Suprising Truths about Motivation

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, FAAN

“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it”. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Nurse leaders at every level report that one of their greatest challenges is simply to get their staff to come to work and meet their job expectations. I am often asked – how can I motivate my staff and keep them engaged? Quint Studer, an expert in employee engagement, made the important observation that “If a nurse can hold a dying baby and sit with the distraught family on one day, and then return to do it again another day; is there any doubt that this is a motivated person? The problem is not motivation; it is the unintentional “de-motivation” of nurses that we need to worry about.”

There are some surprising truths about motivation that are emerging from the research that may seem counter intuitive to what you currently believe about what motivates others. In his internationally acclaimed work reviewing the research on motivation, Daniel Pink makes the point that many of the traditional reward systems ,such as increased salary, benefits, bonuses and other perks thought to be strong motivators of performance, in fact often have the opposite effect.

This traditional carrot and stick approach to motivation worked well during an industrial age. Researchers are finding that it is ineffective for motivating the creative, complex and conceptual work expected of professionals in health care and other settings today.

As a leader, you cannot force anyone to be motivated as this is an intrinsic quality. What you can do is to create an environment that will inspire and engage your staff to awaken their motivation. Pink advises that employees need to see the following three key elements in their environments to promote their motivation:

1. Autonomy

Autonomy is our urge to direct our own lives. The motivation research indicates that to engage staff they must feel truly involved and valued in their work. Well designed and implemented shared governance models have been shown to increase nursing staff engagement but and this is a big but…..they must be real shared governance. Giving up control and allowing staff more autonomy in their work is a challenge for some leaders. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, offers four good suggestions on how to do this:

Lead with questions not answers.
Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion.
Conduct autopsies without blame.
Make it easy for staff to talk about problems they see and solutions they recommend.

2. Mastery

Mastery is our desire to get better and better at something that matters. This requires opportunities to learn, practice and make mistakes. Nurse leaders can create learning environments on their own units. They should actively promote the idea that staff regardless of their level of experience or position can and should develop mastery in some aspect of their knowledge work. New graduates should be reassured that mastery comes with deliberate practice, repetition and feedback.

3. Purpose

Purpose is our yearning to connect to something larger than ourselves. Pink suggests that an interesting exercise for leaders is to ask staff to write down one sentence that describes the purpose of the work that you are doing. Talk about the results at a meeting. You may find that not everyone is on the same page about your work, mission and goals. Listen carefully to how your staff describe your unit or department – do they use the pronoun we or they.

You want to create an environment where every staff member feels a connection and talks about we when describing their work environment and unit accomplishments.

Will there be situations where despite your best efforts, a staff member will still be unmotivated? The answer to this is a definitive yes because the decision to become more motivated and engaged is a personal one. Even the best leaders quickly learn that their best efforts don’t work in every situation and some employees are not a good fit for the organization.

Read to Lead

Daniel Pink speaking on Motivation Ted Conference Video

Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. Riverhead Books.

Studer, Q. (2003). Hardwiring excellence: Purpose, worthwhile work, making a difference. Firestarter Publishing, Gulf Breeze,Florida.