MOTIVATION AND ADVENTURERS

One of the curious anomalies of my life is being introduced as a ‘motivational speaker’; I always have to make it clear that I am not a motivational speaker, but an expert on motivation. I am not there to motivate the audience: I am there to inform them how motivation works and how they can get themselves or their teams motivated using the language and metric that is Motivational Maps.

Bizarrely, we don’t have a lot to do with ‘motivational speakers’ by and large, because we do ‘our thing’. But may be that is about to change. We were contacted recently by the adventurous adventurer, Alastair Humphries – http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/ – who is, technically, an Adventurer, an Author, and a Motivational Speaker; and if you read his stuff you cannot help but be impressed. He is currently most famous for spending 4 years cycling round the world and covering 46,000 miles – phew!

Delightfully, Alastair has also completed a Motivational Map – the first Adventurer I am aware of to do so – and has given permission for me to analyse it publically through my blog. So, we like Alastair, and feel that an important link has been made to the other side of motivation, and therefore we want to go on talking about him and promoting his activities.

So, what do we learn about Alastair from his Motivational Map? First, he is only 72% motivated, which for someone who is effectively self-employed and doing the thing he loves, seems actually low. (One must say, however, with nearly 5000 Maps now done, most organisations would regard 72% as wonderful if their staff were on average at that level).

His top 3 motivators are in order: Searcher, Expert and Creator. This means: Alastair wants to make a difference, wants to be a specialist, and wants to innovate. In fact his fourth motivator, which is scored almost equally with his third (and which is a long way ahead of the fifth) is Spirit – the desire for freedom. In short, three of four top motivators are for Alastair all about self-actualising. He is on a journey of personal growth. Hmm – can he be a team player, then? Watch out, Alastair!

The first two motivators, however, are so heavily scored they are what we call ‘spikes’ – intense motivators. Radically, it is in the area of purpose/making a difference that Alastair feels not motivated enough. This is essential to him.

If we could help motivate Alastair more, what would the Reward Strategy  be for a Searcher like Alastair? The answer to that is very simple: quality feedback. And if you look at his website and its links to Facebook +, you realise just how important feedback is to him. For all the RSS feeds – he needs more. So, please: comment on his blogs, buy his books, and express interest in what he is doing, because that is what he loves and needs.

His lowest motivator by far is the Director – Alastair is not motivated by power and control. He knows already … but stay away from management, Alastair! You won’t like it.

James Sale