The Caitlin Mitchell Show
After nearly a decade in business, it's time for me to share what I've learned about building a business focused on service leadership to help you on your journey as a business owner. My goal is for you to walk away from each episode with one thing - one sentence, one thought, one perspective shift, one new idea - that has an impact on you, your business, or your life.
The Caitlin Mitchell Show
Unleashing Intrinsic Motivation + Belief in Your Team | Ep 7
Discover the game-changing impact of intrinsic motivation and belief on your team's ability to perform and stay committed. Inspired by a conversation with one of my staff members at EB Academics, we discuss how education researcher John Hattie's findings on collective teacher efficacy and student performance are parallel examples to our own team's collective belief and impact on company growth and success.
I also spent some time interviewing a few of my staff members at EB Academics for this episode, asking them: "What motivates you to show up and do great work every day at EB?" Through their answers, I'll share my thoughts on common themes I noticed and how you can apply these insights to your own team and leadership.
This episode provides practical insights and questions to ask yourself as a leader about your team's own internal motivators. I also share a part of my own experience in an extremely unfulfilling position, which illustrates the profound effects intrinsic motivation has on job satisfaction and effectiveness.
Unlock the secrets to leveraging individual strengths, aligning roles with core values, and fostering a culture where everyone grasps the significance of their role in the larger mission. This episode promises to leave you with strategies to not only inspire your team but also ignite a fire within yourself.
Articles Mentioned:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2533589/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361476X99910202
https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/
Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caitlindmitchell/
Welcome back to another episode. Today we are diving into unleashing intrinsic motivation in leadership. I think so often we think about what motivates our teams and we have a hard time really answering that question, coming up with a solution to motivate people on our teams who maybe don't seem very motivated, and I think today's episode is going to be really helpful with giving you some food for thoughts and questions to think about and also a very interesting research study that was from the education world and I think absolutely ties into what we're going to talk about today. So, while intrinsic motivation doesn't seem super sexy just like core values didn't either and it's interesting your guys' listenership shows that to be true. Our podcast episode about core values is the least listened to podcast episode and, I think, the most valuable actionable content that you could actually go take and use with your teams. So I think it's super interesting human behavior and like just watching. What is it that peaks people's interests? And I think a lot of the times it's the harder stuff, the more intangible stuff that is difficult for us to go and execute on as leaders, and so I really love this episode. I'm going to invite you to listen to the whole thing and walk away with the questions that I'm going to provide you with at the end, to really take back and think about how you can start to implement some of these concepts with your teams, to start to motivate the people on your team to do a great job for you.
Speaker 1:All right, let's go ahead and dive into today's episode. So we're going to get started by I want to share like a little story with you guys. There's a woman on my team. Her name is Megan Wyant. She works for EB academics and she is doing her coursework to get a degree, a master's degree, in educational leadership. So, while education has nothing to do really with this podcast episode, it kind of does in this capacity. So I want to share this interesting story with you and I want to share some very, very frickin interesting research that was done. That's actually like changed my whole perspective of everything, ironically. So Megan was doing her coursework. She came across this super fascinating study from the education world and it made me think about how the study might actually be applicable to leading a team as well.
Speaker 1:So I want to give you some background information about this and about the researcher. So the researcher is John Hattie. He is a professor and education researcher and I can include a link to this. What's the one I'm looking for, this research study, if you want to read it in the show notes later. And he's been a professor of education, a director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and the ultimate goal of his research was and is to answer the following question what works best in education, what actually impacts student learning? And so I think about this from a leadership perspective of what works best in business, what actually impacts our business's success. So I'm kind of looking at it through that lens, as I was listening to and reading this article for the first time.
Speaker 1:And so what this researcher did, what John Hattie did, was he ranked hundreds of influences that are related to learning outcomes, from very positive effects to very negative effects. So a variety of things that he thought might have an impact on education okay, on student success, on student learning. And these factors that he studied ranged from vocabulary and spelling programs to enrichment, from play programs to exposure to reading, motivation in schools, reduced class sizes, behavior modification plans, like the list goes on and on and on. It is an exhaustive list, but here's what's really freaking interesting. When I heard this I was like no shit, no, kidding, right.
