Motivating the Unmotivated

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Motivating the Unmotivated
Making Young Peoples Futures more real to them
Bill OConnell
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Our own motivation

• What motivates us at work and outside of it?
• What helps to keep us going?
• How do you model motivation to your clients?
• What have you done recently at work which you are
  pleased about?

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Motivation

• No one is unmotivated, its just that clients may
  not be
• motivated to do what you want them to do!
• Importance Benefits Motivation
• Direction and intensity of effort Motivation

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Motivation

• Four de- motivating patterns
• Lack of self-belief in ability
• Lack of appeal of task itself
• Negative predictions of difficulties
• Uncertainty of rewards

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Passive to Active
Passive Life is what happens to
you Reactive to daily events Dis-empowered Fatalis
tic whatever! Future same as past Someone else
do it
Active Shape my destiny Long
term goals Sense of power Make something of
myself Future different Just do it!
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Motivation

• Roll a snowball down a hill v push a boulder up
  a mountain
• The Tipping Point Small change, big difference
• Do something different
• The solution may not need to be as big as the
  problem.

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What do you want?
Wants Now Passer-by No No Browser Maybe
Not sure Customer Yes Yes A lot of your
clients are not even passers by, they are only
talking to you because the alternative is worse!
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The Law of Requisite Variety
Only variety destroys
variety. You need to have at least one more move
in your repertoire than your client, otherwise
they get the last word!
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Salespeople?

• Are you salespeople with products young people
  dont want?
• What are the selling points of your offer?
• Do you know what your clients objections are
  likely to be
• and do you have answers to them?
• What emotion will stir this particular client?
• Anxiety / fear / excitement / envy/ challenge?
  
• Power words .money, discover, ultimate, free,
  imagine
• Get them to agree to something, however small

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Salespeople?

• Know the difference between features and
  benefits.
• People buy benefits
• Subliminal messages by now / buy now
• Scarcity of offer
• What others are doing
• The alternative closewhich would you prefer?

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Storytellers

• Client comes with a dis-empowering story
• Whose life are they living?
• Help them re-write out of date scripts and
  change the ending
• Which story will self-motivate them?
• What needs to happen to change the story? For
  example, the
• experience of a positive activity

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Build rapport and make an impact

• Similarities and likeability
• Match verbal language / breathing and body
  language
• Match pace, volume and pitch of voice
• What needs to happen here for you to think it
  was worth it?
• If this turned out to be helpful what would you
  get out of it?

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Build rapport and make an impact

• Reinforce constructive behaviours and attitudes
• Acknowledge and validate clients opinions
• By-pass irrelevant obstacles ok, well come
  back to that
• later,Id like to know more about but answer
  genuine objections
• Emphasise personal choice in a non-judgemental
  way

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Build rapport and make an impact

• Be unpredictable say / do something different
• Use what clients bring and give something for
  something
• Start where people are, not where you would like
  them to be
• Be curious about clients dont knows
• Three dont knows in a row - check out whats
  happening
• Stop asking questions and offer specific choices

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How to motivate

• Highlight clients strengths, qualities and
  resources
• Convert their problem statements into goals
• Be curious about the persons signature
  strategies
• Take one small step at a time move from the
  familiar to
• the unfamiliar.

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Stay close to the client
Reflect back nudge towards solutions So you
feel pulled in two different directions
and youd like to work out which
way to go. Base your next question or statement
upon the clients previous answer. Try not to
think ahead when you are listening to the client.
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Roll with resistance

• Resistance is the clients way of asking you to
  change the style/ pace/ content of the
  conversation
• Acknowledge their dilemma, it makes sense that
  you think like that
• Acknowledge ambivalence, So youre not at all
  sure that..
• See everything as useful information
• If they dont change the way you help them, can
  you help them the way they change?

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Challenge Defeatist Thinking

• Clients may
• Discount positive information
• Reason emotionally
• Be unrealistic
• Magnify / Minimise
• Fortune tell
• Over own / Under own situations

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Challenging Defeatist Thinking

• whats the evidence that....?
• who says that you must.....?
• because that has happened...what makes you
  believe that it always has to be like that?
• self-fulfilling prophecies - what is your client
  anticipating? That things will turn out as bad as
  they possibly could or better than you imagine?

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Ending sessions
Give positive feedback about the
session Highlight two or three achievements
Link to goals
Summarise task/s
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Keeping yourself motivated

• Be hopeful that people can and do change, but
  maybe not now.
• Remember that you are responsible to but not for
  your clients.
• Whether a client changes or moves forward is, in
  the last analysis, down to them.
• Be genuine be yourself.
• Think in terms of you being a link in a long
  chain of help and support.

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Keeping yourself motivated

• You can always only do your best and with only
  those things over which you have control.
• Meet your emotional needs outside of work.
• Learn to switch off thinking about work.
• Be philosophical about apparent failure - it
  could be an illusion.
• You are doing an incredibly difficult job !

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Why now, are you ready?
What will it be like when you achieve this?
What are you going to do after this
conversation?
What do you want?
Have you ever got near doing what you hope to do
this time?
What might get in your way and how will you
overcome it?
Who could help you to achieve your goal?
What will your first steps be?
What do you know will not work for you?
What have you tried so far?