This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 160 / Motivation with Kate Tracy

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

What does being motivated look like and feel like FOR YOU? Do you know what your internal motivators are? Your external ones? And for those of you who are leaders, managers, business owners, or parents, do you know what motivates your people!? Are you clear about THEIR internal and external motivators? If you’re not entirely sure, then you’re in for a real treat, because we’re going to talk MOTIVATION! Kate Tracy is the Global Head of Client Partnerships at Varna Group LLC where she helps companies increase impact, retention, and employee engagement through research-backed educational experiences. Kate’s areas of expertise include building solutions-oriented teams, optimizing performance, and exceeding targets. Like me, she gets a little too excited about creating efficient processes and procedures, she’s going to help us learn more about how to tap into internal motivators so we can maximize engagement in our work. If you’re clear about what you want, what REALLY matters to you, are connected to your confidence, know who you are and what you’re not, well friends, we need you. The world needs you, whether your work impacts the world or one person at a time. We need you to set aside all the stuff, and the things, and the distractions and get motivated about what really matters. Connect with Kate and access resources: Website: www.varnagroupllc.com  IG: @kate_consults Free MAP (Mastery-Autonomy-Purpose) Assessments: www.varnagroupllc.com  Visit this link and use the promo code below to get your 70% off! https://www.resourcecenter.varnagroupllc.com/courses/from-manager-to-motivator-self-led-course Promo code: WW2023. To join Nicole’s pod (to get all the inside scoops, free stuff, and the occasional rant), click here

Hi friends, Nicole Kalil here, and I am excited to talk about motivation on this episode of This is Woman's Work. So let me start by asking you, where is your motivation level today? Did you jump out of bed ready to kick some ass and take some names? Or did you slow roll your way from the bed to the floor and say a silent prayer for just two more days of sleep? And let me tell you that I mostly do the latter. It's only occasionally that I wake up motivated because I'm not a morning person and that's what coffee is for.

So here's the big question. Is motivation something you feel, or is it something you choose? Is it like the chicken or egg question where we're not sure which one comes first? Or is this like confidence where we know that we choose it until the feeling catches up? Does motivation work from the inside out or the outside in? Is it a little bit of both? Does it even matter where it comes from as long as you have it? I'll confess that I don't think of myself as a particularly motivated person, which is probably an old story I'm still telling myself because I thought that motivated people got up at

the ass crack at dawn, accomplished all the things, had energy for all the people, and somehow still wanted to do more shit at the end of the day and then went to bed motivated for the start of the next day. Seems like I might have confused motivation with extroversion, having unlimited energy, discipline, and mourning people, right? But like most things, I'm starting to think that there is no one-size-fits-all way to be motivated. Yay for that, because the people who fit into that old definition of motivated make me feel tired just watching them. What does being motivated look like and feel like for you? Do you know what your internal motivators are,

your external ones? And for those of you who are leaders, managers, business owners, or parents, do you know what motivates your people? And are you clear about their internal and external motivators? If you're not entirely sure, then you're in for a real treat because we're going to talk motivation today. I've invited Kate Tracy to be our guest. Kate is the Global Head of Client Partnership at Varner Group LLC, where she helps companies increase impact, retention, and employee engagement through research-backed educational experiences.

Kate's areas of expertise include building solutions-oriented teams, optimizing performance, and exceeding targets. Like me, she gets a little too excited about creating efficient and effective processes and procedures, and she's going to help us learn more about how we tap into internal motivators, both for ourselves and our people, so we can maximize engagement in our work. Side note, during the COVID years, Kate started her own delivery cheese company to help her community weather the pandemic and bring a sense of celebration and community back to her small town. And now I'm just pissed that I don't live in the same town as her. So Kate, thank you for being on the show. And I'd love to start by asking about the difference between external and internal motivators and why you believe it's so important

that we tap into the internal ones. Well, thank you, Nicole. I am so excited to be here. And that's really where the money is, right? Internal versus external. And as you mentioned, research is such a big part of what I do. So whenever I'm educating any client, I'm thinking about what is the data behind it? And when we think about internal versus external motivators, we think about the study done by Edward and Desi, and this was done in 85.

