Why Money Won’t Motivate … And What Really Will…
Crash! Bang! Boom went the world economy, and something strange happened, the second ‘Age of Greed’ in the last 4 decades (the first ‘Age of Greed’ in the 80’s was epitomized by the movie Wall Street and Gordon Gecko’s famous line: “Greed is good!”) does not seem so sexy anymore… all the hard work to pile up the cash went up in a smoking pyre of lies, greed and deception…

Money has somehow lost it’s sheen as a motivation factor. All the scrambling for position, all the offers for a better future and promotion if you just worked hard,  has turned into a breathless exercise to just hang on financially for many.

This is why today I want to share the case study of an outstanding company with you:

I first met the Philippines Actmedia team at their company’s regional powwow in Bali last year. As country team after country team stepped up and delivered their yearly reports I sat back and took in the information. The numbers were good and their targets just-on-the-money, the main question was: how do we keep our staff motivated! This question is of special importance for the company given that it is Asia’s leader for in-store customer activation (have you ever tasted that little cup of free coffee, taken that freshly steamed sample of shrimp or licked the dollop of new ice cream at your local supermarket? Then you know what Actmedia does).

The challenge of motivating in-store activation specialists is a big one: these jobs simply don’t go hand-in-hand with a gold-plated pay-cheque at the end of the month and a chauffeur driven limousine.

So, slice and dice it as you will, the market realities dictated that the money incentives for the teams would never become breathtakingly awesome.

This is when the Philippines team took the stage and ripped the whole motivation game wide open:

Picture after picture of bright, smiling, engaged faces of in-store activation specialists lit up the screen. These were not faces of people hamming up their best smile for the camera, these smiles had a different, deeply meant, quality to them… they were REAL!

These people were proud, open, self assured individuals who had that certain je ne sais qoi about them that attracts other people, they had a sense of self, a shining pride that attracts you, unlike other drab sales people and product pushers one is prone to encounter in supermarket isles.

As the presentation progressed the reason for this inner light permeating the team members became evident:

This team had a deep sense of meaning & contribution.

Money alone won’t buy you happiness. And when you are at the lower rungs of the income pyramid you may never make enough money to give you the trappings of financial wealth! But you have something special:  you have your soul, your purpose and the ability to contribute to others.

This simple and powerful insight drove the ladership to look for ways to create deep meaning by contribution:

Every year the Actmedia Philippines team joins to help the less fortunate in the most direct way possible: they go into the slums of Manila and build houses for the poor!

Lifting the emotional burden of perceived helplessness from the shoulders of their team members (we are low income earners, we have no power, how can we change the world?) and allowing them to create massive positive changes in the lives of their less fortunate compatriots has created a total shift in consciousness within the team. Team members now understand that they are not just another cog in the system, that their lives have meaning way beyond the banking of a pay-cheque at the end of the month, that they can make a massive difference.

This powerful insight has created a climate in which such ‘hard to come by’ attitudes as: motivation, ownership, pro-active thinking are thriving as if by magic.

The message is simple: business is not just business, it is an opportunity to create deep personal meaning and engagement for people to live valuable destinies. Choose a cause, get going, the world needs all the help it can get.

Belief Moves Mountains
5 Phases To Transform A ‘Team Of Losers’

Step 1. The ‘Realistic Cynic’ Feels Doomed
Here I was standing in on a Bali beach in the morning sunshine ready to knock my head against a coconut palm. All my problems had started with a good idea…

I had decided to sign up for this super expensive 10-day retreat that was supposed to reveal the secrets of superior business success to us handful of initiates who had enough cash to afford the rather steep ticket.

So there I was, standing in the first rays of the early morn cursing myself for my stupidity: I had expected to be sitting in a plush conference room, listening to some wise business guru. Far from it: the organizers had split us participants into randomly chosen teams and told us we were supposed to learn about cooperation and leadership by building a championship beach volleyball team to compete and beat the other teams in 9 days time.

