Motivational Speech Made Easy: Courage for The Future
The main role of the manager and manager in leadership positions is motivation. When we talk about motivating, that means concretely: Activating employees, giving them a motive to make the goals of the company their own goals, to stand up for the company.
Motivational Speech Structure: The 5 Levels of Positive Influence:
Motivational Speech: 1st Stage – as A Speaker, Convey Sympathy
Make sure you have a pleasant atmosphere when choosing your place. The employees appreciate this; it makes them ready to listen to you well-intentioned. As regards content, every motivational speech should convey to your employees (analogously):
- I respect and respect your personal performance.
- I respect and respect your individuality.
- I am interested in your wishes, needs and concerns.
- I want to encourage you in your development.
- I am open and honest in my behavior and communication.
Motivational speech: 2nd stage – Awaken interest
“You give me, I give you.” Everything in life is give and take. Your employees have the same right to their own benefit as you strive to achieve. This is nothing wrong here and there.
If you want to motivate, you have to do it justice. Management theory has coined the term “incentives” for the instrument of “giving.”
The currently most important incentives are of a material nature, that is, cash benefits in the form of
additional salaries, bonuses, profit sharing, etc. Intangible rewards (such as praise) are only in second place.
To prepare your motivational speech, you first clarify two things:
a) How do my employees behave so far? Do all bring the power that I expect and are capable of? Which deficits are there?
b) How can I change their attitude, what reason, what motive can I give them to behave differently?
The first question can best be clarified by talking “on the ground”. Ask your employees specifically for points of critic
ism: what should they expose to the working conditions, the working atmosphere, even the
supervisor or you. This is necessary to clarify how the attitude can be changed.
You may also have this survey conducted by the staff themselves (or an independent institute).
Tip: If the staff does not want to present the points of criticism to you, you should hire a company theater. The actors then slip into the role of employees. Two are enough: one plays a very critical, the other a rather moderate employee.
For each motivational speech, the basic needs that are common to all people must be considered:
The quest for security
Everyone needs food, clothing and a roof over their heads. And he wants to feel safe, strives for emotional security. Also every employee.
Material safety is ensured by the safety of the workplace, by good order situation of the enterprise, by emotional security (security, feeling of the affiliation) by the correct climate in the workplace.
The pursuit of benefits
Each person’s motivation to work for something also arises from the perspective of gaining advantages for themselves and their relatives.
In the professional life this can be gratuities, it can be the prospect of a higher salary, on profit sharing or on privileges, which bring then indirectly again material advantages.
The pursuit of social contacts
Man is a social being, without contacts he breaks. So everyone would like to “belong”. Many can only show strength in the community, as a team.
The group gives support, the individual dares more there. So he is also willing to invest in this group for his part.
Who wants to motivate, should therefore address the “we-feeling”, so give the employees the feeling of belonging to a special group / company / bank, etc.
The pursuit of status
aspirations we judge negative; Nonetheless, nobody is free from it. Privileges and status symbols can leverage the pursuit of power, authority, and social standing to spur employees toward higher achievements.
Status symbols such as an office privileged by location and equipment, a title, a company car, a designated parking space, etc. strengthen a person’s power and authority.
The quest for superiority
Also, the competition between parts of a company conveys a status, namely, one that is fought and won together, and thus immensely strengthens the group feeling.
In many international companies, the national sales teams are almost always in competition with each other. The headquarter fuels this competition and rewards the most successful generously: a huge motivation potential!
The pursuit of comfort
People like comfort, they also want to enjoy their privilege in peace and make themselves comfortable, as compensation for the tempo and stress of the working world.
As a motivator, you can specifically address this aspiration, for example through recreational incentives, improved working conditions or rewarding with special leave. The quest for self-fulfillment Man is curious by nature, wants to gain insights, information, knowledge and experience.
New experiences, new knowledge, new skills can be gained in survival training, but also in a less dramatic way, for example through a year in the Singapore branch, an attractive training program or freedom for one’s own creativity in the workplace.
Motivational Speech: 3rd Stage – Convince Your Audience
A leader who only promises gratuities on a case by case basis, so if the employees do this or that, moves on thin ice. In order to motivate people in the long term, something more is needed; they want to be confident.
