Intrinsic Motivation and Lessons from the Horse by the River

Problem

First of all, I would like to remind readers that this article is just a personal perspective on resource management. Management is a complex task, so the learning process never stops. As a member of the software development team, combined with experience and knowledge from books, today I would like to express my thoughts on the issue of coaching by managers.

Coach

A day in the life of a programmer is fairly predictable. They go to work, clock in, report on their current work status, attend meetings, write code and debug... If necessary, they work overtime, otherwise, after 6pm, they go home with other concerns in life.

Accompanying them are the managers. Typically, managers can do technical work as a programmer and additionally, they need to take on the responsibility of managing a team, connecting them together to achieve the desired results.

Management is never easy. It takes a lot of time and effort to operate a smoothly functioning team. Because we are humans, we are very different, with unique thinking and self-esteem. When two people have conflicting thoughts, the manager is the one who mediates. When they need help beyond their reach, managers are also there... Smooth operations go without saying, but in case of conflicts within the team, managers are the ones who suffer from the headaches to resolve these issues.

In a job, each team usually has suitable short-term or long-term goals. For example, the goal is to release an update by the end of this week, complete a new feature before the 15th of next month, increase the user retention rate... there are numerous goals. The goals set by "someone" are the goals of the entire team that need to be accomplished, and few people wonder why they have to do it. Hmm... that's true, we are paid to accomplish the company's goals.

But sometimes the results are not as expected, the goals take more time to complete than initially planned, the goals fail, or simply the goals change... When hearing this, surely many of you have experienced it to some extent, and no one is happy because not achieving the goals implies failure, sometimes even personal pride, and having to face dissatisfaction from leadership.

Management is already difficult, connecting team members to achieve goals is even more challenging. If everyone is "paid" to achieve goals, who is responsible for the goals not achieved? A month ago, my manager (let's call him "he") was sent for an in-depth management course, from which he learned about coaching, setting goals, and creating motivation for everyone to work together with the highest enthusiasm. It was a heartening sign!

[...]

"Coach" is a word that translates to "người huấn luyện" in Vietnamese. The coach's goal is for everyone to be able to train themselves and others. It's almost like each individual can think independently but communicate with each other through a shared language to increase work productivity. And that shared language is the content of the sessions he conducted.

According to the plan, in the most recent meeting, he began applying what he had learned to reinforce the knowledge he had gained. In the first session, a series of questions were asked and even the goal-setting process had to be changed. Have you ever thought about who sets the goals? Of course, it's the "bosses". Here, bosses refer to people in the company's leadership team. They have authority and control the ship with many people wavering on the water. On board, everyone needs each other. If the leadership is good, the ship will be filled with fish, everyone will be warm and satisfied. Conversely, if the members don't collaborate well, the ship will still have fish, but only one fish per person.

The goal proposed by the leadership team in the previous meeting was "a 30% revenue growth" (in practice, the goal was changed for reasons of confidentiality). The whole team's task was to determine if that goal was "worth" doing, by asking many questions to force everyone to think and come up with answers to reach the conclusion of whether to do it or not. Members need to express their opinions one by one, and if the whole team agrees, it is recorded as a commitment, which means that it is feasible, and everyone needs to take responsibility for it.

According to him, coaching aims to stimulate everyone's work motivation. If the goals are imposed from above, we just do the work without asking or questioning why, making it feel like a command that must be obeyed. On the contrary, when all members actively participate in the goal-setting process, offer opinions, or even "deal" with the target numbers that they feel are achievable, it helps to make everyone more responsible for what is proposed.

I learned a lot after his first coaching session. I felt the enthusiasm of a manager who seems to have found the true sunlight.

Intrinsic Motivation

Concepts always try to condense everything to an abstract and difficult-to-understand level. That makes sense because they need to cover all the necessary ideas that form that concept. Similarly, in my simple understanding, intrinsic motivation means the internal drive to achieve one's goals in some way.

For example, my goal is to lose weight in a short period of time, and the way I choose to achieve it is by running every day. But to maintain that, the biggest motivation is "my partner says I have to lose weight to meet their parents".

It's easy to see that the greater the motivation, the faster we move towards the goal. Returning to work, what motivates you to work? I bet there are many answers, such as accumulating more experience, creating useful products for users, higher salary, new positions... All reflect the desires of each person, which may not necessarily be the same.

However, motivation is not something that naturally exists, nor is it easy to maintain. If everyone easily obtained motivation, then there would be no difficulties in any job in the world, and there would not be articles, books, or speeches about igniting motivation in people!

I sensed the urgency in his coaching session, although he had presented the content really well, I felt a bit surprised. Perhaps the questions in my head and in many others were "What are we doing?", "Why do we have to listen to this issue?", "What are we going to do next?", "Will someone tell me what the next plan is?", "Will the current working process change?"... In short, there was no clear plan disseminated to everyone, leading to confusion and sometimes making others worried. For some people, they may not understand and think that it is not relevant for them to care about what he said.

To say the least, this wasn't my first time being "coached". Before, I had participated in many coaching sessions with similar content. Looking back at my first experience, I felt like I had an "epiphany" from the speaker's words. But after a few weeks, everything slipped away because no one remembered what was taught. Partly due to poor preparation, partly because the environment after the coaching session was no longer there, it felt like a party that had ended and everyone went home.

Secondly, it's the potential of individuals. As mentioned, everyone's work motivation is different, not to mention they have a relatively complex life, no one is the same, and they contribute to the formation of unique thinking. In the short term, trying to change their thinking or forcing them to change is a bit overwhelming unless it is an imposition.

Lastly, it's still a management problem. I think management requires emotional intelligence (EQ), which means emotional intelligence. Managers need to understand team members so that they can offer proposals or gradually help them adapt to their new management methods.

You Can Only Lead a Horse to Water

There is a famous saying that resonates with me: "You can only lead a horse to water, you cannot make it drink". The implication is that you cannot change others (such as their way of thinking) unless they want to change.

I only realized this recently while unintentionally reading a book. Previously, I was a very enthusiastic person in debating to force others to believe or do what I said. If I won, it was a satisfying feeling of being a winner. If I lost, I would reluctantly remain silent, but in my heart, I felt uncomfortable, not happy, and not satisfied... What did I gain from it? Nothing at all. When I won, did the others believe my words or did they feel the same way I did when losing? In other words, it was an insignificant debate. But if I just expressed my strong opinions without turning it into a battle of winners and losers, because whether the other party accepts or not is something we cannot intervene in.

The same goes for igniting motivation. Listening to others may sound great, but to "persuade" and follow it completely depends on each individual, whether they want to change or not. It is difficult to force immediate change, which can lead to many issues. Instead, a gradual approach may be necessary, similar to the strategy of "leading a horse to water".

In conclusion, this is an idea and a great opportunity to move towards a way of managing people through goals, by igniting the motivation of all team members. Hopefully, in the near future, we will soon achieve some positive first signs. Because I think, everyone who works wants to find their own work motivation.