How To Inspire Others To Do The Right Thing.

Inspiration

How do you inspire people to do the right thing?

We may be concerned about our employees, our boss or our company and how they practice the work they perform.  Not always have we seen these people make decisions on the right things to do.  Everyone of us has a tale to share about some of the very wrong things people have done.  Many of those tales include a level of damage to our lives that was not fun to manage.  How do we inspire people to do the right thing?

First of all, wrong things will occasionally happen.  Stranger to stranger occurrences will litter our lives with unwanted happenstances.  There is not much anyone will likely be able do to inspire others to refrain from those events.  A certain level of tolerance will need to be exercised when those events occur.  They happen.  We have little influence with the lives of those stranger to stranger events.

Therefore, how do you inspire people to do the right thing within your sphere of influence? 

First, you must figure out what it is in their make-up that keeps them from believing they do not need to do the right thing.  Start at the end of their actions and work backwards.  If people do the wrong thing and are proud of it, something is very wrong with what has been going on in their life up to then.  They are doing the wrong thing on purpose for some very wrong reasons.  The trouble with this truth is that they do not believe they are doing something wrong.  They actually might fight to protect why they are able to feel good about doing something wrong.  They have come to accept the numbness they feel when they recognize they have stepped into the wrong direction.  When they are exposed as doing something very wrong, they may even present that bad choice as a badge of honor, to justify the wrong decisions.  They may express some extraneous noble reason for doing the wrong thing.  It helps them feel good about being numb about the wrong things they are doing.  If we manage enough people long enough, we will see this pattern occasionally.

How do you inspire people to do the right thing?

Do The Right Thing.

Let's take a look at what makes people become more comfortable with doing the wrong things.

If you are the only child in class that has the nerve to raise your hand, you will be called upon to answer the question.  Somehow you raised your hand because you either knew the answer or you are certain it is the right answer.  Another reason for raising your hand is more complex.  You have been raised in an environment that allows you to feel safe in your own skin, just in case you are wrong.  You are strong enough to avoid the fear of criticism.  You raise your hand because you have acquired some form of inner strength about the potential for being wrong.   This strength and understanding is very rare in a child.  Therefore, we will stay tuned to the first reasons...you believe you know the right answer.

One thing is for sure, when you raise your hand and you are right with the answer...you get some recognition.  Recognition feels good.  Early on you recognize this action as a favorable trait.  What's more, you begin to notice that you get called upon more often than others.  You become one of the 'go to' students in the segments involving questions and answers.  You get recognized by the teacher more often.  You become what is known as the ‘teacher’s pet.’ 

Some interesting dynamics begin to take form.  Those children who are too afraid to raise their hands begin to rally together and talk behind your back.  Once in awhile, they try to use the criticism card and chide you a little bit about being the 'teacher’s pet'.  Many children lift their strength by bringing down stronger children.  How useful is this process?  What great contribution does this process bring to being?  Not many.  However, it is very common and widespread...culture to culture.

How do you inspire people to do the right thing?

The child who raises their hand will need to find a different support system for wanting to grow stronger, more knowledgeable and more useful.  The child who raises their hand has already seen how their previous actions have afforded them to become one of those select few who are called upon.  The child who raises their hand discovers how recognition works.  Recognition comes more often when the child produces more answers and becomes greater involved in the learning process.  Recognition becomes part of the new motivation for the student to continue raising their hand.  Those children who discover this truth find that it also works in many other areas of their life.  Those children begin building their patterns for making this type of thing happen more often.  They like how it feels.  Recognition feels good.  Those children often times formulate early leadership skills.  However, they are not alone.

Leaders!

To the child who raises their hand, recognition spreads like a silent duty.  Once you become recognized for being able to step up...you are then expected to step up even more.  This is a by-product of recognition.  Expectations are naturally lifted.  The teacher may reward the aspiring student to encourage them to grow in this leadership direction.  How do you think the other children view this development?  Can you see how doing the wrong thing begins to form in the mind of the other children?  Many of the children who are part of this development begin to implant in their minds a certain feeling of dislike for those children who begin to work on learning how to attract their teachers attention, by raising their hand and doing well with their school work.  A division of culture begins to form.  The children who find dislike for those getting the attention begin to rally to form their own set of recognition rules.  They rally together to chide the aspiring student to 'bring them down'.  This is very normal activity.  A new system of recognition begins to form.  Those who work on bringing others down get recognized by the children they are able to rally to their side.  Recognition also works well on supporting those who are doing the wrong thing.  Recognition wins again.  We call that a tip.  It is a clue.

   

Recognition is winning on both sides of the debate.  On the doing the right thing side, recognition helps to motivate more growth to occur.  Yet on the other side, doing the wrong thing recognition plays a significant role in developing that skill as well.  Recognition appears to be important on either side.

Stop Signs Work Well When Properly Placed.

Should we wonder what would happen to the children if no recognition appeared?  What if the child who rallied the other troops to tease the student with the answers was ignored for their efforts to rally the troops?  I suspect that child would have made a louder attempt to rally the troops.  With a much louder attempt, the wrong behavior is no longer silent and kept away from those who know the difference.  It is no longer a secret attempt.  It becomes louder and more obvious which in turn exposes its head for knowledgeable teachers to see and correct.  Our world is jammed packed with rewards and punishment routines.  That is what stop signs are all about.  They are penalties to the driver.  We try to find the best routes to work with the fewest penalties.  Everyone of us is very subject to performing corrective actions with proper penalties.  Try imagining the complete removal of every stop sign in the world.  Wow, what a major collision!  You see, I do not slow down at any intersection that does not have a stop sign for me to honor.  How about you?  Whack, whack, whack, whack...what a mess that would be.  It is perfectly fine to penalize.  It works.  Not popular, but it works.  Teachers need to know their role.  Parents need to know their role.  Employers need to know their role.  Penalties are a very large part of the civil process.

 

When the going gets tough, who do other leaders go to when they want something good to be done?  They go to other leaders who have developed the proper skills to handle the children of the world that work harder on bringing people down, rather than building others up.  You see, those children do eventually grow up and fill the bodies of adults.  They may or may not adjust their ways of childhood and remove the methods they use to break people down.  They may actually remain in the sole, young and afraid even as adults.  Back then they did not want to raise their hand because, one, they did not know the answer and two, they did not want to face the criticism other children would inflect on their actions if they did know the answer.  They had too much unmanageable fear about criticism.  These children eventually become adults.  They grow up with the art of developing sophisticated and permissible forms of breaking others down to lift themselves up.  You employ some of them.  You may not notice it, but you may be giving them recognition and honor because you fear you may lose good talent when you fail to apply penalties for correcting them in their destructive actions.  They are driving their behavior with no stop signs in their path.  Be very careful with how they get recognized.

If you own your business you are also the traffic cop!  You are also the planner of development and control.  You can and should decide to fill that role.  Many parents and teachers before you failed to do their part.  Now it has become your responsibility to begin the corrective work.  You need to do the right thing.  If you decide to do the right thing, and the student leaves by quitting, you win.  In the end, if wrong students decide to leave your leadership, regardless of their other productive talents, many other good students are out there looking for a home to do good work.  Sometimes you are faced with the art of deploying good courage.  Help the rest of your good students and do the right thing.  Begin to dig a hole and put up a stop sign. 

How do you inspire people to do the right thing?  Be the one who does the right thing.  That might help a little bit.

Until next time...