 What's the secret to motivating others? Stick around and I'll tell you. Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. Motivating our team to turn in and outstanding performance is one of our biggest challenges as leaders. And I know I told you I would tell you what the secret is to motivation, but the truth is there is no secret and we can't really motivate anyone to do anything. But understanding how and why individuals do the things they do is a key piece of knowledge for every leader. There are two types of motivation based on human psychology, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, and every human being has both to some degree. Intrinsic motivation is motivation based on the idea that task performance serves as its own reward. In other words, intrinsic motivation is when we feel the sense of accomplishment for doing a good job. Extrinsic motivation is motivation based on some contingency based on job performance. These contingencies could be positive like bonuses, pay raises, or other benefits, or they could be negative like consequences for not doing a good job. As I said before, almost everybody is intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to some degree. While there are a lot of people who get a lot of satisfaction from a job well done, you don't see a lot of people turning down their paychecks. As leaders, it's tempting to think that we'd like to be surrounded by a team of fully intrinsically motivated people, but the reality of human nature is this just isn't true. A more reasonable approach for us is to get to know the members of our team and figure out to what degree each is intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. There are a lot of ways we can apply this knowledge of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. To appeal to the intrinsically motivated nature of individuals, we can give them new challenges, have them spearhead initiatives for us, or provide them with more responsibility. When thinking of ways to reach the extrinsically motivated side of people, remember that the rewards don't always need to be tangible like money or benefits. Allowing your team to work flexible hours, giving awards, or just some simple public recognition can satisfy this extrinsically motivated side of most individuals. Ideally, you won't have to use negative factors to reach the extrinsically motivated side of someone, but sometimes it is necessary. So to wrap it all up, every human being is motivated both intrinsically and extrinsically to some degree. Our job as leaders is to figure out what motivates each member of our team and use our knowledge and creativity to find ways to reach them. Using a one-size-fits-all approach is probably going to give limited benefit, so it's important that we get to know what makes each member of our team tick and apply these concepts. If you found this helpful, don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter and join us every Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific time for a live interactive leadership discussion on BLAB. Click off to that globe on the right and that'll get to subscribe to our email list and bring all of our content direct to your inbox. Thank you for watching, I appreciate it as always, and remember, the future is out there. Lead the way.