What motivates us the most is WHY!
What is it really that we're doing? (Pause and think!)
It's a question that has moved almost every successful business to where it is today. Although "what" seems to be the ultimate beginning, there is in fact a question that precedes it. The question that drives anyone to asking "what" is "why". And "why" is by far the most powerful motivation. Why? Because "why" is about purpose.
The reason I love being involved with sales people is because they are nearly always measured on performance. Other departments and teams often miss out on clear guidelines for when they are successful.
Measuring performance does something to people - and when done correctly it's powerful and good. Quite frequently I deal with companies that are poor on measuring performance, but the sales department mostly has an underlying culture of accountability and reporting. Let's state it as clearly as possible: You'll never get peak performance without accountability and regular reporting:
| "When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates". (Thomas S. Monson) | |||||||||||||||||||||
Reporting deals with "what". It focuses on numbers and statistics of something we've chosen to measure. Reporting is but a tool. Accountability is the real issue. It's the fundamental feeling of being responsible. Guess what accountability deals with? You're right, it deals with "why". Here's the key to peak performance:
| Focus on why, because why puts what, who and how in perspective! | |||||||||||||||||||||
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In my experience, the majority of sales people know perfectly WHAT to do, they know WHO to contact and they even know skillfully HOW to do it, but they perform only half heartedly. In fact, even the best sales people are only moving "half the speed of their full potential". What's missing is the WHY. When WHY falls into place, suddenly there's an instant and visible shift in tempo. Maybe you have to see it to believe it..? It's striking and scary all at once!
If you find yourself somehow being in charge of motivating people, you've got to be an expert on the WHY. How do we go about helping team members find individual and collective answers to WHY? If you want to know more about this critical subject, stay tuned for my next blog post ;-)
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