Mat Lock
So, for everyone here so far, thanks for being here. Hope you having a great week. And remember, when you join us live, for every person that’s here in this webinar will be paying for a support chat at Lifeline Australia, which means you’re having an impact. And leading by example, just by being here, a little bit of housekeeping for those who are joining us for the first time, we’d love you to make sure your camera is turned on. And let’s turn the phones off, close your emails and give yourself permission to be present here. It’s only 30 minutes. At any time in the next 30 minutes, you’re welcome to type a question into the q&a feature you can do in the chat. But the risk is that it gets lost in the chatbox. Whereas in the q&a box, it flags up and says there’s a question and we know how to look at it. So I was going to ask if anyone had jumped in about and and had a go at this week’s challenge. I’m really keen to see or hear if any of you who have tried option two this week, the battling challenge, which if you haven’t looked at it is juggling, but with shopping bags. So it’s called battling Denny have that doesn’t surprise me, the team at Danny have had a crack. So hopefully some photos or even better some video of that. And they have until tomorrow to synchronize with their teams for 30 seconds or more battling can take two bunches. But if you haven’t tried it, I can recommend it. Now, uhm Ross Hastings is going to be joining us today and some of you may remember him from few weeks ago. Ross is a positive psychologist who keeps himself on the cutting edge of coaching psychology to pursue his passion for exploring human potential. He too had a sporting background and believes that we can transcend to the world of sporting business to understand and optimize the potential of teams. Ross, how’re you doing?
Ross Hastings
I’m very well. It’s great to be back.
Mat Lock
Yeah, it’s great to have you back. I appreciate you. And for you making the time to be here. I know you’re super busy with your colleagues at Ne-Lo consulting. And I know you’ve got lots of work on at the moment. So again, appreciate you being here and sharing your expertise and knowledge with this.
Ross Hastings
You’re welcome.
Mat Lock
And if anyone who hasn’t had the chance yet to who couldn’t watch live and hasn’t had a chance to watch the replay, where we chat with Ross a few weeks ago, you can do so just dive into the web app. And all of the replays are available in the webinar library. Now Ross, I know that we share the observation that sport seems to have the ability to foster teamwork. And importantly, bridge personality divides quite effectively. To think about the Olympics, for example, it has the ability to do so on a global level even. But if we bring it back close to home, if we think about the footy teams or netball teams that fill the local parks each weekend, they’re shining examples of teamwork that are for everyone to see yet. We take those same people and pop them into a business setting. That’s often not the case. And invariably, the members of a work team are either not being optimized or importantly, are not optimizing for their own potential. Now, I know last time we chatted about the subjective purpose. What I’d like to do today is talk about what motivates people and groups of people to perform at their peak.
Ross Hastings
Yeah, Ithink at a high level, what you’re describing in a lot of circumstances, there is intrinsic motivation at play. So we have kind of intrinsic motivation, being motivated by internal drivers, versus extrinsic motivation, where we’re incentivized to do something which you know, has its part. But what you’re describing in terms of sport versus business, there is really intrinsic motivation at play. And if we park professional sport, as part of the example, because that obviously starts to get complicated with being also work and paid. You know, local clubs, local community, sports, things like that. People are intrinsically motivated to perform at their best in those environments. And Olympics is an interesting one, because a lot of Olympic athletes are professional now, but the roots of the Olympics is in amateur, non professional sport. So you know, it the roots of it is very much in that kind of intrinsic motivation space.
Mat Lock
Sure. That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought about it. That way. Of course, the heritage is exactly that. For sure now. So is it better? I guess what would be keen to unpack is what what makes the difference? So if people are at the gym or in a sports team, you know, playing footy at the weekend or netball? What’s the difference? I mean, do they just love playing their sport and hate going to work? Or are there some deeper issues at play here?
