Understanding Motivation

What is motivation? Do incentives work? How do we keep clients motivated and for that matter, how do we keep ourselves and staff motivated? Our jobs are often difficult and the helping professions are consistently listed among the lowest paid when considering the educational requirements. We obviously didn’t choose these careers for the money.

It’s been a pretty busy couple of weeks for me so I haven’t had much opportunity to write…or think for that matter!! I think I’ve got some good ideas for some future blog posts and have a couple of new books I’m pretty excited about. Because of the time constraints, I thought I would take just a few minutes to share one of my favorite books I read a couple of years ago.

The book is Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink. I believe this book could give valuable insight into how to keep ourselves, our employees and our clients motivated and happy. Compare the ideas from the book with what we do in businesses and counseling practices. Consider how this information may impact the incentive and sanction approach traditionally used by Drug Courts.

Below is a great animated video for those that want the “Cliff Notes” version of the book before buying. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and I hope to be back to some type regular posting next week.