Key Components of HR Wellness and Motivation Programs: It's Not What You Think!

I was talking to a health and benefits manager about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. She is reading articles that tell her that only intrinsic motivations matter. But I know so much research that validates my instant-salivation when someone says $100 Amazon Gift-Card. So here's my take, in written form:

Extrinsic motivation is motivation that is focused outward, to the environment that the person is in. For example, you give people a $100 gift card or a reduction in their health insurance premiums if they get screened by their doctor and then talk with a health coach at least once a month, to focus on reducing weight, blood pressure or emotional stress in their lives - all factors that are known to lead to expensive illnesses. The person is taking action because you are dangling money (an external factor) or you are threatening them with a negative outcome (higher premiums).

Intrinsic motivation is motivation (desire) that stems from inside the person. The group increases the customer satisfaction by decreasing the fail rate of a product, and they do that because they are given more autonomy in their work and they are on fire to do a good job, because a good job reflects on their vision of themselves. They want to see themselves as Quality Performers, so they are internally-powered to think of new ideas and put them into practice. They take ownership of the result because they truly, deeply care (are motivated).

However, human beings are complex, and simple definitions don't model human beings very well. Most people take action or stop taking action, or shift their internal beliefs, because of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The most successful Human Resources changes include both intrinsic and extrinsic components. In the intrinsic example above, the professionals started to take more ownership of the final result (shifted to more intrinsic motivation) when they were given more power and autonomy to make changes; if the company just talks, or brings in a "motivational speaker," the results will not last, because deep desire isn't engaged by just talk.

One interesting result is that positive external incentives work more effectively than negative incentives. From a psychology perspective, consider that if you want people to change deeply ingrained habits, are they more likely to do so if they are cheerfully walking toward a reward, or are angry and resentful (you are increasing their premiums unless they comply)?

In the example of improving health outcomes, the best results seem to include both extrinsic factors (the positive financial incentives) and the addition of intrinsic motivation. The health coaches provide encouragement and inspiration, and the best coaches will stress the outcome of the changes: that the employee will be more likely to stay healthy for their children if they maintain a healthy weight and blood pressure. A strong desire to do the best for one's children is a common intrinsic motivation to get healthier.

Understanding that people are complex, that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations work best when both are active, and that carrots (positives) work better than sticks (negatives) can help guide a company to their true end goal - greater profits through more educated and trained, happier and more engaged workers.

The Book-Creation Hacks Are Life Happiness Hacks, too

Creativity is a powerful guide to transformational change.  I’ve been writing for publication since way before the Berlin Wall fell, before Bill Clinton was elected President, even, and I blush to confess, the thrill never goes away.  My latest baby is just as much of a thrill as the second; 101 Stress-Busters for Energy, Joy and Healthy Longevity will hit Amazon and everywhere outside of Ashland, Oregon [we’ve got it already], at the end of January. Nothing is ever as soul-stirringly wonderful as seeing your name in big letters ON THE COVER OF A BOOK for the first time.  When the Library of Congress asked for a copy, I drove to D.C. so I could see how many Representatives and Senators had checked it out.  Answer: 12. Oh. My. God.

Lying collapsed in my usual post-creation heap, it occurred to me that the Best Practices for writing a quality book is strikingly similar to Best Practices for living your quality life. 

1.       Know what the end goal is: what outcome do you want for your readers; what outcome do you want for yourself, either on a business or personal level?  Keep these answers on a card or a sheet of paper whenever you sit down to work on your project.

Keeping an eye on the prize, a reminder of the ultimate goal, helps keep you from being swayed by the emotion of the moment, or someone who has “hooked” an unresolved childhood issue that you are not consciously aware of (needing attention; needing to show you’re best; needing to be appreciated; needing to have more income that anyone else in your social orbit, etc.).

2.       Have a project plan with checkpoints.  Have a chapter by chapter plan.

You know in your business life that checkpoints are vital to spurring effective action. They give you a clear idea of where the project is on the road to completion.  They give you accountability.  Don’t over-plan to avoid having to actually write, but do make sure that you have a step-by-step plan with specific checkpoints. 

In books, it’s a chapter or a page.  In other aspects of your life, what are the checkpoints?  When I bought my fixer-upper, I started with a list of serious problems.  I started checking them off and then I made a list of the remodels that I would need to have the floorplan work for a healing center, a family home and a separate pet area.  Not everything was clear from the start.  The amount of money and renovation I would need to turn the garage into the Hobby House, heated and cooled with moderate amounts of $$, was not clear to me when I started.  In fairness, I could have anticipated more of it, but the first two lists were so overwhelming, I very sensibly put the garage into the Much, Much Later category and didn’t give it another thought for two years. 

3.       Have a reward that you really want for completing every checkpoint, with extra rewards for completing on time.

You know this works.  You do it with your customers – reward the behavior you want.  Well, darling, your human brain works just like theirs.  So get those rewards prepared.  Want to lose weight?  Virtue ain’t its own reward, not in the first 30 days.  Have non-food rewards.  I, for example, will do nearly anything for a $100 Amazon gift card that I can use to bankroll my video habit.  I also salivate over, and will finish a chapter for or eat kale for, smaller rewards.  We all have things we want.  Don’t let yourself have them until you hit a checkpoint and see how your foot-dragging around clearing out the garage disappears. 

4.       You’re not writing a book; that’s a terrifying concept.  You are writing one chapter.  When you’re really tired and want to quit, but you’ve made the choice to push on to some checkpoint, then you are just writing this one page.  Just one page.  You can do that. 

You’re not losing 35 pounds.  You are cataloging all your calories for today, and doing a 10 minute intensive cardio routine on the DVD from the library.  Do both of those things and you can have a lavender tub soak (or Grantchester episode) tonight.  Do it for a week and you can go to a Sounders game.  Small steps get you to the finish line; grandiose plans flop in 6 weeks.

