How To Frame Goals in the Right Way

In this episode of The Leader’s Kitbag, I explore how two people with the same skills, experience and motivation can produce vastly different results, and why the difference often comes down to the language we use when setting goals.

You’ll learn about:

• Towards and away-from motivation styles
• How to spot them
• How tailoring your language to match can significantly increase goal achievement across your team.

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If you’d like support with leadership training, coaching or conference speaking, do drop me a line via chat@ben-morton.com, I’d love to help.

Podcast Transcript: How To Frame Goals in the Right Way 

If you want those that you lead and manage to hit their goals and achieve their objectives much more often, then today’s episode of The Leader’s Kit Bag is absolutely the one for you. 

Take this common workplace scenario. 

You’ve got two people with exactly the same goal. One person absolutely smashes it, whilst the other one drifts and falls significantly short, despite the fact that they’ve both got the same skills, experience and motivation. 

In that common scenario, what is the difference that makes all the difference? 

More often than not it can simply be about the language that we use as the leader or manager and how we frame or set up the goal. 

And that is exactly what we’re talking about in today’s episode of The Leader’s Kitbag. 

So to today’s episode and the language we use around goals and objectives and how we frame those to the people that we lead and manage.

There is a common misconception or misunderstanding among so many leaders and managers that we are all motivated by the same thing. That we’re all motivated by some sort of goal, bonus or reward and that is simply not the case. 

It’s just not true. We’re not all that similar. 

There are some of us in life who are very much motivated by some form of bonus, reward or goal.

We are motivated by trying to get or achieve something and we think of these people as being what we call towards motivated because they are moving towards what it is they want. 

Then there is another large percentage of the population who have an entirely different motivational mindset, and I’m one of these people. 

Some people are very much motivated by having rules or guidelines to follow. 

They are much more motivated by avoiding common mistakes or pitfalls than they are by a model, answer or solution. 

We think of these people as being what we call away-from motivated because they’re trying to move away from making some sort of mistake or error, not wanting to let themselves or somebody else down. 

And when we can start to match our language and how we frame those goals to the individual’s motivational mindset, it has an incredible impact on their ability to hit their targets and achieve their goals. 

So you might be asking or wondering, great, Ben, but how do I apply this? 

It’s potentially quite simple. 

All you need to do is start tuning in to the language that your people use, that those that you lead and manage use, both in their written communication and when they’re speaking. 

People who are towards motivated will use language that is more talking about what they want to achieve. 

You’ll hear words like gain, get, achieve, right? 

It’s very much towards motivated language, talking about what it is that they want. 

Then the away-from people, the language that they will use is much more avoid. 

I don’t want to, I don’t like. 

You’re going to hear much more about what it is they don’t want, what they don’t want to do. 

For away from motivated people, which many people can struggle to get their head round and work out how you motivate these people? 

A simple tip if you’ve got someone who is away-from motivated is to make sure you are giving them clear deadlines for pieces of work. 

Even if it doesn’t particularly matter to you, giving them a deadline is really helpful because they won’t want to miss that deadline. 

So there you have it folks. 

A very quick insight into motivation, particularly towards and away from motivational mindsets. 

If you need support with training, coaching or a speaker for your next conference or event, you know where to find me. 

And finally, if there’s a topic you’d like me to talk about in the Leader’s Kitbag, or a specific question you want answered, drop me an email to chat@ben-morton.com and I’ll see what I can do.