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Motivated Owners Do Better
By Phil Nilsson, Green Industry Consultant
Motivation is a concept that we normally associate with employees, not "us" as owners. Nevertheless, motivation also applies to business owners - and perhaps even more so - because you can be motivated a little, a lot, or not at all.
Just how motivated you are has a direct impact on profits and how well your own workers produce for you as boss. If your workers detect that the boss isn’t motivated, not interested in his own company and not trying hard in his own business, then expect that attitude to have a ripple effect throughout your company. This, in turn, means lower productivity and lower profits. If that fits your situation, you need to correct it and, in the meanwhile, appear to be motivated even if you’re not to prevent an attitudinal "spillover."
YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT MOTIVATED WHEN …
First off we know that when a person "wants" to do something, he or she is more likely to be more motivated than when a person "has" to do something. People that feel that they have to go to work, have to earn a living and have to make ends meet usually do just that; they’re driven by nothing more than a desire to "get by" rather than excel at business. Call this "surviving," rather than getting ahead, making progress and fulfilling goals. This lack of energy is why some people have come to a point in their business where just getting out of bed in the morning and facing another presumed boring day at the same old business is all they can manage. Some of these same unmotivated owners will view the business as being at fault when things go wrong. They think there must be something wrong with the business, not themselves as the owner - something wrong with the equipment, something wrong with the customers, something wrong with the employees, etc.
It is commonly said that it takes an equal amount of energy to do well as it does to fail at something. It’s just as difficult to be successful and affluent as it is to be living at the poverty level. It’s just as "painful" to do the homework as it is to suffer the penalties of failure. That is a condition that is voluntary, not mandatory. Nobody has to be rich and successful, and nobody has to be poor and destitute. It’s a choice made by individuals, but when running a business, you’ve got employees to set an example for, and being poorly motivated can have a devastating carryover. Overall, if a business owner finds himself "faking" his interest level in his own business, it follows that the business is probably just getting by as well.
A PLAN … A "SUCCESS MODEL" TO FOLLOW?
In a word, "Yes." If you’re going to win at business, you’ll need to work at it every day. You need to "work" on yourself. You are the business. Change you first, and the business gets better. It’s mind and attitude conditioning, not unlike body conditioning - if you don’t use it, you lose it.
Getting and staying motivated is mind conditioning at the upper levels of your imagination. What do you imagine for yourself? What drives you? Why do you work? What do you really want from your business? What do you expect from your business? Finally, what are you willing to do to achieve your goals, and have you established timetables for accomplishing them? Motivation has to do with personal development. Develop and train the person to improve, and the business will almost automatically follow in step.
MEET THE MOTIVATIONAL EXPERT.
Denis Waitley - noted motivator to Olympic athletes, member of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels flying team, noted speaker to Congress, B.S. Annapolis, M.S. Georgetown, M.A. American University, PH.D Georgetown - after years of research, has come up with the ten most identifiable qualities of a total winner. Waitley’s study indicates that winning is something that can be learned and that anybody can do it. All it takes is practice and a plan to accomplish reconditioning the mind and spirit - reprogramming oneself to win, not lose, at the game of life in general. Businesses need this reconditioning as well, and it starts with the owner.
Here are Waitley’s 10 most identifiable qualities of a total winner:
Positive self-expectancy
Positive self-image
Positive self-control
Positive self-esteem
Positive self-awareness
Positive self-motivation
Positive self-direction
Positive self-discipline
Positive self-dimension
Positive self-projection
All rights reserved copyright 2003 2004 by Nilsson Associates
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