they're not bought into those ideas, it's the they will immediately become your number one obstacle and and and roadblock to uh experiencing more of that joy and purpose at work. And the goal of the book ultimately is to teach individuals how you yourself can self-motivate, how can you self-diagnose, how can you take some of these steps to find out what's lacking for you when it comes to motivation? So I've had to do a lot of that personal work to figure some of that out. And the other side of that is how can leaders, people that are in management, people that are executives, people that own their companies, they sometimes feel isolated or they feel like we're trying to push things forward and nobody's on board with this, or we're, we're, we're doing all the right things, we're doing what people are asking, but they're still not motivated. Like what's going on? And they're feeling that disconnect. And some of that is the nature of work is shifting and changing a little bit. And it's helping these leaders to understand this is what your team is needing and this is what they're looking for. And ultimately it's that common language. Now the employees are speaking the same language that management is, and now they can actually understand each other. Because when it comes to our human needs, these aren't just nice to have little perks at work that would be, oh, it'd be cool if you could trust me a little bit more to do my assignments, right? No, like that's a human need to experience that level of trust and to be given the keys to be able to handle that level of responsibility. And to deny that is to deny a human need. And when you do that, there are there are consequences. Certainly you could do that, but to do that may mean that person starts to withdraw. They start to feel like they're micromanaged, they start to maybe put their resume out there a little bit, right? There's these consequences of these actions that start to happen, and they're very natural consequences once you understand that these aren't just perks, these aren't just nice to have, these are needs that they have. And when you can meet these needs, which often require no financial investment, right? Like I don't, I don't need to invest$10,000 to trust you more. I just need to, as a manager, work on myself a little bit to trust this person or train this person or get this person what they need so I can trust them to do these things, right? And that's just one element of many that people may be experiencing. So, really, the the goal of the book is that people have this common language, they they have this ability to work together better. They come in, they enjoy their work, and ultimately we're more productive. We get more jobs and we're more satisfied. And our jobs aren't this this drudgery that we have to get through. They're this thing that we get to do that impacts and changes the world.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

That's great. I'm so excited to hear about this, and I can't wait to read a copy. Where can people get it? Is it accessible online at this point today? You know, what's the one thing that you do on Mondays to keep yourself motivated if you were to pick something?

SPEAKER_02 32:41

Yeah. So I think the one thing I do on Mondays is uh going back to what we said earlier, is typically something that I don't do is I don't schedule anything for the first half of Mondays, typically, and sometimes even the whole Monday, right? At most, I'll take maybe a call or two. And so Mondays are usually blank and I put blockers on my Mondays because I I need to figure out what's going on this week. What are my top priorities? That's my deep work time, right? How can I actually get ahead on something? Uh, a lot of the work that I do is extremely creative. And so by going in stressed and trying to be, you know, on a Thursday is my creative time, right? Uh in the middle of the chaotic week, like I find that doesn't tend to work for me as well. I tend to just go to whatever is hot, whatever seems to be the current priority or the current fire. And so by making Mondays a little bit slower, I'm able to, number one, ease into the week. Number two, I'm not late for morning meetings on Mondays because I forgot about it over the weekend, right? And and I'm I'm better, better positioned to have a successful week. So it's often what I don't do on Mondays, which is have a densely packed schedule. How about you?

SPEAKER_03 33:45

I love that. And there's certainly a luxury in that, I think, as well. You know, I just did a post and an article around the idea of the Sunday scaries, right? And thinking about and and I always had them. And sometimes I worked all weekend too, giving the role that I had. And I think how do we just take that time? And while I had the permission to do that when I was in a full-time role in an organization, I wouldn't do it because I didn't feel like I could. And so I think as managers, and now that I'm my own manager, I'm in control of that, which is again, I also see that there's a privilege there. And how do we do that across the board? Right. What's to say that we can't, you know, not have meetings until one o'clock on a Monday so everyone can have the morning to be able to refocus on the priorities, do their reflection and thinking about the week and really kind of planning for how are we going to be intentional about these things. And I love that that you're doing that now. And I think I didn't learn that early on in my business. And so I'm glad to hear that you you have incorporated that. Because now I incorporate that and I'm much better for the rest of the week. And even if I don't get to everything that I had planned to do on Monday, I still feel okay about it.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Exactly. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

So the other thing we talk a lot about are these phrases that we all kind of have. And what would be one that you would suggest organizations or leaders retire permanently if you were to recommend something?