And if you're like me, you immediately are like, oh, it was only 20 years ago. Cause I'm stuck in early 2000s. I just can't age past that. But you know, now it's, you know, 40 years ago. But what was interesting about the study is it really toppled everything we thought about motivation on its head. Prior to that, it was pay bonuses and trips and all of these things we threw at people, you know, the lollipop, the bribery to get them to do their job or get our kids to do what we needed to do. And what they found was that didn't work. That actually was not a motivating factor. It might be temporarily one, those external motivators, you know, and when we think about it in a personal sense, you know, maybe it's

the, I want to, you know, I just run the extra mile or, you know, get up a little earlier, whatever it might be, that's going to make the difference and whatever that thing is I'm reaching for. But what they really found was it was internally, what was their why? Why were they doing what they were doing? Did they have a purpose behind what they were doing? And those who had a purpose behind why they were doing the thing they were doing or felt connected to it were more likely to outperform. And there were, you know, I'm talking about purpose right now, but there's really three pieces to that internal puzzle. And that's having the autonomy to do it, whatever the it is,

and also the skills and the mastery to actually do it well and build that confidence around really knowing and trusting themselves they could do it in connection to that broader purpose and that broader why. Okay. So there's a lot of good things there that we definitely need to circle back on. But the one thing I want to say is I have experienced in a lot of organizations that I've worked with this, you know, you win this trip or when you win this contest, you, and it's really interesting. I do think that motivates people, but it's typically

in the short term. So for example, if there's a contest, you win, it's a year long contest. Nobody thinks about it, does anything about it. It doesn't change behavior for like, you know, somewhere between nine to 11 months. And it's like in the last one to three months where somebody actually does something about it. So my first question is, is there any difference in either sustainability or consistency between external versus internal motivators? Are you seeing that one works better in the long-term versus the short-term or anything like that? Absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head that with external motivators, the short-term is really, really powerful, right? You're sprinting towards that goal line,

whatever's going to be at the end that you really want. But the thing that you find actually with the results of that sprint are you're not looking to be innovative. You're not looking to be creative. You're looking to cheat your way as fast as you can to get to that end point. And if you're an employer or a manager of a really results-oriented company, which most are, it's really hard to see people cheat themselves out of a better solution. And oftentimes that result that they're achieving isn't the best result they could achieve. It is the bare minimum to reach that goal. When we see internal motivators in play and we see companies that have a balance

across autonomy, mastery, and purpose, now we're seeing the sustainability. Now we're seeing it's not just them meeting the goal, they're exceeding the goal. And they're not just exceeding the goal, they're innovatively exceeding the goal. They're finding new solutions that didn't exist, new processes. They're working together to achieve it. again, speaks directly to my observation and experience. The phrase cheat your way to the end point is exactly what I'm saying. And what's really interesting too, that I think sometimes we forget are the negative consequences that happen on the other side, right? So you didn't get there in a good or healthy or sustainable or consistent or creative or any sort of way that is going to help you down the road, you hit the target and then you're exhausted. The cheats sort of catch up with you and you end up going backwards as you move into the next year or the next goal or the next whatever.

And picking up those pieces can be really, I think, detrimental to our confidence, to our motivation and all of that. So thank you for saying that. I'm going to switch us to purpose, autonomy, and mastery. And I want to dive into those a little bit deeper and define them a little bit because a lot of those words are words that we throw around a lot. And I want to just kind of get to what does that mean? So purpose. Now, I often talk about chasing your purpose, having a purpose on the show. And I

want to be very clear that I think purpose can be big, like your life's work or world changing. I also think purpose can be small, like one thing, one impact, one person. I also think it can evolve. So when we say purpose, as it relates to motivation, what are we talking about? I'm so glad that we're starting with purpose because it really is the enigma of the three of these. It is complicated or can be very complicated. People spend their whole careers trying to figure out what their purpose is or their why or, you know, what it is they're meant to do on this planet. And it's a load of BS in the sense that, you know, purpose is changeable. Purpose is ever evolving. And that's why it's so important, especially managers, to have a pulse on where your employees are with

their purpose. And there are some baseline things that we talk about, including, you know, do these people understand how their job connects to the goals you're trying to achieve? I hope so. But having worked with hundreds of Fortune 500 and 1,000 companies, I know that is not always true. And it's common that they don't know. I don't know how my day-to-day job is helping the company make this million dollar goal target in this area that we're going towards. So in business, talking about how they can connect to those broader results goals and pieces of that, how their contributions are helping the company to achieve, that's one set of purpose, right? Why someone gets out of