Ross Hastings
There’s, as with all of these things, there’s there’s a number of theories, there’s number of models, but one of the most enduring models of motivation in general and intrinsic motivation specifically over the last probably 30 years. It’s been tried and tested in a number of studies and a number of environments. It is self determination theory and as a model that basically says the key components of intrinsic motivation are autonomy. So the action or the or the thing that you’re involved with, has to be done through choice. And there’s a couple of sub elements to that, which I’ll just, I’ll name now, but we can go deeper into them. But within autonomy you have, you have to consider whether it’s a choice made by yourself or a choice that you think you should make. So New Year’s resolutions is a good example is everybody just happened to, through free will choose to have a very similar goal on a very similar day of the year, every year, or not that I know my opinion. And the other part of autonomy is something called the tyranny of freedom, which simply put is, if someone just has so much choice with no directionality, about how to make a choice, it can actually have the reverse motivational effect it can create has a lack of action. So that’s one. So when you’re describing community sports, when you’re describing a lot of the examples you used, in most of those, it definitely ticks the autonomy box, people aren’t being paid to be there, they’re not being forced to be there most of the time. And they’re going through, I say, most of the time, because some people feel like some people you see go into the gym, aren’t paid to go to the gym. But they go because they feel they should. So from the outside, it looks like they have freedom of choice and autonomy, but actually, they’re being driven by internal dialogues around around, I should do that, or I need to do that, or I have to do that. So, you know, as as I’m sure everybody is aware, there’s people that do those in short bursts and lose motivation. And that’s partly why. So that’s the first component of intrinsic motivation as per self determination theory. The second is competence or mastery. Again, kind of two elements to this or sub elements. One is, we have to remain intrinsically motivated, be able to track our progress. Firstly, to feel that we’re being we’re getting better at something, but also that we can incrementally track that, that change. So it’s not just one big, hairy lofty goal that is always stated in the distance that it’s hard to tell if we’re moving towards it. It’s about incremental milestones, recognizing progress as it happens. And I think it’s fair to say everyone can probably recognize that that is motivational. But the second part of that, in my mind, if we think very tasks specific, is that tasks that we do have to be neither too easy nor too hard for us to be fully motivated by them. They have to have kind of that sweet spot of, of being challenging enough to keep us interesting, but not so challenging that we lose hope, and become demotivated. So anybody that’s tackling the babbling this week, my, my, about where that sits in that in that spectrum. And the final one is relatedness. And this is the one that probably all three of these elements are closely related to purpose. And we can talk a little bit more about how but the relatedness part of self determination theory is the one that is really rooted in purpose it’s about it’s about the activity, or the task or the sport or the job or whatever that you’re involved in. being something that you feel connected to, at a higher level, it feels that it’s, it’s, it’s aligned with your core purpose, it feels rights, to the people that you’re doing it with are similar, not necessarily people to you, but have a similar purpose, similar values, you feel connected as a community. So you feel connected to the, I guess the broader purpose of the task or the activity itself, and also to the people around you who are doing similar tasks, if that makes sense.
Mat Lock
Yeah, it absolutely does. I say, Adam, thank you for that sort of overview. And for anyone who hasn’t yet and wants to know more about the self determination theory, I know you will have a copy of the book. And Ross was kind enough to help put chapter two together, which is the power of tape and then Eric dives into really some detail about the self determination theory and what we’re talking about today. And I know for me, I left a corporate role of corporate life, let’s say about almost five years ago now. And worked at a great company, great package, great, everything, in fact, great, everything on the outside. But I had just got to the point after 10 years, with that company, maybe 20 years in that industry, where I just I lost my sense of interest. I felt there was no purpose to what I was doing and I I remember standing, there was a bit of an inner battle with myself, because I couldn’t. Common Sense was, you know, I had a career path. I mean, I had a succession planning with my boss, it was all that was, you know, there was a definitely clear path and job for life almost. And logic said, that’s a good thing. But my heart just wasn’t in it. I just wasn’t motivated at the end of the day. And I felt like I’ve got more to offer. And I remember being a real battle. And it took me 12 to 18 months to, to be in a position where I could step out and move back to Australia. And I had never really understood within myself, what was going on, until I heard was you and I talked about, and you introduced me to the self determination theory. And for me, it’s a bit of a light bulb going off, because for sure, and again, even just hearing you refresh my own memory of the subject, I can pinpoint certain elements of the self determination theory where the boxes weren’t ticked. And it helps me understand from a logical perspective why, therefore, I felt the way I felt and why I’m glad I made the move I did. Because there’s the gaps, let’s say wouldn’t have been filled. And we’ve got a question from Tracy. Before we dive into Tracy’s question I just out of interest, I mean, these three components that form the basis of the self determination theory, is it I mean, is there any greater importance on any one of those? And is it a requirement that really all three are met?