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Oh man. So one that I I retired with my clients when I was a personal trainer is the phrase I can't. And it because it's automatically a limiting phrase. It automatically means that it's impossible to do, even if it is very possible, even if it's actually kind of easy and probably would be beneficial. And so this idea that I can't, it takes your power away. You you lose that ability to decide and to make choices, right? Your locus of control is shifted. And and so just modifying little pieces of language like that are difficult in the long term, but you immediately start to see short-term changes because yeah, I can't do this, or I'm choosing not to do it because if I did do that, this is probably what would happen, right? Like I'm choosing, I can't shovel my driveway because my back hurts. No, no, no. You can shovel your driveway, but there would be a consequence for that, right? Like your back would flare up. You'd probably be, you know, less productive the rest of your week. Like, right? You could do that, right? That is a very, very real possibility to you, but you've uh assessed that the consequences of doing that are less than ideal. And so let's call it what it is. You can do it, but we're choosing not to do it. And sometimes that's that's wisdom. That's a smart thing to do, is to not do certain things or to do certain things. So I would say I can't is a phrase that I would try to banish.

SPEAKER_03 36:24

That's a good one. I like that one a lot. Mine would be I'm busy, which I think, you know, I certainly have used throughout my career. And I think it just it diminishes our ability to think more intentionally about the what we're doing and the how. And if I ask someone, how are you doing, and they say, I'm really busy, it sort of cuts out the conversation. It's not a feeling, first of all. So you can't really say that that's how you are. And I think it also just makes us puts us in this bucket of, okay, I need to leave this person alone or I need to avoid them. I think it creates potentially an emotional reaction that we don't we don't intentionally do this, I think, because everyone's busy. There's there's no doubt about that. No matter what, we're all busy. And so how do we reframe to be able to be more intentional about what we're saying, even if we're feeling that way? And how do we help ourselves out of that feeling? So that would be mine. That's a good idea. That would be mine. All right, one final one about you know, my company name is Paradigm Twist and kind of thinking about this idea that we don't need to do 25 things. And I think your three vitamins a day certainly are within the realm of that kind of philosophy and belief. What's the one paradigm twist that you would encourage people to think about?

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Yeah, I'd like work that you do. Yeah, based on and based on our conversation today is change the way you think about motivation. It's not something that you do to somebody, it is something that is intrinsic to all of us, and you can do with somebody, and that's the way you need to change the way you operate. Okay, instead of trying to motivate people, try to work with people to help them find their motivation and work with them to get them more motivated. How about you?

SPEAKER_03 38:08

Yeah, and mine would be along the same lines. It's around this idea of impacting greater, right? How do we find ways to be able to lead stronger, be able to do change better or wiser? And then how are we impacting in the ways that we want that can have a greater impact for both ourselves and the people around us would be what I would say is probably the predominant twist. I know that was probably three, but I think I think I think they're they're not necessarily small things, but really thinking about it in that way can help frame what we're trying to do more intentionally. I love that. Great. Well, thanks for spending time here. It was great to catch up with you and hear about your latest venture in publishing this book. I can't wait to get it and see it. And I hope that others will as well. And I think we'll both have on our episodes just show notes where people can get access to information about us and if they want to connect and resources that we might have. Like I have a coaching corner library that I like to give people is just sort of here are some, you know, 12 twists you can do for yourself or your team that can help you have that impact that you're looking for in different ways. So we'll share that link at the end of our episode here that people can access. Perfect. Thanks so much for spending the time. Here's to people being more motivated on Mondays.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Cheers to that. Cheers to that, Kate. Thanks for a great conversation.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

Thanks so much, Andrew. Take care.