the bed in the morning and comes to a job? Now that's a very different one. And managers need to understand both. Are they getting up because they love talking to people? Are they getting up because they feel connected to what the company is doing? And we know with, you know, the two generations that are coming up right now, they are much more connected to each the company is doing. And we know with the two generations that are coming up right now, they are much more connected to each other and a broader purpose that's impactful than past generations have been. So while boomers were okay with the paycheck, these next generations aren't. And it's becoming more and more critical that companies address finding that purpose and making sure people see themselves in their company and

managers being able to see their people in the roles that they're putting them in and also in the activities they're doing and making sure those are bringing out the purpose in those people. So well said. And I'm so glad that you talked about the purpose within the work that we do, but also the purpose for the individual of why they get up in the morning and show up to do the work that we do, but also the purpose for the individual of why they get up in the morning and show up to do the work that they do. I do know and see that that is shifting and evolving. And I'll say that I still think that there are people whose purpose for work

is I go to work because it allows me to do this thing outside of work or support these people outside of work. And that's my purpose. But regardless of what you hit the nail on the head, I think about it's so imperative that the leaders in an organization know, you know, make that connection of what the purpose is when they're at work, but also what their employee or team members purpose is in life currently. So lots of good things there. Let's talk about autonomy. Autonomy is my favorite of these. Me too. You know, people love to just trust in themselves to do something well, right? Autonomy is really when you take the training wheels off and you say, okay, you know,

you have the ability to go and do this yourself. And I always think about the analogy and anyone who knows me listening to this, I love a bad analogy. I have, I'm full of them, but I'll try to make a good one for all of you listening. But I think of a playground and specifically the sandbox. When your kid is in the sandbox, there are a couple rules of the road they need to be safe,

right? Don't throw sand in your eyes. Don't jump off something high. But other than that, kids are kind of left to do whatever they come up with, whatever innovation they want to make with that sand or that playscape. And the same is true as we get older. We want the freedom to make decisions. We need to know where the guidelines are. And I call those clear expectations, which it's another loaded topic for another day. But having those understandings of what's going to keep me safe, what is the low

risk environment that I can let my people out into to really make significant choices and use the skills they've learned to demonstrate their abilities. And what that does is two things. One, it increases people's trust in their own abilities and their own confidence. And the more they believe in themselves, the more confidently they're going to act. And then also the trust between the manager and the employee increases because the manager now knows that, hey, I've laid the groundwork and I know they're making good decisions. I trust them to do that. And that builds a connection that ties people together. And that is a critical component of having a happy workforce and having an engaged workforce. Yeah. I always think of autonomy is something your confidence earns you

or creates for you. And I think that's why I love it so much. They feel very closely connected. And yes, I love the playground and sandbox analogy. And my rule is don't eat it. Okay. Let's talk about mastery. And I want to be upfront about this one. This one always makes me a little nervous because I see a lot of women exchange the word mastery with perfection. Oh, yes, that is great.

I'm glad you're bringing that up. So I am going to make a clarifying point here that might help everybody. So my background is in education, and we'd always talk about two different things, performance versus mastery. Performance is the kid who studies all night, shows up to the test, gets an A, forgets everything the next day. And that is how they go. Again, sounds familiar,

right? It's the cheat to the end. They're getting that external reward. And then everything leaves their brain the next day. Mastery is a slow burn. Mastery is seeing progress against skill sets that are increasing your ability to be more autonomous. So as you gain confidence in your mastery and your ability to master, it's not perfection. You're never done with mastery. It is an ongoing practice. And when you feel like you've mastered one thing, the door opens to actually, you know, there's more here. There's more I can still learn. And the more you learn, the more there is to learn.

So that's why I love mastery. And when we talk about mastery specifically, this is a real area where managers have to coach to this. They have to help their people to self-identify, hey, you know, I'm not as good as I want to be at this. I want to see more progress in this area. And that's where managers can really step in and be that coach, hold up that mirror, help them to start to identify things that are going to make that autonomous moment feel richer. Okay. So what I'm

hearing with mastery or what speaks to me is this idea that we get to focus on the progress that we're making and the skills that matter and to be careful to not use that as an opportunity to focus on where you're not at yet or what's missing or where, you know, like, again, I worked with a lot of women where it's like, we set the bar so high and we focus on the gap between where we are versus that bar that we've set as opposed to focusing on the growth and the progress and all the things that have happened over time. And I so appreciate you saying it's a slow burn. That's completely true with my experience. All right. So we have been focused specifically with work. So I want to ask about the consequences of having people who are not motivated when you're thinking about a team or