Ross Hastings
Really great questions. I would say that there’s more waiting put on some than others, depending on the environment. But it’s commonly understood that the fundamental one is autonomy, you know, freedom of choice. But even even that comes on a scale right from you know, I want you to jump off this thing, you know, something that’s just so apparently against what we want to do. And we’d literally have to be physically maneuvered over that thing to do it. Versus I was just when Tracy put that question in, I was going to, I was going to talk about how it applies to every task, including brushing our teeth, which is true, but it’s so then I was thinking, Oh, how does competence relate to brushing our teeth, and it kind of does us sometimes to new toothbrushes, or you need hear of a new way of brushing your teeth, or you use new to you stuff. But ultimately, we brush our teeth, because it’s a choice. No one’s paying us to do it. But ultimately, relatedness is pretty important. There is something that society does the people like us do it? How will the pain and the expense and the optics and visuals associated with not doing it are are against our purpose. So simple tasks like that literally every single task we do as human beings are dictated by self determination theory. But if you take any given task, you might argue that different parts of it relate to it more strongly than others. And your other question was, do you need all three? Ideally, no. In theory, sorry. Ideally, yes. But in theory, not necessarily having one or two of those firmly in place, and not the third is far superior to having none. And and, and I also should point out that, and I might this might segue a little bit answering Tracy’s question if that’s all right,
Mat Lock
which, which do you think I don’t know if everyone can see the question or not? So Tracy’s question is Ross, does this apply to all tasks in brackets thickness versus work tasks, for example?
Ross Hastings
It does, it absolutely does. And as I just said, it applies to every single task that we do, from getting out of bed, or to getting out of bed and not snoozing the alarm, to making a bed to brushing our teeth to you know, taking the train versus driving. Everything we do is determined by this. But one thing I would like to point out is that it’s not in a vacuum. So this is this is intrinsic motivation. In any of those environments, there are a number of other things playing on us, that, that that that have a part in the whole formula, if that makes sense. So obviously, those are extrinsic motivators that come into play in some time. So in some places, so most people are acting completely intrinsically when it comes to sport and community sports and stuff like that, or when they go to work. There’s other factors in place. The main one I want to highlight there is that whilst Matt, you talked about your packaging and things like that, and you talked about financial benefits which are extrinsic motivators. Those things are not as powerful as intrinsic motivation. If you get stuff determination theory in place, it will fall far away, you can achieve anything achieved by incentivizing someone to do something. However, it is really critical to remember that in a work environment, people need to feel that they are being paid in a fair and equitable way. So they need to feel like they’re being paid way, that’s a level that’s fair for their industry, but also, that’s fair to their peers in the same organization, the same level as them in a work environment, it would seem that if people feel that that is not fair and equitable, then the baseline for self determination theory doesn’t even exist. So it’s kind of like you need to get these these extrinsic motivational baseline things in place as a platform to then take it to the next level with self determination theory. I hope that’s clear.
Mat Lock
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And look, it’s interesting traces. Trace what I’m going to do, I’m going to invite you in as a panelist, because I think I’d love to get you engaged in on this subject, because actually, your question was going through my mind as well. I said, Well, I was thinking, Well, is there an inherent compromise with intrinsic motivation? because by default, if we’re at work, we’re being paid to be there. And for sure, not everyone in every job is only there for the money. But is there not this underlying compromise? That actually, if we won the lottery tomorrow, we probably wouldn’t be doing that job. If we didn’t need to financially?
Ross Hastings
Let’s I mean, it’s an interesting question, would you Matt, would you continue to do what you’re doing now?
Mat Lock
If I’m doing well? Yeah, absolutely. I had that conversation last week. Absolutely.
Ross Hastings
Exactly. So being paid for it, otherwise, making financial benefits from it that does not. You know, it doesn’t eradicate self determination theory is the reality of why we work in many cases, but get the mix of self determination theory, right. And often people would continue to do what they’re doing, even if they won the lottery. And, Tracy, great to have you on the panel. Hello. Yeah. To your follow up question, it really is around what I said, it has to be seen as a baseline is absolutely fundamental you need to pay people for, for working is the reality of our society. But but it should be seen as a fair and equitable thing, it shouldn’t be seen as a, as a way to drive further motivation in the world.
