Motivating Promotion and Prevention focused people?

Photo by Caleb Jones on Unsplash

Regardless of which role you are filling. You will be in a situation where you are trying to influence, or you are trying to motivate someone. In people management, this happens daily. If you find that your success rate to motivate or influence is low. It is likely due to not using the right words that resonate. Simon Sinek in his book 'Start with Why' (link) talks about to get ideas across effectively they need to resonate from the inner 'why' section of the mind. In the book Focus by Dr Heidi Grant Halvorson (link). It simplifies the Why into a base framework of two categories. People are somewhere on the spectrum of being prevention or promotion focused. This varies from situation to situation and varying environments. But at a default level, we are all leaning on one end of the scale.

In this article, I want to show how you can start to understand your team or people you are working with. Realising their position on the prevention and promotion scale. Allows you to adapt your approach and language to be more effective in influencing and motivating. More importantly, it ensures you do not demotivate them and create a worse situation. People may not remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel. You want to avoid having a conversation end with someone being less happy then you intended. 

People may not remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel. 

The end goal is to understand how to effectively motivating each of your team members. Two steps to understanding your team members motivational bias are below.

One. Discover their focus. To discover if someone is prevention or promotion. You are looking for a few things in their behaviour and their language. 

A prevention focused person will want to avoid the possibility of making a mistake. They want to minimise losses, and if something is already working, they prefer to leave it working. They would look at a situation with a point of view of what they are going to lose instead of what they could win. They would see the cup as half empty but are not necessarily a pessimist. When given a series of choices a prevention focused person will look at the options. Choose the best option then review all the options again to ensure that the choice is really the best choice. The prevention focused person will want to understand the details to make an informed decision. They will focus on the risks of an opportunity over the gains.

Keywords would be Great planners, Thorough, Analytical and are always evaluating.

On the opposite end. A promotion focused person is comfortable moving forward and accepting it might be a mistake. They see it as a learning opportunity. They want to maximise their gains and will look to change an existing process if they feel there is a better way to get a result. They would focus on the win situation and giving less attention to what if we don't win. They see the cup half full yet are not always optimists. When given a series of choices they will choose quickly something they feel is right. They want to look at the big picture more than the details. They will focus on the reward over the risks associated. 

Keywords would be Speedy worker, Creative, Innovative and no plan B.

Based on these you should be able to determine which side they are motivationally focused on. To maintain a balanced team. I like to learn the candidates focus in an interview process by asking a specific question. One is not better than the other, it is about keeping a balance.

Two. Delivering your message with language that motivates. Now that you know what kind of motivational focus the person is. You can plan how you approach the conversation. At first, this will feel unnatural to script an interview that you usually wouldn't. With practice and regular use, it will start to become a natural way you communicate with your individual team members. Here are a few scenarios and the different approaches you would take.

For prevention focused team members you want to be framing things in terms of a loss if it does not take place. For promotion focused, you would frame it in terms of again. 

• Scenario: Framing things with a gain/loss around reaching their target and getting paid their bonus.

  • Prevention approach: Everyone will get paid their bonus this year except those that do not reach their targets. Focusing on the dollar, they would be missing.

  • Promotion approach: If you reach your targets then you will get your bonus in full. Focusing on the dollar, they would gain.

• Scenario: Helping them to make a decision on a difficult choice. 

  • Prevention approach: If we had to narrow it down to two choices which one would provide the lowest risk?

  • Promotion approach: If we had to choose one. Which would provide the greatest reward.

• Scenario: Motivating them to progress on a challenging project 

  • Prevention approach: If we only leave 3 of the 10 user stories, it is a good result.

  • Promotion approach: If we can complete 7 of the 10 user stories, is a good result.

• Scenario: If you had to reallocate a project from one person and give it to another.

  • Prevention approach: I can see you have a large workload already. By taking this off your plate, it will allow you to complete your existing project with fewer things overlooked.

  • Promotion approach: I can see you have a large workload already. By taking this off your plate, it will allow you to focus on other opportunities to overachieve on.

• Scenario: Taking on a new role or project that they are unsure about. 

  • Prevention approach: I 100% believe you have the skills and I am right here to support you throughout the process. My role is to help you succeed here.

  • Promotion approach: I 100% believe you have the skills, you will see by the end of it, the final result is going to be amazing.

As managers, it is our job to adapt to our team's individual needs continually. The next time you are approaching a conversation where your goal is to motivate a particular action. Pause and think about who they are and how you are going to address it.

Note: Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.