a work environment? What happens if you're not paying attention to people's motivation and they don't have any? Great question. And Gallup has been studying this for a long time. They look at the engagement factors of the workforce. And the funniest thing about the data that they've uncovered is that it has never changed. There is always one third of the workforce that is engaged. That is it. And then when you think about managers, and this is also what Gallup found, was that 70% of people's engagement depends on their manager. And we're not putting those two things together. And the result ends up being is that with that two thirds that aren't engaged, you're not meeting your goals or you're meeting them in the short burn, right? You're throwing money at your people. You're

hoping that they perform, but they're not going to exceed their goals. They're not going to stay with your company. They are not going to innovate your company. You have now drones that are executing on the bare minimum of their responsibilities, if at all. And, you know, especially in this age, I have a lot of thoughts about silent quitting, but I won't go there. But I do think that there is something to be said about people feeling disengaged or unengaged with their work that they're doing. And I do very much believe whether it's, you know, in the home, if you're a parent, they feel a part of the solution that they're going towards and making sure that it is a joint effort. It is a connected effort. Managers aren't dictating anymore. That is not a thing that works. We see it across all the data. You can't do it. You can.

You won't keep people very long, but it's absolutely detrimental if a company is not looking at engagement. That is the number one thing. So let's talk about what are the most important things as we start to think about how to increase motivation or discover what people's motivations are. Like what advice do you have for us in the workforce as it relates to motivation? As a manager, as somebody who is engaging other people, you're the weather. You should think of yourself that way. If you come in and you are sunny and easy breezy

and you are allowing an environment your people can succeed, that's awesome. If you're coming in a rain cloud, yelling at everybody, throwing hail at their face, people are not going to want to work for you. And just keeping that in mind that once you unleash the weather, you can't take it back right away. People remember because they're soaked from the storm you had earlier. It takes a while to rebuild that trust again. So when you're thinking about your own management style, take a moment to really think about how am I providing my people with a space that is safe for them to learn, a place that is safe for them to make mistakes, and also a place for them to feel connected to.

And those are really big things. And if you're able to kind of capture those in your thinking, you can start to understand some of what I call the landmines that people might fall into. You know, are you a micromanager? Oh, gosh, nobody wants one of those. Nobody wants somebody over their shoulder all day looking at everything they're doing. Are you somebody who gives a lot of autonomy but no direction? You're setting your people out there to fail. You know, are they not producing the results? And I think that almost every manager has some amount of each of the three of these things happening at varying levels. The goal is to have them all happening all the time.

You know, again, back to the weather. It's always there, but what is the climate it's creating is another thing. So how can you make sure you're being mindful of the three areas? And it's not an overnight fix. This is ongoing. It's not a light switch. You can't just flip it on, flip it off, and it's light or dark. It's, it's not just like we were talking about with mastery. It's, it's a slow burn to develop these things. And especially if you have a team that is not trusting of each other or you building that is really the first step to start to really listen and start to coach to things that will help your team to develop that connection.

So this is the first time I've heard this weather analogy as a leader, and I'm loving it because, well, first, nobody expects the weather to be the exact same all year long. There are seasons, and being mindful of that, I think, is really important. Having said that, when the weather changes on a dime or it's wildly unexpected, that's usually what throws us off the most. Like I get migraines when the weather goes from really cold to really hot or vice versa. And there is an element of preparation associated with each season. Like we know as people who experienced the weather that in certain seasons, we need X, Y, and Z equipment, or we need to be prepared for this to happen or that to happen. I'm really loving this analogy for leadership is, you know, you need to let people know

how to be prepared. You need to communicate what season you might be in. You want to help people figure out how to either enjoy or survive this particular weather pattern and helping people know what to expect ahead of time. It can be really helpful. I could go on for this for a day, but it's running through my brain. I'm really, really loving this. Okay. My last question is around this pet peeve of mine, one size fits all anything. So we talked about purpose, autonomy, and mastery. I want to just talk about how that might play out differently for different people or if there are other internal motivators. So somebody listening doesn't do what I did and think that motivated looks like this.