As I looked around this randomly assorted group of people I ‘knew’ we were doomed! Not only did I not have the foggiest notion of how to get a ball across a net… there also was a guy with a severe cross-eye condition, a lady with a rather noticeable weight issue and other such souped up couch potatoes whose closest contact with sports had been punching in the ESPN number on their TV remotes!

Step 2. The Fearless Positive Leader Steps Up
“I know THIS is the winning team, I can SEE that!” a loud voice ripped me out of my ‘realistic’ and defeatist musings.

There he was, a 6′-something, muscle packed beach god with a California perma-smile beaming total confidence and can-do spirit.

My conservative, cynical (but to my mind ‘realistic’), European mind recoiled from this American ‘BS artiste’…

I mean: Where we looking at the same team here…? Or was he living in a parallel fantasy reality?
But the beach god kept right on coming: about how we would figure out each person’s strength and make it work for the team, how we would find it easy and fun to learn this game and how we would handsomely beat all comers on day 10.

Never ever was there the slightest doubt in his voice and demeanor: our victory was a foregone conclusion!

Step 3. The Leader Takes Responsibility & Overcomes ‘Realistic Cynicism’
He asked us for our prior volleyball experience, which turned out to be a grand total of zero. So he asked us if we minded him being the captain of our team. “Sure, whatever, Captain Plastic Fantastic” went through my mind as I raised my hand in agreement. I mean, what options did we have, right?

Step 4. The Leader Holds The Vision & Builds, Builds, Builds The Team
Ed, or Mr. Ed to us, moved swiftly, did a little try-out and assigned us to our positions. Always positive, reinforcing, supportive, motivating. Slowly his total positivity permeated my cynical attitude of rejection, it overcame my fear of making mistakes and losing face on the ball court.

I actually started looking forward to go to each morning practice and see how our team bloomed from strength to strength under the warm sunshine of Mr Ed’s attention.

By day 10 Mr Ed had transformed us into passionate, fearless, go-getting, tight- knit volleyball gangstas ready to take on a bear on heat!
Long story short: we smoked every single team they threw at us. We were running on adrenaline and certainty! Mr Ed had installed such focus, fierceness and determination in us that we KNEW we would win, and we did!

Step 5. The Leader Is The Chief Believer
The last score had been made, the whoops of joy were subsiding and I decided to ask Mr Ed a question that had been nagging me all these days “Ed, how did you know we were the winning team on day one? I thought we were total losers who didn’t stand a chance!”

Ed looked at me, smiled and said “The first day I saw you guys it scared my pants off! But what choice did I have? The choice was to lead you to victory!”

You make the choice:
Lead Your Team To Victory
Or
Step Aside

Storytelling & Leadership
Lately I have been invited by a number of C-level suite managers to help them move their teams through the challenging times many companies are facing. One of the interesting observations I made during many of these sessions was how ‘professional’ most of these managers were as they tried to communicate with their teams.

While the intention of the communication was to elicit an esprit de corps, a common mentality of ‘yes, we can’ (to borrow a phrase that has become a game changer in US history) most of these managers achieved the opposite. Fact based, devoid of emotions and, as I mentioned above, ‘professional’, their communication to the team ended up being a lifeless stream of words that did not elicit the hoped for effect in the audience.
Leaders throughout history have always known a little secret: want to get your followers fully emotionally involved and rearing to go? Use stories and metaphors, paint pictures, create images and the people will buy in.

The Keys To Their Heart
Of course this contradicts a large percentage of the left-brain driven current management elite who trust that the facts and nothing but the facts suffice to get a logical (professional) mind to come to the correct conclusion and take the unavoidable actions…

But the brain is made up of more than the left sphere. There is still the right sphere, the emotional/creative side of us humans. It is here that the true engagement ‘from the heart’ happens. It is this part of the brain that you, the leader, will want to set on fire to get your team fully bought in to follow your cause… and the keys to this side of the brain are not facts and figures… the keys are metaphors and stories!