Speaker 1:The influence that had the greatest impact on student achievement, far beyond any other influence, is teacher collective teacher efficacy. Collective teacher efficacy so what that is is collective teacher efficacy is the collective belief of teachers and their ability to positively affect student learning outcomes. So it's not just one teacher having confidence in their abilities, but it's the entire staff. Okay, so think about it this way Basically, a school staff that believes that together they can accomplish great things is paramount for the health of the school itself. Taking it a step further, when a school has strong collective teacher efficacy, it seems to encourage individual teachers to make a more effective use of the skills that they already have, which in turn makes them better teachers. And so it's really interesting about his research. As he says, collective teacher efficacy is not just like growth mindset or like you can't do it yet right, or rah-rah or that cheerleading attitude. Rather, what it is is oh my God, it's so good. It's the combined belief of the teachers that collectively they can cause learning in students. Not the students' belief in themselves, but the teachers combined belief that they can cause learning in students. Holy shit, I was like come on. It's the belief, the belief, the collective belief that they can cause learning. Oh my God. And Hattie says, when you absolutely believe that you can make the difference and you support that belief with evidence that you actually are, then it is incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1:And this conversation with Megan, this study, as I was reading it, got me thinking about the power behind belief in our teams and as leaders, and how much this might tie into the effectiveness of a team, on the success of a business. If we have a collective belief that we can cause change in the business, wow, what an impact that could possibly have. And I think about this too from just a variety of instances and perspectives. Sports teams are like this right, we go into big events. It's this collective belief that we can do it. I think about great coaches who come in and the way in which they coach their teams. They coach them to believe, they coach them to have confidence, a knowingness that they can do it, that they can rise to the occasion. Oh my God, what a powerful thought this must be, as a business leader, to have on your teams and how much your teams influence the company. Because I found just in like I look back at like over the years of the business and the business's growth and the things that have gone well, I look back and I have found that when we do have truly that collective belief as a team, we are so much more likely to hit that big, audacious goal together.
Speaker 1:And so that got me thinking even more wow, how powerful this is to think about our team's confidence in their own abilities, and how much of an impact I can have on that as the leader of the company. You know, if we take a step back and really think about what is our role as a leader. Why are we here? Why do we exist? Yes, to have the vision. Yes, to hold the energy. Yes, to make difficult decisions right. And also one of the main aspects of that is to build our people, to build our teams, to build them up, to give them confidence, to give them belief.
Speaker 1:I have heard people over the years, so many people say the following build the people and the people build the business. More recently, I've heard Dan Martell say that a lot, and it is so true when we build our people, the people build the business. So what do I need to do to build my people? What is important in building them. What does that even mean? And I think that's where this concept of intrinsic motivation as one piece of this comes into play. Yeah, we got to give our team belief, and intrinsic motivation and confidence in the things that they are doing for the company are also a place that we can start to begin to build this collective belief that we can cause change as a team. Oh my God, I can't even handle it. It's so freaking good.
Speaker 1:So what we want to find out from our teams is what is it that actually motivates them to do great work for us, to do great work for the company, to do great work for the company's mission and vision? Right, it's interesting, because I found that most people aren't really motivated by money. To an extent, yes, but once you hit a certain point, money isn't a motivating factor anymore. Right? Yes, absolutely, we should 100% pay our staff as well as we can, based on a variety of contributing factors. Given their position. I truly, truly believe, however, that there is a lot to be said about tapping into their intrinsic motivation and belief, about the impact that they get to have on your company, because, as the research shows with teachers and education, a belief in being able to make a difference is at the core of that study, a belief that's supported with evidence that you can actually cause change. So what I want to do today is I want to dive into how intrinsic motivation ties into this belief system that our teams actually can cause massive change and impact in their role, no matter how big or small their role is at the company, and that that does greatly matter. Whatever it is that they're doing, it matters.
