As you live, you will realise that all that you need revolves around people, thus, it is of great essence to understand the art of working with others. There is no occupation that is not somehow linked to people.
Motivation: STEVE NYAMBE
So understanding how to deal with this “complicated machine” called human beings is very vital.
Today we will look at 10 psychological nuggets that will make people crave to bend their backs and become more productive for your benefit.
They are powerful motivational drivers that can produce exciting results for you, use them and your teams will achieve the impossible for you.
- Sorry, it was my fault
In our teams, it is important to know that you will one day make mistakes.
Why? This is because it is only idle people who do not make mistakes.
So how are you going to handle such?
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As a soft skills champion, know that admitting that you are wrong does not make you in anyway a failure, never.
It actually makes you a great person.
Remember these words by one speaker who said: “Great people always show their greatness by the way they treat little men.”
Abraham Lincolin went further and said: “Nearly all men can be polite to a king, but if you want to test the character of a man, give him power.”
How do you handle power? How do you treat the little men?
Are you big enough to shoulder the blame when things go pear shaped?
Many people enjoy complaining, but very few have big appreciative hearts.
It is easy to focus on the negatives to an extent that you end up having blurred vision about their positives.
When was the last time you wrote a thank you note to your child, spouse or subordinate?
Do you know people love to be appreciated?
- I value your contribution
Value your employees and they will in turn give value to your organisation.
Leadership coach and motivational expert, John C Maxwell lays it clearly.
He says the easiest way for people to join your team is to tell them this simple phrase: “I can’t do without you.”
People love to be told that their contribution played an important role in the success of an organisation.
- What do you think you need from me to make this a success?
It is easy to give people tasks to do, it is even easy to come up with a very good project team, but yet without the required resources, everything will hit a dead end.
Why do not we improve our planning strategies by using bottom-up planning?
This just involves asking: “What do you think you need from me to make this a success?”
Do not forget that people are knowledgeable, they are loaded with information that can add value to your company.
You will be surprised by what they will share with you, just ask them.
- What did you learn from this that we can use next time?
A mistake is only a mistake if only left uncorrected.
View mistakes as learning curves.
Mistakes do not kill, but they help us do a better job tomorrow.
I am told of a story of a young sales executive, who made a blunder that cost his organisation millions.
On realising that, he tendered his resignation, when his boss got the letter, he was unwilling to let him go and rejected the letter.
His reason was: “Why should we fire you after we have invested millions in your training?”
Which millions did he mean? He meant that million-dollar error was what the organisation had invested in, so how could they lose him?
- I have complete faith in you
A man once told his wife that she was a baboon, it was then noted that within a short space of time the woman started behaving strangely, like a baboon.
She left her matrimonial home and started living in the mountains, such is the power of words.
So if they can make a person go to the extreme end of insanity, can’t they take a person to the other glittering far end of greatness if crafted and conveyed properly?
- You have done a great job
Praise is like water to a plant, it makes the plant flourish.
People love to be praised.
Maxwell goes further and says they just love the triple A treatment.
This means, attention, appreciation and affirmation.
It is the middle A that is powerful.
Appreciating a person is telling them that they are important, they matter a lot, they are great, and made in God’s image.
Everyone has a billboard fixed on their forehead written: “Make me feel special”.
- What do you think?
He who has all the answers becomes the manager, but he who can craft brilliant questions becomes a leader, goes the leadership adage.
People hate orders, but they want to be involved.
How? Through asking leading questions that can drive them to the answer.
- How could we do this better?
No matter how good you did yesterday, there is always room for improvement.
Asking people: “How could we do this better?” will definitely challenge their thinking.
Why don’t you challenge your team’s level of thinking by throwing the ball back to them?
- Do you have the capacity to do it now?
This communication strategy shows that you respect others.
Remember, if you want people to respect you, start by respecting them yourself.
They will even extend this to your customers.
I asked a question in a management workshop I was facilitating this year: Who is the most important person to any manager, is it the customer or employees?
Most of them thought it was the customer. No.
To the manager, it is the employees, while to the employees it is the customer.
Why? An employee is an extended arm of the manager to help render excellent customer service.
“You must treat your employees the exact way you want your customers treated,” advised one management expert.
Now can you guess what is the last key motivational phrase? It’s a short phrase, but yet so powerful.
It is the phrase: “thank you”.
Will the organisational culture not change if we adopted the above nuggets?
Steve Nyambe is a motivational speaker and leadership coach. He can be contacted on +263 784 583 761 or his email: [email protected]