The Moon In A Bowl Of Water
Here is a nice little story shared by the Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahm to explain the stillness of the mind and it’s importance when wanting to perceive truth:
Take a bowl and fill it with water. Now set this bowl on the ground under a full moon. As you step back and the water has time to settle down you will be able to see the moon reflected in the water with perfect clarity, in all it’s details. You are able to perceive the essence of the moon, it’s total truth.

Now, step up to the bowl and shake it! What will happen? The water surface will be filled with ripples, shattering the clear and true image of the moon, leaving you with a distorted, ugly image of the moon.
The water is like our spirit, in stillness it will perceive truth, if it is agitated by the ego it will only see distorted realities and come to the wrong conclusions.

Blame It On Darwin
Just in case your left brain is butting in at this point and muttering “well, I’m a serious kinda fella and who’s got time for silly storytelling anyhow?” you might want to consider that our brain’s predilection to learning and making decisions through stories is anchored in our evolutional trajectory:
Before the advent of the alphabet, paper, computers, powerpoints and exel sheets human beings were guided and learned through oral history that kept the cultural fiber of a tribe/culture alive… in other words: all our cultures are based on a foundation of story telling!

So, yes, our very survival through the evolutional cycle depended on how well we learned from, and reacted to the stories our elders told us around the campfire… isn’t it time you discovered some of that old magic again and got your company tribe around the campfire?

Need Some Help Getting Started?
Having fully grasped the importance and implications of stories and metaphors many of these C-level leaders discovered to their dismay that their ‘story telling muscle’ had atrophied over the years through lack of use!

Fear not, get in touch, let me know what kind of message you want to convey to your people and I will support you in finding the appropriate story. This support is strictly pro bono to help you and your team move fast and master the challenging times ahead.

Write me a mail to: roger AT rogerkonopasek DOT com and together we will find the story to get your team going

It had to happen, the question was just when: the bottom has finally fallen out of a global market pumped up on massive, manic, consumerism. Dizzy on the high octane ‘you want the world – and you want it NOW!’ message drummed into the head of unwary people by the incessant 24/7 advertising machine it turned human beings into ‘consumers’ (visualize yourself as a ‘consumer’… your function is to consume… not to think, not to create, not to contribute… it is to spend the money you have worked for as soon as you have made it, and then some more).

This cynical cycle of brainwashing humanity into finding meaning-by-consumption was equivalent to putting a loaded gun into the hand of a child and ask it not to pull the trigger and then wait to see what happens.

Of course the child pulled the trigger and rejoiced in the sense of power it seemed to have. So the child continued pulling the trigger, faster and faster, we wanted it all: the brands, the holidays, the fine dining, meanwhile totally missing the point that this drive to total instant satisfaction was creating totally irrelevant jobs and ‘industries’ that produced nothing but soap bubbles.

Thus this ‘crash’ is actually a highly necessary re-setting of the clock, and it couldn’t have come sooner!

All this glitz and glam business of the latest ‘must have X…’ (you choose: car, bag, shoes, the right spa, holiday trip, etc) created a plethora of jobs and revenue streams that had one thing in common: they are simply not relevant or based in the current long term realities of the planet.

A classic example is tourism. Largely funded by cheap credit a human avalanche has swept over oceans and mountains, creating fake incomes in far away economies (fake inasmuch as local populations were made dependent on the tourist dollar, cut off from the ability to truly create long term, local economic solutions that are relevant, they were relegated to attract tourism by creating ‘authentic experiences’ for the culturally numb tourist from somewhere else, dressing up in funny skirts, gyrating to fake tunes in ‘real tribal dances’ etc…), over-burdening the local and global biosphere (from gutting local mangrove forests in order to build the next ‘exclusive’ resort that happened to look like all the other resorts to the perennial golfer who has to lug tons of steel in form of golf sets around the world, the ecological footprint has been gargantuan and unsustainable), creating total focus on an unsustainable instant satisfaction mania.

