[00:00:34.160]
Welcome to Episode 121 of The Non-Anxious Leader podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. We are going to get right into today's episode, which is another storytime, boys and girls, from Friedman's Fables.

[00:00:49.900]
Please obtain a copy of Friedman's Fables and read "Net Results."

[00:09:23.600]
And the moral of the story is, "The unmotivated are notoriously invulnerable to insight."

[00:09:35.080]
It's probably fair to say that the title for this episode would be better expressed as how to demotivate the unmotivated.

[00:09:46.180]
As I have said before, nobody wants to be told what to do. It is very clear in this fable that the harder Harry tries to get his wife motivated, the harder he tries to get her into tennis, the less motivated, the less interested she gets. The result is a classic case of overfunctioning.

[00:10:09.320]
Of course, Harry's wife is part of the equation here, as well. She is the underfunctioner. Her passivity feeds Harry's overfunctioning. So a question to ask in any situation where there is overfunctioning is, "What underfunctioning compliments it?" It takes two to tango in this overfunctioning-underfunctioning dance, and it is hard to say which creates the other and which perpetuates the other. They work together to perpetuate a chronic situation.

[00:10:43.590]
There are two components of emotional process that are going on here. The first is that Harry wants his wife to play tennis and what he does is create surrounding togetherness pressure. Now, it is important to ask the question if Harry wants his wife to play tennis, why is it so important for him? Of course, people want to do things together, but why does she have to do it with him? Why does he have to have her as a tennis partner? He loves tennis. He can just go play tennis himself. And yet this is something very important to him. And so we wonder what is going on inside of him, that he creates the kind of surrounding togetherness pressure that compels him to go to these extremes.

[00:11:35.550]
On the other side of this equation is what is going on with Harry's wife, that she is unable to take a non-anxious emotional stand. "You know, honey, I know that you love tennis, but I just don't feel that tennis is for me." It would be interesting to see what would happen if Harry's wife actually made a statement like that and if Harry would be able to accept it or if he would come back with even more pressure. What we do know is that if she were able to take that stand and be a non-anxious presence, then ultimately that would have saved Harry a lot of trouble in trying to get his wife to want to play tennis, to like playing tennis.

[00:12:19.830]
Again, it takes two to tango here. So the question becomes, how do you motivate an unmotivated person? The answer is you can't. They have to want to motivate themselves. And the more you try to motivate them, the more you over function, the less likely they are going to want to do what you want them to do. This probably sounds like a broken record, but the only thing that you can do is to self-differentiate to remain a non-anxious presence, take responsibility for yourself and not take responsibility for the other.

[00:13:08.320]
We can see Harry taking responsibility for every little detail of his wife's tennis game, responding to every complaint. And if you look at it, her complaints are just excuses because she can't stand up for herself. She can't take a non-anxious emotional stand. But rather than understanding the emotional process, what he does is he gets into the content. So he gets her shoes, gets her a racket, and he finds a court where there is nobody that will be watching and it's not too hot.

[00:13:39.370]
All of these things distract him from actually just focusing on taking care of himself. In fact, the best thing Harry could have done was to not care. He could say something like, "Boy, it'd be nice if you want to play tennis with me, but if you don't, that's OK." Then go play tennis himself, which is what he loved to do. At some point, his wife might actually want to come along and learn herself, but until she is the one who decides that she wants to do it, she's not going to be motivated.

[00:14:10.810]
Now, you might be asking, what about a work situation? What about a team situation or a ministry situation where there is somebody who is unmotivated? And of course, when you have a job to do and you are paying somebody to do it, then it is reasonable to expect them to do it (although they may not be motivated).

[00:14:30.100]
What can you do about it? You can certainly establish rewards and consequences for that person. If they do a good job, they get some kind of praise, are rewarded. And if they don't do a good job or if they don't deliver at all, then it might mean that their job is at risk, or it might mean that they are not going to get a good review. Those are all certainly reasonable things.

[00:14:55.180]
However, we know from nonviolent communication, Marshall Rosenberg says that whenever somebody does something because of a reward or a punishment, that is a form of violent communication because they are doing something for extrinsic motivation instead of doing something that they want to do on their own.

[00:15:17.680]
So even in a paid position, even in a situation where somebody is a part of a team, what we want to do is we want to try to figure out how to let them motivate themselves. Of course, we know two of the basic family systems functions are to remain a non-anxious presence, which means remain emotionally connected to the person so that they know that you care about them, but also be non-anxious about that. Don't be anxious about their performance, because the more anxious anxiety you show towards their performance, the less likely they are going to be motivated. Self-regulate your own anxiety about that.

[00:16:00.190]
The second thing is to lead through self-differentiation. Here's where we need to go. Here's where I'm going. I hope you are willing to come with us. I hope you're willing to join in on this important task that we're doing or join in on helping us fulfill our mission. That doesn't guarantee that they're going to come along. But if you give them the freedom to decide themselves, then that will help.

[00:16:25.480]
And then finally, one thing that's really important about motivation is autonomy. When people believe that they have the autonomy to not only decide they're going to do it, but decide how they are going to do it, then they are more likely to be motivated. Again, this is not a guarantee that it's going to happen. But if you say to somebody, "Here is our objective, here's what we're trying to achieve. Here's how it fulfills our mission." You give them a vision of the difference it makes where you're headed and why you want to do it.

[00:16:59.110]
And then you can ask, "How do you think we should get there? How would you like to go about doing this?" By asking them and involving them. You give them the chance to motivate themselves. I'm not saying that this is going to work every time. It may not even work most of the time with certain people. But what I do know is when you tell people what they have to do and put in punishments or even rewards, then external motivation may work for a time. But it's not going to get the kind of commitment and effort that you really want.

[00:17:32.680]
Giving people the freedom to choose and giving them the autonomy to figure out how to get there is the best option that we have to motivate the unmotivated.