Motivational Maps Ltd has a phenomenal product in the Motivational Map. Time and again Practitioners who use it with clients get an overwhelmingly positive response. Perhaps the most common expression used is ‘uncannily accurate’. The strange paradox occurs in which the client on the one hand confirms the truth of the report and yet simultaneously learns something new about him or her self. How can you confirm what you didn’t know before? Yet such is the power of the Map.
But for some Practitioners of Map technology this very accuracy is possibly a reason for not achieving the full success they want. What do I mean? I mean that perhaps the savvy coach or consultant who uses Maps needs to go beyond motivation! For the reality is: most organisations do not buy motivation – they buy the benefit or the outcome that removes their pain. Further, motivation is unfortunately a corrupt word; it is too associated with Ra-Ra, pumping up, fire-walking and all manner of other touchy-feely-non-real activities as insubstantial as gossamer. That the Maps have objectivity – a science – a language and a measurement – is difficult to explain, much less convince. So the solution is not to sell motivation.
What then is the package – the solution – that replaces motivation in the affections of the client? I think there are four main applications (as well as some other niche areas) which are critical.
First, motivation is intrinsic to high levels of performance. What, then, is the core mechanism that delivers – or should deliver – high staff performance? Answer: appraisal. Again, this may be considered a corrupted word – we may want to call it Performance Management or some other term. But in essence this is the mechanism delivering performance that doesn’t work! As Deming put it: ‘It takes the average American six months to recover from Performance Appraisal’ and given that they happen every six months, this means that the average American never fully recovers!
Thus the opportunity is huge: most appraisal systems don’t work. Most appraisal systems do not build motivating staff into the process as integral, or even make motivating staff a specific objective of the process. The Map technology built into the appraisal process is a new and powerful way to get more bangs from the organisational bucks. The Map Practitioner needs to address three problems: first, addressing the issue of the appraisal system (to improve it); second, up-skilling the managers with the relevant appraisal skills to deliver (there are five: listening, target-setting, handling the discussion, motivating, negotiating); and finally, implementing the Maps as core to the process.
This is what organisations want and understand because they see how it will benefit them immediately – it is also track-able. In my next blog I will cover the other three major areas.
The Mapping Motivation Series 