A conclusive argument in your motivational speech will always convince in the end. The parts of the speech should be seamless and stringent. Make your line of reasoning logical and clear.
Three checkpoints will help you:
What do I want to achieve?
Formulate an exact goal and do not let it out of sight.
b) How do I argue?
Find all the arguments for your purpose and place them in a logical context. Focus on the strongest arguments and let the weaker, vulnerable ones fall as you prepare to speak.
The more you know the matter, the better informed you are and the more clearly you can see through the structures, the more convincing you can argue.
c) What objections exist?
Get rid of the idea that no one can object to your arguments. If it has always been the case that no one contradicts you, it seems likely that you are either an exception or have a despotic style of leadership.
Nobody dares to make a counter-argument. And this can not be motivation, but must lead to the opposite.
Think through the possible objections in advance; try to understand them and find a solution that makes the concerns pointless.
Motivational speech: 4th level – Arouse enthusiasm
You can only motivate if you are convinced of what you say, and are even enthusiastic about it. Your enthusiasm must be infected, your liveliness must signal to the others: “It is worth fighting for these goals, to get involved here. Look at me, in what enthusiasm this can put me. ”
Your most important task (and qualification) as a superior is to gain others positive influence on your personal goals, without pressure, without coercion, only through the power of your words and actions, through the power of your own enthusiasm, which transfers to the others.
Ultimately, this means that your success as a supervisor arises from the fact that you make your employees (internal) successful.
If your motivational speech is properly designed and can arouse enthusiasm – wonderful! Because:
- Enthusiasm overcomes the law of inertia and encourages action.
- Enthusiasm awakens confidence that gives wings.
- Enthusiasm strengthens self-confidence and encourages courage.
- Enthusiasm attracts others and increases the circle of fighters.
- Enthusiasm reaches goals that are otherwise unattainable.
For a company, a company means enthusiastic employees: work is fun and productivity increases. This benefits the quality of the work, the satisfaction of the customers, the competitiveness.
A and O: the credibility
Credibility is your most important asset. Hypocritical passion does not tingle like champagne.
Your employees will feel the difference unerringly. That’s why you should clarify in advance:
- Do I really respect my employees? If not, what’s stopping me?
- Do I feel sympathy for her? If not, who or what bothers me?
- Can I meet them openly, speak to them without reservation? If not, what is stopping me? What is blocking the open exchange?
Discuss existing problems in good time with a confidant, a consultant, a coach. You have to focus on greater success as a speaker when you love the people you talk to. If you value them as friends and allies.
Motivational Speech: 5th Grade – Appreciate Criticism and Objections
With sensitive topics, there will always come to criticism, objections, attacks, aggression. Open or hidden. The question is when? Do not let it get you caught cold during the speech.
Much better than stumbling into minefields during a speech is to track down and defuse criticism as recommended above. Try to identify unmet needs of employees in good time and be open-minded (but before speech, in bilateral talks or in smaller groups).
Show your employees clearly whether and how they can get what they want, or why they can not get it right now.
In the case of aggressive attacks before, during, or after your motivational speech, there are some tactics that you should follow:
- Very first rule: Stay calm, do not be infected or provoked by negative moods. Certainly not when talking.
- Listen and keep eye contact. Since a rigid eye contact could be understood as a dominance attempt, better guide the eye to the mouth of the opponent. This signals, “I’m listening.”
- Let the other finish, do not interrupt (certainly not loud) and then run in any case against the objections.
- More professional and helpful than the harsh rejection is the working out of agreements, the search for similarities or the “yes and” technique (approval technique), which respects other positions even when there is no agreement.
- You criticize flat criticism for the precision model: “Would you please specify what you propose?” / “What exactly do you mean by that?”
- Think about why an employee thinks he has to react aggressively. Did you hurt him unintentionally and carelessly? Resistance stirs in anyone who does not feel respected or respected, blamed, or accused, especially when this happens in public – including in a speech. In any case, you should avoid allegations, accusations, blame on the address of an employee in your speech (even in the public response to objections).
- If you criticize an objection, then the rule always applies: Never to the person, only to the thing! Never question the person ( “How do I get myself to be reproached by you !?” )