Speaker 1:So I want to start with understanding intrinsic motivation. How do we define it? What is it? And it really is this internal drive that comes from within. So I found this study from the National Library of Medicine that cited an article from Ryan and Desi and I can include this in the show notes for you guys as well, too and they defined intrinsic motivation as the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence. When intrinsically motivated, a person is moved to act for the fun or the challenge rather than because of external products, pressures or rewards. So this intrinsic motivation comes from within in our teams, and so our role, therefore, as leaders, is to do everything that we freaking can to help foster this sense of personal satisfaction, of fulfillment in their jobs, which can greatly impact the performance of them on our teams. And I want to share two examples with you from my own life about just how much intrinsic motivation has played a role.
Speaker 1:So when I was in the classroom working with students, I could see the actual fruits of my labor Right. I saw students having light bulb moments. I got messages from students who graduated telling me how much of a difference I made in their lives. I got emails from parents. All this stuff that intrinsic motivation was real. In my last year in the classroom I made $45,000, with 10 years of teaching experience, with a master's degree, living in California. That was my wage, $45,000 a year.
Speaker 1:I did not become a teacher for the money. I became a teacher for the impact For me. In that position, seeing the impact, that's what was important to me. That's what motivated me. That's what kept me to go forward. In fact, I was very good at my job. I was awarded Teacher of the Year, not to toot my own horn, but to show an example. I was great at that because I was very intrinsically motivated by it.
Speaker 1:Now let me give you the flip side of the story. Compare that to when I worked in radio advertising for clear channel media and entertainment. I was probably the worst employee that they ever had because I wasn't motivated by money I didn't believe in, I didn't even care about the product that we were selling. I went into sales and went into this job because I thought at the time that I wanted to make more money, that more money was going to motivate me. Oh my gosh, I could not have been more wrong in that. Money was a motivator for about a month.
Speaker 1:Then all intrinsic motivation 100% fell to the wayside. I couldn't see anything beyond the answering of emails trying to get more people to buy our radio airtime to advertise on that type of stuff. I had very little job satisfaction. Honestly, when I quit they were probably relieved. I was a shitty employee. I had no business being there because I didn't care. I wasn't intrinsically motivated. I would be curious, going back, if I had leadership at that level that was able to intrinsically motivate me in a different way. Could I have done a good job there? But because I wasn't motivated internally by these other driving forces, I didn't care. I did not care. Yeah, I made a lot more money, I had a lot more flexibility and I was fricking miserable, hated it and quit.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what we don't want to have happen for our teams. We want to be able to intrinsically motivate our teams and tap into what do they actually care about? What motivates them on an intrinsic level? Yes, we're going to have conversations about raises and bonuses and all of those things. At the end of the day, why are they going to show up every single fricking day and how are they going to show up based on what they're motivated by? If I have someone who's just motivated by money but they're not motivated by impact, they're not motivated by purpose, they're not motivated by something bigger than themselves, do I even want that person on my team? That's an interesting question to ask as well.
Speaker 1:In preparation for this podcast episode, I actually reached out to a few of the members on my team at EB academics and I asked them. I said what motivates you to show up and work hard every single day? Yes, I'm sure that it skewed data, because they were reporting to their boss and I wanted to share some of their responses with you because it's really interesting. Some of the common themes that I found pop up throughout their answers. For privacy reasons, I'm not going to share their names or their titles or anything like that. But I do want to share what they gave to me From team member number one.
Speaker 1:She said when I focus on the big picture for my life, the desire to become someone greater than myself and work toward a vision that is bigger than me, those are far more desirable motivations. What motivates me intrinsically as a member of the team is the fact that I am totally aligned to the big vision for the company and I believe and can clearly see how both my vision for my department and my vision for myself personally contribute to that big vision. Not only do I believe in the big vision, but who I will become in pursuit of the vision is my motivation. Seeing progress in myself as I work toward the vision and how that progress directly impacts the company in my own life is what intrinsically motivates me. Love it, oh my God, I'm like. Yes, that is it.
