How to Motivate People at Work: The 6 Motivation Patterns

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Words That Change Minds" by Shelle Rose Charvet. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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Do you have a hard time getting your team members or colleagues to enthusiastically engage in a new project? Does it seem like they’re on a page that doesn’t even exist in your book?

According to influencing language expert Shelle Rose Charvet, if you learn how someone is motivated, you can consciously match their frame of reference and speak in a language they understand. She discusses six motivation patterns in a workplace context, but you can use her insights in any setting.

Continue reading to learn how to motivate people at work by speaking their motivation language.

How to Motivate People at Work

Charvet says that you can learn how to motivate people at work by understanding six motivation patterns. The majority of these patterns are based on a dichotomy between two opposites. According to Charvet, this doesn’t mean that people are either one or the other—rather, the patterns form a spectrum, and individuals often fall somewhere in between. For example, while some people prefer to work with a team and others prefer to work alone, there are also those who equally enjoy working with others and by themselves.

Virtues of the Middle Ground

The middle of the motivation pattern spectrum may be the most desirable, especially if you’re in a leadership role. In The Dichotomy of Leadership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin assert that every characteristic of a good leader becomes counterproductive when taken to the extreme. Thus, as a leader, you should attempt to strike a healthy balance between ideals in everything you do.

This may also apply to motivation patterns. For instance, a leader who can only work in collaboration with other people might struggle with tasks no one can help with (like writing reports to a senior manager), while a leader who can only work alone may struggle with tasks that require teamwork (like leading brainstorming meetings.)

Motivation Pattern #1: Active or Passive

The first motivation pattern we’ll discuss refers to someone’s readiness to spur themselves into action: Are they active or passive? (Charvet calls this the “Level” category.) Active people progress toward their goals as quickly as possible, while passive people tend to wait and analyze the situation until the perfect opportunity arises or someone else pushes them into action.

You can tell someone is active if they speak in short, direct sentences that emphasize simple cause-and-effect sequences, asserts Charvet. To communicate effectively with an active person, mirror this effect. For example, you could say, “We’re downsizing to keep this branch profitable.”

In contrast, passive people speak in long, often meandering sentences that highlight the subtle complexities of a situation. To break downsizing news to a passive person, you might say, “Although there’s great work being done in every department, it’s likely that we’ll start running a deficit unless we downsize to reduce our current expenses.”

Motivation Pattern #2: Positively or Negatively Incentivized

The second motivation pattern describes whether someone feels more motivated by the promise of a reward or by the threat of negative consequences: Are they positively or negatively incentivized? (Charvet calls this the “Direction” category.)

According to Charvet, someone who’s positively incentivized will frequently talk about their goals—what they want to achieve and add to their life. For example, they might excitedly tell you, “If this project succeeds, we’ll have the only product of its kind on the market.” On the other hand, someone who’s negatively incentivized will tend to talk about their fears and problems—what they want to keep out of their life. They would emphasize that “Unless we get this product to market quickly, we’ll fall behind our competitors.”

To influence someone to take action, talk to positively incentivized people about opportunities they can gain and negatively incentivized people about threats they should avoid.

Motivation Pattern #3: Self-Validated or Validated by Others

The third motivation pattern refers to how people decide what to do and how they assess if they’re doing it well: They’re either self-validated or validated by others. (Charvet calls this the “Source” category.) Self-validated people only want to work if they believe they’re successfully doing something important. People validated by others only like working if someone like a boss or coworker tells them they’re doing a good job at something important.

Self-validated people make frequent judgments about their work and the work of others: For example, they might say, “My presentation at today’s meeting went well. Although I was a little less organized than Justin, my visual aids got my point across well.” In contrast, people validated by others defer to other people’s opinions when judging someone’s work: “I think I had a good presentation today. Justin told me he was impressed, and I saw Michelle nodding a lot.”

Charvet notes that because they’re so self-assured, persuading someone self-validated to change their mind can be a challenge. If you’re trying to influence them, make sure to give suggestions rather than instructions. For instance, you could say, “If you want your message to be as clear as possible, you may want to cut each of your presentation slides down to a couple of bullet points.”

People validated by others are much easier to influence—just strongly assert what you believe to be true or cite the standards of others: “You should keep your slides more concise. Michelle always responds well to a focused presentation.”

How to Motivate People at Work: The 6 Motivation Patterns