You may have heard of the expression “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” While, in the short term, you can sometimes compel people to do certain things, there are many things you can’t compel them to do – and this includes getting them to do their very best.
At the best, compulsion brings grudging acquiescence to your will. At the worst, it breeds quiet and undetectable sabotage (it really can…)
So when we’re thinking of motivating people to do their best, we’re thinking of something very different from compulsion: We’re thinking about getting the very best from members of our team by providing an environment that is rich with motivating factors. When you do that, the people working with and around you are free to draw on the elements they each find the most motivating and rewarding.