Speaker 1:Another team member said for me my biggest motivation is getting to support teachers. Hers is purpose driven right. So is the other person, but this is very much about our customer. She says I sincerely value the work that they do and know that they do it often in the most difficult of situations, but they still do it with all of their heart. I know what an impact one great teacher can make on a single student and I am filled with pride knowing that our team is there to support and encourage teachers both inside and outside of the classroom. She also says that I love working with our team because I'm thought of as a reliable, intelligent and compassionate coworker. That's motivating to her.
Speaker 1:Another team member said intrinsic motivation is so much more important to me at this point in my career. I truly love the work that I do so much that it doesn't feel like work. Love that I'm aligned to the company's mission and values, so it's a passion for me. Another team member says that I would say the clear understanding of the mission and how my contributions play into that. Also being able to do work within my zone of genius. Because I enjoy doing it, I am motivated to push myself. I have two more to share with you.
Speaker 1:Next team member I'm primarily an intrinsically motivated person and I feel that when I'm asked to do something that I know I can do really well and then I see evidence that I've done something really well, it motivates me to do more of that. I also love doing something when it brings me joy. And then the last team member said that she is intrinsically motivated by learning and growing an internal desire to want to learn more new things, to be productive with a purpose that helps or benefits others, to feel like I am trusted and valued, part of a team whose thoughts and opinions matter. Okay, so I want you to start thinking about, based on those answers, how important building intrinsic motivation is in our teams. So first, it's important to understand what motivates each member of our team intrinsically. What motivates one person might not necessarily motivate another, but, as I shared with you, I'm sure you could start to see some underlying themes that came up when I reached out to and asked my team for this Right.
Speaker 1:A few of them that stood out to me were one they all wanted to feel like they were contributing to something bigger than themselves, a belief that their role and contribution can affect change. Like that's pretty damn cool. If you ask me that, those are the people who are on my team. The second thing that I noticed a lot of them say was they made note about how important their own personal growth was to them. You think about for us as leaders, how much does our own personal growth impact the success of the business. I think it's the thing Like it's the frick, it's 100% of the game, because you, how much of our teams, who they are, impacts the business. Like there is a correlation there. And then the third thing that popped out to me was that they mentioned doing a good job and operating in their zones of genius around something they enjoyed doing. So three things contributing to something bigger than themselves, how important their own personal growth was to them, and then doing something they love in their zone of genius.
Speaker 1:And so I want you to do now is I want you to think about a few different things as we kind of wrap up. I have quite a bit more to say, but we're getting closer to the end. So how are you, as the leader of your team this is your job. This is your job how are you fostering a work environment where a few different things are true for your team when it comes to motivating them internally, as opposed to just with raises, bonuses, financial goals, all of which absolutely have a place as well? So let's talk about internal motivation.
Speaker 1:So how can you figure out what motivates each of your team members? Perhaps you simply got to ask them. That's a place to start, right, even though their answers are probably going to be a bit biased, because they are responding to you, their boss. At least you have something to start with. And then you can also start to observe. When does so and so do well, when does so, and so step up to the plate. When does so and so get excited about something. What is it that's behind that? That's motivating them. So how can you figure out what motivates each of your team members?
Speaker 1:Next thing I want you to think about how can you find out what strengths your team members have to individually contribute to the overall company goals within their zone of genius? So, for example, if you put me in design all day, I would hate my life. I would be miserable, just like at Clear Channel. I was in sales, answering emails, hated everybody, everything all the time, last city year, only because my husband told me I had to make it to the end of the year in order not screw up my resume. If it were up to me, I would have stayed there for six weeks, right, our designer, however, for Team EB, wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
Speaker 1:When she's designing things, oh my God, she lights up. She is doing incredible work. She is operating in what I call her zone of genius, and so it's really important that we allow our team members to flourish in their roles, to own them and really shine successfully in them. Hell, to do them better than we could do. Damn, how lucky am I that my designer is a boss and she's so much better at design than I could ever be. I used to design all of our stuff and, oh my God, I look back at that and I'm like, oh, I'm so glad I'm not in charge of that anymore. But you got to ask, you got to find, you got to see what it is that's really moving them into their higher purpose. Really, at the end of the day, it's what it is.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I want you to take note of is a few of them also mentioned how important it was that they are personally aligned to the company values and mission. That's why episode two about company core values is so freaking important. How are you communicating those to your team on a consistent basis so that those are the forefront and center of all things that you do as a staff, so they are constantly reminded by you why we are here, why do we show up? Why do I wake up every day and hop on meetings with you guys? What is that about? We got to help them realign to that on a consistent basis and, quite frankly, you probably do too, as a leader, to motivate yourself also. That why is such a powerful tool with our teams and with you? All right, next thing, two more things that I want to point out. How, also, are you helping to grow your team as people? How are you providing continuous learning opportunities from them, either from others or from you yourself as the leader?