Tracy Mayo
Yeah, and I just write down a couple of points, while you were talking about, you know, you’ve got to provide people with resources knowledge to do this. Like, it’s just like, running, you know, you can do great, but if you don’t have the right shoes, and you don’t have the right tools is the same at work, you know, constantly I think about what I want people to have that intrinsic motivation to keep kids safe. And this is, you know, it’s kind of knowledge that it’s built on over years and years. So you can’t expect like a first shoe grad to have that. It’s just like, You can’t expect someone who’s running for the first time to run a marathon on their first weekend. You know, like, I kind of like draw this kind of parallel. But getting people to that point, have that intrinsic kind of motivation to do things is a lot of work. And it takes time. And that’s I think the part that I think as leaders that’s about building capacity and building our organization, because it’s like, you’ve got to think that our people are worth it, and kids are worth it. So like, that’s kind of the view that I have. But I like talking about it through this kind of positive psychology lens. Because when I try and put it in my own words, without all of that, that language, it doesn’t make as much sense. But this kind of helps frame it. So I appreciate that,
Ross Hastings
oh, you’re very welcome. And you hit on a couple of really, really great points there. So if we look at the competency, bucket of self determination theory, in a workplace, actually, in any environment, like you said, was running tools and systems and processes are a really critical part of that. Because when we say that, we want the task to feel not too easy, not too hard. Part of that is not putting systems and processes in the way of getting the task done. Because if that starts to make the task appear in the too hard bracket, then we losing motivation again. And the second thing that you said that is really related to that as well is breaking a lofty goal down into bite sized chunks, again, exactly the same stuff at play if we put this big aspirational goal in there, but no one thinks we can achieve it and they don’t know the steps along the way. Again, we’re losing a big element of motivation because we don’t have that sweet spot of competence and feeling like we can actually one do the task and to see how we’re improving and moving towards the goal along the way.
Tracy Mayo
Yeah, I think someone wants described like a vision. If you if your vision is so far away and out of reach, and it’s like elastic bands really stretch really tight. You can never going to get there but if it’s Hear within reach, it’s a much, you know, it’s bite size and more achievable. And you know that after this amount of time you can get there.
Ross Hastings
That’s right. Absolutely. And, you know, in your industry is quite as purposeful industry. So, you know, having that relatedness bit, I would have, I would imagine that there’s quite a strength of that in parts of the organization where you’re doing really worthy work, people are there, because they’re really passionate about the work. People, hopefully on the on the call today can relate to that. And you bring it together, set like minded people as a result. So that relatedness bit is quite strong. Then when you get into the competence bit, it starts to, I don’t want to make this too complicated in the time we have. But they’re not just three distinct buckets as what I’m trying to say. So if you actually are somebody who’s doing spending days in a spreadsheet or days doing a task that is challenging, and maybe it’s the motivating for them, and it’s not an autonomous task, and it feels hard. But you connect that back to the relatedness. But you say, you know, your point, your point, and we talked about this with the purpose thing, you connect the tasks they’re doing to the long term vision and the impact it’s having and the purpose so that, you know that they know, yes, this, this is a couple of weeks project, it’s gonna be hard, and it’s going to be challenging, and it might not be what you’d love to be doing. But this is why we’re doing and this is the impact it’s going to have, and it’s really closely connected to the stuff that you really care about.
Tracy Mayo
And that’s what we spend a lot of time having conversations about. Okay, so fantastic.
Mat Lock
I don’t think you’re alone. Tracy, I think that’s those are discussions that go on in all organizations at some level. And the fact that you’re having those conversations actually puts you ahead of the pack, I would suggest, to be honest. I’m conscious of time, just to make this as relatable as possible. Ross, when you and I spoke this morning, we you know, we talked about battling beings this week, option two is the weekly challenge. And we smiled, and we laughed, and but immediately he related it, and I appreciate that and talk about actually, from a self determination theory. It’s probably not a bad example, if you could just talk us through why that’s the case, because I’m sure some people would have looked at that and gone, you know, maybe even dismissed it as being a bit silly. Now, from our perspective, it was about moving, connecting people having some fun, and I think it ticks all those boxes. But actually, from your perspective. What does it offer to a stranger, you know, through the lens of intrinsic motivation?
