Strategic Gaps
Resistance to Change
Low Engagement
Motivation Gaps
Performance Challenges
Weak Leadership
Talent (Labor) Shortage
Learning Gaps
Inefficient HR Processes
AI Adaption
Growth Challenges
Inefficient Sales & Marketing
EX Gaps
CX Gaps
Future Readiness Gap
Attract
Engage
Delight
Perform
Keeping employees engaged and motivated has always been an important factor in the productivity of the business, customer satisfaction, and the development and growth of the company. However, in the current era of remote working, maintaining motivation has become a major challenge for many managers. A good way to succeed in this challenging task is to first understand what motivation is and then try to motivate others.
Almost all psychologists have considered motivation as a psychic energy. Steven Reiss, a renowned Professor of Psychology, defines motivation as the realization of basic inner needs/values. According to Reiss, we are a species created to realize our values. So if we want to be motivated or to motivate someone, we need to help ourselves or that person to realize their inner needs. Prof. Reiss has scientifically proven that it is these inner needs that move and inspire us.
Even if you don't work in psychology, you have heard of Freud. When Freud studied motives many years ago, for most of his career he talked about a single motive: Libido. And he tried to explain everything in terms of trying to "satisfy the libido". Freud saw sexuality as an anxious drive and explained almost everything as an attempt to reduce this anxiety.
However, there are many other motives, motivations, instincts and goals in human life. Not everything can be reduced to the sexual drive and the effort to reduce anxiety. Although Jung and other ego theorists (neo-freudians) argued that Freud's analysis of motivation focused on sexuality was too narrowly framed, Freud always insisted that the effort to reduce anxiety was the basic motive of human behavior and adopted a mechanistic cause and effect model to explain human motivation. Because of Freud and the early "behaviorists", psychologists have spent a century trying to understand people's behavior, ignoring their inner needs and goals and paying little attention to human values.
In the 1990s, Prof. Dr. Steven Reiss scientifically proved in his theory of motivation that people are motivated by goals and values. According to Steven Reiss, the best way to understand people's behavior is to understand and evaluate their goals, objectives and values in life. This is also the best way to predict how they will behave at work, at home, at school or on the sports field.Steven Reiss says that if you want to understand someone's behavior, you need to determine what they are trying to do and what they value. And I'm not talking about what you value, but what the person whose behavior you are trying to understand values, because we all think that our values are the most correct and valid for everyone else. Prof. Reiss calls this "Self Hugging". That is, self hugging. Usually, because we are Self Hugging, we try to motivate other people according to our values. And that doesn't work either...
If you recognize the other person's values, you will also recognize what motivates that person. After that, it is up to your interpersonal skills. Helping this person to self-actualize while doing their job will mean that they will achieve their goals, which is the answer to the question "How Do I Motivate Other People?" that everyone asks. A motivated employee is much more likely to be engaged. Every human being, all of us have 16 different needs/purposes that Steven Reiss proved in his theory. But what makes each of us a different individual is which of these needs and goals we need and how much we need them. The values we need the most are also the most salient aspects of our outwardly visible character.
Especially in times of crisis, these values and needs become even more important to us. Since the period of remote working actually started with a health crisis and living like this was a situation that people had never experienced before, the highest values that people already had became even more important to them during this period. Not being able to realize them became the biggest source of demotivation. As such, managers who can understand the values of employees in this period have a magic wand in their hands. We see almost every day that managers who understand and know how to manage motivations are very successful.The Reiss Motivation Profile developed by Prof. Dr. Steven Reiss is used extensively for many purposes in the business world. Increasing Employee Loyalty, EmployeeExperience Design, Ensuring Behavioral Change, Making the Right Choice in Recruitment, Creating the Most Effective Teams. My questions for you are; How do you understand what your employees value? How do you go about motivating them? If I tell you that there is a very simple, scientific way, would you like to know this method?
