Tool Box
Issue No. 19 - October/November 2004
Fire up inspiration
by Craig Stubing
One of the challenges in running a successful SME is that of maintaining a high level of motivation. This applies to all functions in the business, especially the sales and marketing function.
What can we do when the level of motivation drops? How can we get the excitement and drive back?
Here's an analogy that may help. Visualise setting a fire in an open fireplace. What do we do? We assemble the items we need; some large bits of wood such as mallee roots, some kindling, some newspaper and a box of matches. Then we probably crunch up the newspaper and put it in the fireplace, lay kindling on top of that and put the mallee roots carefully on top of the kindling.
We then strike a match, light the newspaper and cross our fingers. If all works out we soon have a fire crackling away.
What has this got to do with maintaining motivation? In this analogy the mallee roots, the kindling and the newspaper represent our various goals. Some goals are short-term others are longer-term. Some goals relate to business (or work); others relate to our personal life. Some goals are simple and easy to achieve; others are more substantial and more difficult to achieve.
Our goals are meant to 'fire us up' and keep us motivated. At least that's the theory. We know, however, that the newspaper is not going to light itself and thereby get the fire going – we need some matches!
The matches in the analogy represent inspiration. Inspiration is not motivation. It can be said that all effective motivation is self-motivation and comes from our drive to achieve our individual goals. (It can also be said that we can be responsible for the motivation level of only one person – ourselves.)
Most often inspiration is a gift that comes from outside us. It may come from a book or a newspaper or magazine article. It may come from a chance conversation with a stranger or a discussion with a work colleague, close friend or family member. In oth...