Ross Hastings
Well, I think first, first, the fact you’ve got two options now is really interesting, and important from a self determination theory perspective, because now all of you that are doing the weekly challenge this week, or any week, you are choosing, Well, firstly, you’re choosing to do it. And secondly, you’re choosing which option you want to do. So automatically, you’re building in more autonomy. So all of you should feel more motivated when you get to whichever of the two tests you’re doing. The baggallini in particular, is really interesting from a competence perspective, because any of you that try that task, are probably going to be able to picture that spectrum of too easy to just write to too hard as you’re working through the boggling task. And I haven’t seen the task, but I would imagine that it stepped out in bite sized chunks. And the ultimate goal is to be able to baghel. But you’re probably starting with one and then two and then three. So you will probably all experience firsthand that idea of bite sized chunks and the next goal being in reach, as Tracy just mentioned, and that then building to something bigger. And just picture in your mind if there’s a spectrum of this too easy. This is boring to our this is this is this is really got me in the zone and in flow because I I’m getting it I haven’t quite got it. And this is fun, too. This is way too hard. And I’m just giving up. So picture yourself on that spectrum as you go through the journey of well either battling or the or the the fitness challenge if you choose to do that one as well. So whichever. And then it’s just remembering why you’re doing it, who you’re doing it with. They all have a team element. So that’s the relatedness bit why are you partaking in the wellness program? Thinking about why the people around you are doing it, you’re you’re you’re going into these pursuits as teams are that really strong team focus. So that’s the relatedness element of self determination theory,
Mat Lock
as well. Yeah, no, thank you. And for me as well. The relatedness comes in when we think about the winning team each week. Each member of that team is helping to fund a call that Lifeline so for me, that’s just taking it up a notch. It’s making it about something bigger, something impactful than just juggling a few plastic bags and having a laugh in the office, which is fine. There’s power in that. But nonetheless, it’s from a latent relatedness perspective. We’re trying to go beyond that. And certainly when you asked me what I still do I do if I won lotto tomorrow, part of the reason I jumped at that and said, Yeah, absolutely. It’s because of the impact that we’re having with organizations like Lifeline Australia. And if I win the lotto tomorrow, that would simply mean, we’ve got more opportunities to have more impact. So yeah, absolutely, definitely. That’s a big driver, actually.
Ross Hastings
You have you have a lot of autonomy, because you have your own business you. You’re evolving what you do, you’re getting better. you’re developing this competence. And you have, you’ve established a higher purpose in what you do, which is the relatedness bit so yeah.
Mat Lock
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m really conscious of time. And I know that we’ve got a range of amazing people who are joining us today, if any of them are in leadership roles. And I would, of course, argue that everyone is in a leadership position. But from a hierarchy perspective, if we’re in a leadership role, and have team members reporting to us, what would be your advice in terms of how to think about motivating the individuals, and therefore the team as a whole?
Ross Hastings
Yeah, good question. I’ll try and summarize. summarize it very quickly. So in short, know your team. Know, their passions, their strengths, their interests, what they like to do, and try and within the realms of getting the work done, try and work with them to craft their job in their role around where their strengths are, and where their interests are. And make sure that as much as possible. Those are the tasks that they’re being given. Secondly, make sure that you have a way of tracking regular progress, celebrating little wins, not just waiting for the big ones, and making sure that there’s some sort of your trackable metrics, even though just if they just conversational. To determine how they’re doing. So they can always see the progress, they can also see how they’re tracking. And they can always reach for the next goal all the time. So it’s a competence piece. And as Tracy mentioned earlier, it sounds like you’re already doing always connect the tasks the day to day, sometimes menial tasks that we have to do to the bigger purpose as an organization, celebrate big, big wins for your customers and your clients. Back to the tasks that employees are doing. Make sure that that everything that all of your individuals or your all your employees, or your teams are doing connects to movement towards that vision.
Mat Lock
Fantastic. We’re gonna have to get you back Ross, because that was a really unfair question to be at the 11th day. But I think there’s some gems in there. And I look, I’m sure, even those who live would appreciate to watch a replay of this and maybe dig in with some notes. But I’d encourage everyone to share the love. And for those I think would find it interesting, then it will be in the webinar library. Within the next hour, probably as long as we can squirt it into Vimeo and get it into the web app. It takes about an hour or so. But we are out of time. So thank you all for joining us live being present and helping support Lifeline Australia. You see what I’m doing there. I’m connecting it. If you’d like to know more about SDP, remember, you’ve got the book, Chapter Two is your new best friend. Give it a read. Watch this. Watch this again. Next week, we’re going to be joined again by Alethea Boon and we’re gonna be talking about personal accountability, real life stuff with a Alethea about getting stuff done. I was gonna say a naughty word. That’s where we go with stuff. It’s about getting stuff done, but being accountable on a personal level. If you haven’t already, make sure you also join the party to our social pages using get at wellness warriors program and to add some bands to your weekly challenges. You can listen to our pimping playlist on Spotify to search for the bay games. Our thanks to Ross. Absolutely. As always, Ross, thank you so much for being with us. Thanks, everyone. pleasure. Thanks, Tracy. Thanks for diving in as a panelist, I appreciate it. I have to get you more often. Thanks, guys. See you later. Thanks, everyone. Cheers. Take care. See ya.