Speaker 1:As I mentioned in the beginning of this fray or this episode that if you build the people, the people will build the business. So I spend a lot of time with my team training them on a variety of personal growth strategies that I've learned over the years myself. We talk a lot about the woos stuff Like really we do, and I can actually see just how much of a difference it makes in the way we interact with each other individually and as a whole, especially when something challenging comes up. It's business right, inevitably it does. We got issues, we got problems. That's what we do. We solve problems, and so when we solve problems from a place of learning, of understanding, of love, of personal development, as opposed to victim mentality or being defensive or not being okay with being wrong and all of these other things that, quite frankly, personal development really has helped me through and be a great leader. I'm giving that to my team, so how am I gifting them All of these things that I've had the privilege of learning? That's my responsibility to share that with them so that they can live into their highest purpose, to their greatest version of who they are as people.
Speaker 1:But I believe most importantly to bring things back to that study that I shared at the beginning is that we really really get to work as leaders to help build this collective belief that we as a team together can cause actual change and that you are doing everything that you can as the leader to show that, to point out proof, to bring that forefront and center that you actually are, and so I want you to spend some time thinking about how are you doing this for your team? Do they even know what their jobs are contributing to? Is the cause of their work able to be noticed and recognized by you as the leader? Do they know that their individual contribution is greatly impacting the business, even when it doesn't feel like it to them? Are you cultivating a sense of purpose and meaning in your team's everyday work? Some really important questions to think about, and so key takeaways that I want you to walk away with today about the power of intrinsic motivation and leadership are the following One this concept of collective teacher efficacy right, that's identified as the most influential factor in student achievement.
Speaker 1:It emphasizes the belief, the belief of teachers as a whole in their ability to positively impact student learning outcomes. That's it, collective belief. Oh my gosh, as my son would say, bro, that's become a part of my vernacular, unfortunately. It fosters this environment where the entire staff collaboratively believes in their capacity to achieve significant results. This concept, we absolutely get to take this and apply this into how we think about and motivate our teams. As the leader of our company, that's your job. That is your job.
Speaker 1:The importance of intrinsic motivation over extrinsic rewards right, personal satisfaction, fulfillment can drive greater performance in teams, and those examples that I shared with you at the beginning of me my experience really underscore the difference between being intrinsically motivated and motivated solely by external factors like money. Point number three key takeaway I want you to walk away with this from is. It's extremely important to understand the extrinsic, rather, motivators of every single one of our team members. Themes such as contributing to a greater purpose, personal growth, alignment with company values are very likely to emerge as common motivators amongst your team, but they're different, right? They're going to be different for every single person on your team. And then, lastly, I want you to think about ways that you can build intrinsic motivation by understanding those individual motivations. How can you allow team members to operate in their zones of genius? How are you communicating company values and mission consistently? How are you providing continuous learning opportunities for your staff? And, ultimately, how are you consciously cultivating that collective belief in your team's ability to affect real change?
Speaker 1:Some really good fricking food for thought. I would love for you to pop over to Instagram, caitlyn D Mitchell, and let me know if you listened to this episode, if you enjoyed it, your biggest takeaway from it, something that you're going to go put into action, and if you have it in your heart to leave me a review. I fricking love rating them Like. Let's be honest, that's an intrinsic motivator for me to know that I am doing a service to you by sharing these thoughts with you on the podcast. All right, you guys, I will see you next week on the podcast. Have a great week everybody.