If you are in the mainstream tourism business get ready to become irrelevant.
Mass tourism at the scale witnessed over the last 50 years is a historical aberration, both financially & ecologically.

As with tourism a whole slew of other businesses will become irrelevant in the face of economic and ecological realities.

How do you find out if you will still be relevant?

Tune In -> Get Relevant

Find The Source -> Find A Thought Leader

The fact is that while most of humanity was asleep at the wheel of self indulgence at the cost of the future some people have been working away at creating a disruptive future that will burst into massive relevance over the next decade.

The best way to find relevance is to find the source of these new thoughts: the Thought Leaders

Thought Leaders are individuals who do not operate in parallel fantasy realities created by the consumerist machine but take a cold hard look at what is, the real issues of the planet, warts and all, allowing them to formulate brand new, relevant ideas and strategies that will change the world you and I knew forever.

Here are some of these relevant thinkers and thoughts:

The Future Of Cars Without Oil
www.betterplace.com
The days of oil in your car are numbered, and there is a huge new wave of change building… it might just look like hat Better Place has in mind… the question is: how can you connect with people/businesses who are getting ready for this future now and ride the wave to success

Cradle 2 Cradle: The Future Of Materials & Industrial Design
Michael Braungart & William McDonough are two of the most seminal thinkers of future product & industrial design. Forget recycling, get into sustainability. Immerse into Braungart’s & McDonough’s thinking and support your company design completely new products that will dominate your niche while your competitors are swallowed by their own carbon footprint.
www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm

Peter Gleick – The Unavoidable Water Crisis
The future of water has arrived, it is already the real change maker in politics and economics, those who have water will wield unknown power, whilst the rest of the world will suffer untold misery and mass migration if we do not face the water question head on. No one has studied this question in more depth than Peter Gleick, get tuned in, find a way to become a part of the water solution, start a business, work for a business that is part of the solution and become relevant!
www.pacinst.org

Mitchell Joachim –The Future Of Cities
Arguably one of the most visionary architects in the world he dos not focus on mere buildings. Mr. Joachim is ideating whole living eco-systems that will be fully sustainable and carbon-neutral. Get in the game, see what the future city you may live in will look like, learn to recognize companies that are designing the right products now which will be commonplace tomorrow and join them.
www.terreform.org

Joe Hartberg – The Future Of Eco-Entrepreneurship
Joe is a man who decided to become relevant. A man who realized that combating global warming and reducing our ecological footprint was not only a nice idea, but an overwhelming necessity he took action and became relevant by opening a new company: Current Energy (www.currentenergy.com). Joe now supports companies and homeowners to find the right electrical solutions to become energy efficient, becoming relevant and well off at the same time.

Get up, get going, become relevant.

The Biggest Motivator Of All
Or
How To Avoid Wasting Money On “Happy Camp” AND Getting Your Teams Totally Wired

Motivation – Stop Wasting Money On What Does Not Work
The Motivation Industry is an amazing business. It has been up-and-running for many decades now with a barely measurable impact. Ask most anyone who has ever attended a company sponsored motivational event how this selfsame event has changed their energy level and motivation in the long run and you are liable to receive a wan smile. Dollar for dollar the Motivational Industrial Complex has been one of the biggest financial black holes in the corporate history of the past decades. Hundreds of millions have been spent globally to ship teams into ritualized ‘happiness camps’ to be sluiced through pre-fabricated activities that solve little or none of the real concerns.

Far from creating true, deep-seated emotional thrust, growth and motivation, most sessions are nothing better that a ‘conspiracy’ between the motivators and the audience:

The motivator(s) pretend to be superbly happy and the attendees pretend to play along, the pay-off for both parties is instant: the motivator(s) get paid and the attendees get away from work for a day or two.

Solve Their REAL Concern And Put A REAL Smile On Their Faces

The above observations are not a figment of my imagination, they are the result of having worked with thousands of employees ranging from front-liners to managers.

