Don’t just motivate. Aspire to inspire.

The Inspiration Factor
by Terry Barber

If you were asked to come up with a synonym for inspiration, what would you say? Stimulation? Encouragement, perhaps? Most people would instantly say motivation.
But are motivation and inspiration really the same?
Motivation, like inspiration, provides an incentive to act a certain way—but it can be for reasons both self-sacrificing . . . and self-serving. One can even be motivated out of fear, say, of a penalty—like when my dad used “corporal punishment” to “teach me a lesson.” Motivating? Oh yeah. But inspiring? Uh-uh.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, to inspire means to exert an “exalting influence.” Unfortunately, most business training or material focuses on motivation, encouraging the dangling of “carrots” to prod employees along toward better performance (“carrots” meaning promises of upward mobility). And employers? Well, sometimes their methods are less than inspiring: they motivate, all right, but through manipulation—or threats. “If you don’t meet this goal . . .” Even if an organization does achieve some results this way, they will be short-lived, because people haven’t been inspired.
So, what kinds of actions make the difference between inspiring someone and motivating him or her? Again, I refer to my father. Often, as a boy, when I’d first come into the kitchen in the morning, my dad would be standing by the coffeepot, singing enthusiastically to country music. He’d greet me with a big smile, then on the way to school, ask, “Son, what are you looking forward to today? How are you going to make a difference?” He wasn’t charging me to “live up to my potential.” He was asking me about my goals for the day. I began to think seriously each morning about what I wanted to achieve before the sun went down.
Sometimes my dad took me to work with him. All day long, he would introduce me to his customers. He taught me to shake hands assertively, look his customers in the eye, and say my name with confidence. I want to be just like Dad, I remember thinking. I want people to like me the way they like him. On days like these, Dad did more than just briefly motivate me. He actually tapped into my dreams (to impact people) and gave me a vision for my future. In other words, he used the inspiration factor.
Are you a leader? Then understand this: leaders who genuinely inspire others do so by tapping into people’s dreams—then extracting the best from them. And whether these leaders just have a knack for inspiring those around them, or they have developed the skill through years of training, trial, and error, it is the inspiration factor that produces more positive transformations than any other leadership trait.
I didn’t always understand this. The first time I was asked to supervise a group of interns, I spent a lot of time “motivating” them. I’d read all the books and attended all the seminars—but I got it all wrong. First I manipulated people: “We. Are. Fired. Up! We. Love. Our. Work!” (Sounds like a cheerleader, doesn’t it?) But I wasn’t connecting to their dreams, so results were minimal, at best.
So I changed tactics. “Live up to your potential . . . or you’ll answer to me!” Just as dad’s belt imparted only temporary “motivation” to me, so did these threats only briefly “fire up” my interns.
My frustration drove me to look for answers, and in my search I realized that my approach had been far too external. I had used pressure to get people to meet my goals—while failing miserably to touch their hearts.
Leaders, we all have goals—but do you know your employees’ goals? What are their dreams? Their ambitions? Find out—and then find a way to tie their objectives to your mission. If you can do this, you can begin to build a culture of inspiration in the workplace. (I discuss this, and much more, in my recent release The Inspiration Factor, published by Greenleaf Press.)
What if you really could change the very culture in which you work—and live? You can . . . if you learn to, not motivate, but INSPIRE!