Motivation at work: how to keep it intact?

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In this Professional Coaching Minute, we are going to address the following question: how to keep your motivation at work intact? Especially in difficult periods, periods of crisis. To answer this question, we called on Axèle Lofficial, VP Partner & Executive Coach at Talentis.

At the moment, there are a lot of crises: the Covid crisis, the crisis linked to the war in Ukraine, the reorganizations within a certain number of companies... The “Great Resignation” as well, this concept which highlights the fact that many employees feel less motivated at work and who, in fact, leave their company.

All these parameters mean that more and more companies are going through crises. Any manager, manager, employee can ask themselves if there is a way, individually, to keep their motivation at work intact and overcome the crisis.

“Overcoming the crisis, the lobster technique” is also the title of a book written by Axèle Lofficial. In this book, Axèle gives very practical advice on this subject.

Stay motivated at work thanks to the Maslow Pyramid

How can you motivate yourself?

Since the 20th century, there has been a very well known model that was intended to explain this. It's Maslow's Pyramid.

This pyramid, representing the individual needs of each human being in five levels (physiological, security, belonging, esteem). Maslow states that to reach a level you must have resolved the motivation concerns related to the previous one (s).

So the first thing to do would be to solve our physiological needs. Therefore, until we solve this point, we will not be motivated to solve the next point.

Then there are the needs in terms of security and then the need to belong. Belonging to a group, belonging to a company, belonging to a community made up of friends, etc... This is what will motivate us, it is to make sure we belong to a community. Once this feeling of belonging is achieved, we will be able to go further towards the desire for achievement and towards the desire for transmission.

A lot of people learn this model in management courses and it's very effective... with one small flaw.

Staying motivated at work: the limits of the Maslow Pyramid

The Maslow Pyramid model implies that things happen step by step. For example, he considers that it will be difficult to achieve oneself if the feeling of security is not present and if one has not resolved his physiological needs.

However, this model, which was very true in the United States in the 1950s, is no longer quite true in our world.

Where everything goes much faster. Globalization leads to the mixing of cultures and, in the world of work, it is clear that, depending on the country, the desire to transmit or to be fulfilled will take precedence over that of material security, for example.

In fact, what really matters is not really the order of the needs in the pyramid but rather to really understand what your own motivational levers are, today and now. This is why individual coaching support is interesting because it allows the person being accompanied to clearly identify their own needs and therefore their motivational levers.

Moreover, to go further, we advise you to read our article on the 6 levers of motivation at work.

Motivation at work: a question to ask yourself regularly

Everyone's motivation at work evolves over time. One day it will seem important to us to satisfy this or that need and the next day another. It doesn't matter what order is in Maslow's pyramid. It is therefore important to ask ourselves this question regularly and to take the time to ask ourselves what is really good for us.

We've just explored how we can keep our own motivation for ourselves intact. It is an important subject. In a future video, we'll see how to keep our teams motivated. This will be another no less important topic. See you soon!

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