Most agree that motivational sessions have become institutionalized and ritualized, they are the best idea many managers have to create some sense of happiness, however, the effect is by now quite the contrary:

Many employees have been ‘motivated’ to the point of stimulus-response -> they know when to clap, when to cheer and when to pretend they have bought into the company’s vision.

So if classical motivation tactics are not the solution to creating real vibrancy and willingness, then what is?

The real solution lies in a simple question:

WHY DO YOU GO TO WORK?

There are many answers to this question, but most all people will list “making money” as one of the core reasons.

The answer is deceivingly simple. 98% of humanity still has to work it’s way up Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs. Statistically this means that the majority of employees is still on they way to financial freedom and self management.

Put another way: most employees live in fear… Fear of not having enough money. This fear is often conscious, more often it is subconscious, but it certainly influences all decisions taken by individuals.

Starting from “I have to go to work” to “I will not correct the boss, it’s too risky..” there are a myriad ways in which this fear of being financially dependent finds it’s expression in negative thoughts and behavior patterns. Most employees are caught in a dependency pattern towards their company, which is the source of the money = life blood they need.

The perceived lack of abundance and helplessness towards the big company on who my livelihood depends leads to re-action and resistance towards the company which is perceived as self-interested (and sometimes even seen as cynical)

Give Them Financial Intelligence & Create Massive Buy-In For Your Company

Financial security is THE main key concern why people join a company. However, most people live in a perpetual state of financial insecurity based on their lack of financial literacy.

Financial insecurity is like an unspoken cancer that erodes the spirit and morale of individuals. Cure the cancer and you will see intelligent people emerge whose thinking faculties are strong and free from fear, able to fully commit and contribute to your organization.

I have tested the financial acumen of room after room of corporate employees (from front-liners to managers) and the results were mediocre at best.

Given the chance to learn how to best manage their money has elicited instant, deep, interest in every single session. The sense of relief, interest and focus in each session after having shared hands-on money managing strategies with the participants is tangible. It is only after having addressed this key issue that the participants start paying real attention and buy into new ideas and strategies.

Don’t Wait, Make Them An Offer They Can’t Refuse

Have a meeting with your managers and team members, offer them a choice: a motivational outing to “Happy Camp” or a series of sessions with financial specialists and wealth planners that will get them to be financially literate and able to plan for a debt- and worry-free future, you might be surprised by the strength of their re-action!

The possibility of offering them a chance to take care of their financial future will register measurably on your ‘motivation index’. You are helping them with their key concern: to make sure they and their families are heading towards a financially secured future is the most powerful incentive of them all.

This is not just a mere ‘happiness tactic’, this is a deep seated corporate values decision: we want to help our team members achieve financial freedom. The payback will be a bought-in team who can see their rewards in the way their financial goals become true one-by-one.

Introduction
One of the most crucial steps in transforming a sales team from expected to extraordinary is to break through the Brand Excuse.

The Brand Excuse
The Brand Excuse works the following way: You have branded product/service and hire a sales team. The average salesperson goes out, dutifully presents your brochure, an exhaustive list of features your product/service will provide to the prospect and expects to close a sale.

More often than not the prospect will have a few questions and ask for a cheaper price, telling the salesperson the old story about how the competitors can provide a similar product/service for less…

The salesperson has just created a situation wherein:

a) The brand is suspected of not being strong enough to sell the product
b) The pricing of the brand is suspected of being ‘unreasonably’ high
c) The only viable strategy is to start offering the product at a ‘competitive’ price, thus starting a profit eroding race to the bottom with the competition based on the cheapest price
d) The sales management is being suspected of being out of touch with current ‘market realities’, hence the unrealistically high pricing

Who Is Selling? The Brand or You?
The first pivotal step we take in creating cutting edge sales team is to create a clear differentiation between the individual salesperson and the brand.

Being invited to represent and sell a recognized brand is a privilege!