And if I don't look like this, then I'm not motivated. So maybe some examples of how motivation might show up differently or feel differently or play out differently for different people. Absolutely. When I think of motivation, I actually think of risk mitigation and that's a really strange connection path. But go with me on this journey. When you're thinking about the different people you are motivating or yourself and how you motivate yourself, what are the things that will drive you absolutely bananas if they go off the rails. And that's kind of where I start is, okay, you know, I know I am a stickler for keeping my kitchen clean. That is just a thing that I have, you know, but at the

same time, I would love for anybody in my family to like make something nice for me. I don't know, cook me a meal or bring me coffee. And this morning, my son who's six, so talk about a lot of autonomy happening there. He decided to make me an iced coffee. So but the things that were amazing to me that I saw out of that was him carefully wrapping the cup in a paper towel, making sure it didn't spill, wiping off the containers before I put them back and, you know, adding half a container of sprinkles in there just because he's also six. But, you know, when you're thinking about motivation and you're thinking about it, it

is not one size fits all. And that's the importance of that purpose and connection piece. Maybe you have an employee who they are very connected to, you know, like my son, like the celebration component of whatever it is, you know, there has to be something fun. How can you create a culture of recognition to make that individual feel like not only are they able to celebrate others, they're able to celebrate themselves. Because that to them, that's a purpose point for them. While as someone else maybe doesn't want to be in the spotlight, it's more important to them that they're achieving the mastery and seeing that progress in their own performance. So how can you create for two very

different skill sets or two different personality types, an environment that's going to foster both of them. And that's where the management of motivation really comes in of recognizing everybody's different. There is not a one size fits all approach. And my partner and I talk about this all the time because he's very much, I call him the science and I'm the art of the science and really getting to the points of, you know, what's going to make this experience meaningful for this individual, because it may be the same for somebody else, but probably it's not going to be. So as a manager, you have to do the work to really dive in and start to listen and ask questions to uncover what are those things that I can help them get towards that they're working on that may or may

not have to do with the role that they're working in right now. I'm so glad you talked about, you know, thinking about the different individuals and what would resonate with them. I have found for a lot of organizations, I will like run. And it's actually still a challenging part of my work today. Um, cause I'm often invited to more, like, especially when I do speaking engagements, I'm invited to a dinner or something before or after. And I love the intention. But that is like the worst environment for me because it's people I don't know. I'm horrible at small talk. I feel socially awkward. I want to be in bed or in my room prepping for that. And it's just so hard. So thank you for saying that on behalf of me and maybe some other people listening, whether it's introversion, extroversion, or some other difference between you and,

you know, your other team members. I think it might be important for all of us to, A, be more upfront about what does motivate us or what doesn't with the people who should care, our leaders, and also as leaders to ask those questions and be in that discovery process. Kate, thank you. This was an awesome conversation. For you listeners, if you want to learn more about motivation specifically in your workplace, varnagroupllc.com is the place you can go and you can find a free map assessment. So mastery,

autonomy, purpose, map, map assessment that you can use within your organization. And this is geared towards more small and midsize companies. I understand that they're also going to come out with an individual one here shortly as well. Kate, anything to add about that? Yes. If you are a business leader and you are struggling with getting your people engaged, the MAP assessment is a great first place to start. We are a data loving research company. So because of that, we do provide this for free. We want companies to know where they are today. And then we want to help you get to where you want to be tomorrow. That really is the driver. But if you're an individual who really wants to become the manager you wish you had, we've got a program coming out for you. It is an asynchronous or do-it-yourself learning platform where you can get all of the great research and content that we've created over the years and really learn at your own pace and start to build those skill sets and with a community that's like-minded and trying to just become better for their people.

Amazing. As always, we will have that link as well as Kate's social media links in show notes so you can find and follow her. Kate, thank you. It was such a joy and pleasure to have you on the show today. Thank you, Nicole.

Okay, yes, we focus mostly on motivation as it relates to our work team and as a leader, but I want to remind you that like most things we talk about on the show, it's transferable to other areas of your life and with other people. So I ask you again, what does being motivated feel like and look like for you? Do you know what your internal motivators are and do you know how to connect to them? Nobody is motivated every minute of the day, but I talked to enough people to know that finding and holding onto our motivation seems to be getting harder and harder to do. If you really, really can't find or choose motivation for something in your life, maybe

it's a sign that it's not meant for you. But if you're clear about what you want, what really matters to you and are connected to your confidence, know who you are and what you're not. Well, friends, we need you to connect to your motivation. The world needs you, whether your work impacts the world or one person at a time.

We need you to set aside all the stuff and all the things and the distractions and get motivated about what really matters. Because we can never underestimate a group of determined, motivated women who are determined to rise. And that's how everything changes. Let's be motivated together to get out there and show them the value of woman's work.