5.       If you get a brainstorm, something that really takes control of your brain and makes you want to shout “Yes! Yes! Yes!” to the uncaring walls or silent moon, write your brainstorm down in as much detail as you can, then take a deep breath and look at item #1.  Does this storm make the end goal or outcome work better?  Or does this storm point to a different outcome?  Take another 5 deep breaths [yes, it’s Tool #2-1 from my book; keep reading].  Perhaps meditate or do a card reading or ask Sarasvati or another incarnation of the great I AM for advice.  Do you really want this new outcome more than the old outcome?

I had an original chapter plan and I had a different title, because I had a different end goal.  Then I had a brainstorm that took my breath away and the book is entirely different.  When you are tempted away from a life goal, the same procedure keeps you on the best path for you.  Instead of following blindly when your limbic system gets hijacked by someone who touches an unhealed childhood wound or an unexamined childhood dream, you stop, get your pre-frontal cortex (your thinking, logical, clear-sighted brain) to give you a 2^nd opinion and let the two opinions become reconciled into a clear-headed decision, something that you will be proud to own for the rest of your life.  If everyone did this, the marketplace would be a very different place because most sales ploys rely on manipulating and amplifying the “I’m not good enough” beliefs hidden deep inside us.  If we had our PFC’s integrated with every limbic system business decision, we sellers couldn’t hid our lack of steak behind a smokescreen of sizzle.

Some of my changed life goals over the years have included dumping losing business ventures instead of “refusing to quit,” an emotional stance that caused several entrepreneurs that I know to lose house as well as business in the dot-com crash and then more in the Great Recession.  “I’m Not A Quitter” is a limbic system response, based on “quitter” shaming from childhood or adulthood, and not a clear-headed choice based on receivables, cash flow and the local and national economy. 

Every once in a while, I really, really want to do something, and no matter how hard I try, with all the skills of a transformation coach and healer, I cannot fathom why.  If it’s not dangerous to me, emotionally, physically or in any other way I can see, and it isn’t taking my life on a new and destructive path, I let myself do it.  I let myself say “Yes, I’m a spiritual healer,” when I didn’t consider myself one, just because someone I really respected asked me to – and stepped into a completely new income stream, and an additional self-definition.  It’s also why I climbed a mountain and then jumped – with the guy who actually knew how to fly the dang thing.  I knew the physical laws that allow lift and I had my will updated before the honeymoon trip, so there I was, for a millisecond, falling straight downward off a mountain.  And then lift kicked in and away we soared, high above Queenstown, New Zealand, soaring with dragons as I had always dreamed. 

6.       Self-care every day, no matter the deadlines, is your lifeline.  If you don’t eat healthy, exercise and take time to rest and recuperate, you will NOT create a quality product.  I know, Handel wrote the Messiah in six weeks, but let’s be real: He was a genius, he had been thinking about something like it for months, and he had a servant to make him healthy meals and remind him to take his daily constitutional.  This is the Magic Formula for a healthy life, too.

Let me connect you to a world of solutions.  While you’re waiting to buy your copy of 101 Stress Busters, take action to make 2017 the year when you knock some of your pain-points out of your life forever!  A free Getting Unstuck session (not a sales pitch, a real session) will give you tools that you can use to knock at least one of those “pains” out of the park – forever.   Do you like to Do It Yourself?  My blog and free classes are the place to start.  Are you ready for your major Pain Points to – poof! – be gone?  Sign up for a Getting Unstuck session (free, not a sales pitch), and watch one of them disappear.  Then sign up for a comprehensive program and ditch the big ones, too.  Do you like to learn from classes?  Comprehensive beta classes will be launching in January.  Sign up to be a beta-tester.  At www.soaringdragon.biz, it’s all about solutions, not hype!  You deserve more than quick-fixes that won’t last. Link to me and let me connect you to a world where problems get solved - forever!    

All the advantages of living in cities..... really aren't! Fascinating stats!

You know that urban neighborhoods are more ethnically diverse than small surrounding cities (aka suburbs), right?  With a more diverse political spectrum, right?  And big cities are where more and more people are congregating for better quality of life, right?

Turns out all of that is wrong.  Central cities are full of singles, urban neighborhoods are more uniform with respect to ethnicity AND political philosophy, and have the highest levels of economic inequality in the nation.  They are also lonely places where no one except the hipster singles interact outside of their immediate circle of friends.

It all makes sense.  What pulls people outside their homes isn’t just the mating game of the affluent Young Urban Singles that Microsofties are the poster boys/girls for.  There is much more ethnic diversity, political diversity and meeting-your-neighbors in surrounding small cities, because that’s where the child-raising is happening and kids pull you into church and PTA activities. 

One of the stats that runs particularly counter to popular assumptions is that high-density megacity neighborhoods that are multi-cultural are NOT highly interactive.  It turns out that having to navigate a half-dozen different social and cultural norms, and people whose goals, needs and preferred living style are at odds with yours (seniors who want quiet at night and parents of babies who are anything but, comes to mind), along of whom are right on top of you, without adequate soundproofing or privacy, does NOT cause neighbors to reach out and connect, kumbaya.   It creates the stereotypical city culture of everyone living parallel lives.  Parallel lines never cross, you’ll recall.  As someone who has lived in moderate to megacities, yes, indeed. 

So what on Earth am I talking about?  A fascinating library read by Joel Kotkin [The Human City], focused on the kinds of human environments cities and small surrounding cities create.  It turns out that it’s not what I – or maybe you – thought it was.  

Let me explode more barriers that are holding you back from living the life that you want to live!  www.soaringdragon.biz.  Email for a FREE Getting Unstuck session today.   victoria.leo.reiki@gmail.com