The company has invested money, time and resources to create a specific brand promise, an image that will help the individual salesperson to establish credibility. The salesperson has the privilege of going into a market armed with a brand that will allow him to present himself as someone representing a large professional organization able to supply an excellent product/service.

The act of selling is the whole responsibility of the salesperson!

Breaking Through Responsibility Deflection Factors
It is not unusual for salespeople to exhibit symptoms of the ‘infallibility syndrome’: they assess themselves as excellent salespeople, their presentation is convincing and really gets the prospect rolling (aka: the salesperson is infallible)…. In their assessment the main source for their inability to close at a higher rate is mainly to be found with the company they represent, such Responsibility Deflection Factors as:

1. Incorrect pricing
2. The product/service itself
3. The management
4. The company’s strategy, systems, etc

To break through these Responsibility Deflection Factors sales teams are taken through a powerful set of de-brief sessions which allow them to clearly assess their real current sales ability.

Creating Outstanding Sales Results: An Excellent Salesperson Sells An Excellent Brand
Having assessed their real current sales ability without the support of the brand each salesperson will now establish a personal sales growth plan, allowing them to learn the specific skills that will propel each one of them to become outstanding salespeople.

This will allow your company to unleash the full sales potential of your team:

A team of excellent salespeople representing an excellent brand who create geometric sales growth!

Objective Truth TM can only be created by the use of specific, neutral language patterns. A classic example for this is:

Am I right? vs Is IT true?

Many people have gotten used to an insidious language pattern that goes like this:

“So, if you would have called the client 30 minutes before the meeting we would have found out that they needed 20 more units of our widgets… am I right?”

Am I right is mostly used in situations where we have a powerful opinion and want to express the truth of this opinion… and we want to create buy-in!

What we have achieved is the polar opposite.

For me to be right someone else must be wrong… maybe you!

By proving to you that I am right and you are wrong I have created instant resistance to my plans. Consciously or unconsciously your ego will have a moment of: “Gosh… I look like a fool now, he IS right and I wish he’d not put me on a spot like that!… Now I will HAVE to do what he says…”

Create Buy-In Is IT true?

Replace “am I right?” by “is IT true” and observe the magic difference you have created: “IT” is a neutral word, this neutral word allows your conversation partner to agree that, indeed, IT is true that such and such would work better. You have just submitted a powerful new idea to another person without forcing them to admit that YOU are right.

Anything else? vs What else? 1 Question To Boost Your Productivity

A classic idea- and feedback-killer in any meeting is the “anything else” question. Many a meeting has died a silent death, never reaching it’s full potential because a participant asked this question looking to elicit more information, new ideas or crucial feedback from the people present.

Would you like a chocolate?

Lets test the power of anything against what with a simple example:

You are a dinner guest at my house. We have enjoyed a great dinner and it is time for desserts. I have a special treat for you and all fellow guests: handmade Belgian chocolate fresh from Brussels! I go from guest to guest with an assortment of gorgeous confectionery and each guest chooses a chocolate.

After 15 minutes I come back with the tray loaded with a few more of the precious delicacies… I approach you and ask “Any more chocolate?”

or

After 15 minutes I come back with the tray loaded with a few more of the precious delicacies… I approach you and ask “What other chocolate would you like?”

Which of both questions will get you to refrain from choosing a chocolate and which question will guide you to take another chocolate?

The answer is quite simple: ‘any’ is a closing question that expects a negative answer… ‘what’ is a specific question that directs you to take a specific positive action: in this case choose another chocolate.

The same applies for meetings at your company: if you are looking to elicit the full power of your team’s know how always ask “what else do we need to do…?”, “what other ideas do we have so we can crack into account X…?”, and watch the really fruitful ideas tumble right into your lap!

Using ‘what’ increases the average results in brainstorms, problem solving and fact finding sessions by an average of 50%!

For more powerful transformational language patterns to boost your productivity just get in touch with us….