GUEST POST BY WENDY JENKINS OAM, READY RESILIENCE
Ready Resilience helps organisations thrive during times of change and challenge, using practical neuroscience-based resilience tools that have been proven to offer in-the-moment solutions and long-lasting results.
November motivation
Are the words you use motivating your team, or quite the opposite?
When you are looking to motivate someone to take action, consider making your request sound objective and rational, rather than biased and subjective.
A simple word you can use is because.
Social psychologist Ellen Langer put this word to the test by requesting to skip the queue at a photocopying machine in the office. She made three attempts at asking:
“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?”
“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”
60% of those she asked let her jump the queue using the first request technique. However, when she added the “because?” 94% and 93%, respectively, said okay.
Tim David of Magic Words takes this one step further with what he calls the ABT (Advanced Because Technique).
The goal of ABT is to persuade the person to internally state ‘because.’
Try asking someone “Why?” rather than giving them a thousand reasons to do something.
Instead of simply reprimanding an employee and telling them why they aren’t performing well and the many ways they could improve, you could ask “Why do you think you’re having a problem meeting the deadlines?”
This forces the employee to search for their own ‘becauses’.
People are far more likely to change and meet expectations if they came up with the ideas themselves.
Now their motivations – not yours – are at play.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wendy Jenkins is the founder of Ready Resilience, Co-Founder of the Lungitude Foundation, Speaker and Lung Transplant Survivor. Ready Resilience helps organisations thrive during times of change and challenge, using practical neuroscience-based resilience tools that have been proven to offer in-the-moment solutions and long-lasting results. Having been told she had two years to live over fifteen years ago, Wendy is driven to help people transform their perspective on challenges in life. To find out more visit www.readyresilience.com.
