Are you able to TRANSFER your motivation to the people so that they become as motivated as you are

By: Brent Filson

2006 ? The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved. The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 Methods to GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president from the Filson Leadership Group, Inc. C and has caused thousands of leaders worldwide in the past Two decades helping them achieve audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership ezine and obtain a free guide, "49 Methods to Turn Action Into Results," at actionleadership For additional info on the Leadership Talk: theleadershiptalk

Are You Sabotaging Your Career? My experience working with thousands of leaders world wide for the past 2 decades teaches me that many leaders are screwing up their careers.

On an every day basis, these leaders are getting the incorrect results or even the right results in the incorrect ways.

Interestingly, they themselves are choosing to fail. They're actively sabotaging their own careers.

Leaders commit this sabotage for a simple reason: They create the fatal mistake of choosing to communicate with presentations and speeches -- not leadership talks.

In terms of boosting one's career, the main difference between the two ways of leadership communication is the distinction between lightning and the lightning bug.

Speeches/presentations primarily communicate information. Leadership talks, on the other hand, not only communicate information, they are doing more: They begin a deep, human emotional connection with the audience.

Why is the later connection necessary in leadership?

Look in internet marketing by doing this: Leaders do nothing at all more essential than get results. There are generally two ways in which leaders get results: They are able to order people to go from point A to point B; or they can have people WANT TO move from One place to another.

Clearly, leaders who are able to instill "want to" in people, who motivate those people, are much more efficient than leaders who can't or won't.

And the best way to instill "want to" is not only to connect with people as if they are information receptacles but to connect with them on a deep, human, emotional way.

And you're doing so with leadership talks.

Here are a few types of leadership talks.

When Churchill said, "We will fight around the beaches ... " Which was a leadership talk.

When Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can perform for you personally ... " which was a leadership talk.

When Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachev, destroy this wall!" Which was a leadership talk.

You can come up with lots of examples too. Go back to those moments when the words of a leader inspired individuals to take ardent action, and you've got probably place your finger on an authentic leadership talk.

Mind you, I'm not just talking about great leaders of history. I'm also referring to the leaders in your organizations. After all, leaders speak 15-20 times each day: everything from formal speeches to informal chats. When those interactions are leadership talks, not just speeches or presentations, the effectiveness of those leaders is dramatically increased.

How do we come up with leadership talks? It's not easy. Mastering leadership talks requires a rigorous application of many specific processes. As Clement Atlee said of this great master of leadership talks, Winston Churchill, "Winston spent the best years of his life preparing his impromptu talks."

Churchill, Kennedy, Reagan and others who were masters at giving leadership talks didn't actually call their communications "leadership talks", but they must have been conscious to some degree of the processes you have to employ in putting a leadership talk together.

Here's how to begin. If you plan to provide a leadership talk, there are three questions you should ask. Should you answer "no" to any among those questions, you can't give one. You may be capable of giving an address or presentation, but certainly not really a leadership talk.

(1) DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS?
Winston Churchill said, "We must face the facts or they'll stab us within the back."

When you are trying to motivate people, the actual facts are THEIR facts, their reality.

Their reality is composed of their demands. Oftentimes, their needs do not have anything to do with your needs.

Most leaders do not get this. They believe that their own needs, their organization's needs, are reality. That's okay if you are into ordering. As an order leader, you only need work with your reality. You just need to tell individuals to complete the job. It's not necessary to know where they're coming from. But if you want to motivate them, you must work inside their reality, not yours.

I refer to it as "playing the game in the people's home park". There is no other method to motivate them consistently. Should you insist upon playing the sport in your park, you'll be disappointed within the motivational outcome.

(2) CAN YOU BRING DEEP BELIEF As to the YOU'RE SAYING?
Nobody really wants to follow a leader who doesn't believe the job could possibly get done. If you cannot feel it, they will not do it.

But though you yourself must "want to" when it comes to the challenge you face, your motivation isn't point. It's simply a given. If you aren't motivated, do not be leading.

Here's the purpose: Are you able to TRANSFER your motivation to the people so that they become as motivated as you are?
I refer to it as THE MOTIVATIONAL TRANSFER, which is one of the least understood and many important leadership determinants of all.

There are 3 ways you can make the transfer happen.

* CONVEY INFORMATION. Often, this is enough to get people motivated. For example, lots of people have stop smoking due to info on the harmful effects of the habit

* Seem sensible. To become motivated, people must understand the rationality behind your challenge. Re: smoking: People have been motivated to stop since the information is sensible.

* TRANSMIT EXPERIENCE. This entails having the leader's experience become the people's experience. This can be the most effective method of all, for when the speaker's experience becomes the audience's experience, an in-depth sharing of emotions and ideas, a communing, can take place.

There are plenty of presentation and speech courses devoted to the first two methods, so I won't talk about those.

Here's a few ideas on the 3rd method. In most cases, humans learn in 2 ways: by acquiring intellectual understanding and thru experience. In our schooling, the previous predominates, but it is the latter that is most powerful in terms of inducing an in-depth sharing of emotions and concepts; for the experiences, which may be life's teachings, often bring us to profound awareness and purposeful action.

Look back at your schooling. Maybe it was your book learning or perhaps your experiences, your interactions with teachers and students, that you simply remember most? Generally, your experiences made probably the most telling impressions upon you.

To transfer your motivation to others, use what I call my "defining moment" technique, that we describe fully in my book, DEFINING MOMENT: MOTIVATING Individuals to Do something.

In brief, the strategy is this: Put in sharp focus a particular experience with yours then communicate that focused experience to folks by describing the physical facts that gave the emotion.

Now, here's the secret towards the defining moment. That experience of yours must provide a lesson which lesson is really a solution to the needs of the folks. Otherwise, they'll think you're just talking about yourself.

For the defining moment to work (i.e., for it to transfer your motivation for them), the knowledge should be about them. The knowledge happened for you, of course. But that experience becomes their experience once the lesson it communicates is really a solution to their demands.

(3) Are you able to Possess the AUDIENCE TAKE RIGHT ACTION?
Results don't happen unless people do something. After all, it's not what you say that's important in your leadership communications, it's exactly what the people do after you have had your say.

Yet most leaders posess zero clue as to what action truly is.

They get people using the wrong action in the wrong amount of time in the wrong manner for that wrong results.

A key reason for this failure is that they don't know how you can deliver the all-important "leadership talk Call-to-action".

"Call" originates from a classic English word meaning "to shout." A Call-to-Action is really a "shout to use it." Implicit within the concept is urgency and forcefulness. But many leaders don't provide the most effective Calls-to-action simply because they make three errors regarding it.

First, they err by mistaking the Call-to-Action being an order. Inside the context from the Leadership Talk, a Call-to-action is not an order. Leave the order for the order leader.

Second, leaders err by mistaking the phone call as theirs to provide. The best Call-to-action isn't the leader's to provide. It's the people's to provide. It is the people's to offer to themselves. A real Call-to-action prompts individuals to motivate themselves to take action.

The vast majority of leaders I've worked with are hampering their careers for one simple reason: They're giving presentations and speeches -- not leadership talks.

You have a great opportunity to increase your career by recognizing the strength of leadership talks. Before you decide to provide a leadership talk, ask three basic questions. Do you know what the individuals need? Can you bring deep belief to what you're saying? Are you able to possess the people go ahead and take right take action?

If you say "no" to the one of those questions you cannot give a leadership talk. But the questions aren't intended to be stumbling blocks for your leadership but stepping stones. Should you answer "no", work on the questions until you know, "yes". In that way, you'll get the best results in the proper way regularly.

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