107: Inspiration vs Motivation, with Jeff Hartzler

Speaker A: How are the leaders at all levels of management tackling the toughest challenges each day? That's the question and this podcast is the answer. I'm Rob Fonte and I'm bringing on the brightest minds in management to share practical solutions to those challenges you're facing. Let's get ready to jam. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Leadership Jam session. Today's guest is Jeff Hartzler, who has over 30 years in the healthcare industry with the majority of his time leading a variety of different teams including sales training, market access, commercial operations, and most recently head of US Learning and development, which included leadership development. Jeff is joining me today to talk about a topic that he is passionate about, inspiration versus motivation. All uh, right Jeff, are you ready to jam?

Speaker B: I am definitely ready to jam, Ralph. Uh, so thanks for having me on today.

Speaker A: Yeah, I appreciate you coming on and I'm definitely looking forward to diving into, you know, this topic that I know you're passionate about, inspiration versus motivation. So why don't we just dive into it right from there and maybe even walk us through, you know, the differences between it.

Speaker B: It's funny when we hear about people and leaders, particularly especially new leaders when they come into leading new teams of uh, oh my gosh, I have to be a motivator. You think of top coaches, oh, they're the best motivators and some of them played maybe I'm really not. I just know how to get in front of people and understand where they're coming from. Yeah, we think about what those motivators are. Think about those are, ah, short lived and there's usually good or bad consequences associated with them. And then inspirations are lifelong so it's more tied to your values or your purpose. So if we think about that as leaders and not doing a blanket thoughts for our teams, thinking everybody's motivated or inspired by the same thing. You're going to be so far ahead compared to other leaders to knowing if I take this down to the individual level, know my team, we'll talk about building trust, having people going deeper than even trust and saying who are you as a person to know I can come to you and partner with you as my leader brings so much deep, deeper value between the leader and their team, especially those individual members.

Speaker A: It is interesting, right, how many people who want to become leaders or new leaders who think that I'm not sure, uh, I can be a good leader because I don't know if I can stand up in front of team and give a speech and motivate them and so I'm glad you brought that up because at the end of the day, that's not what leadership is all about. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are great leaders out there that do give great talks and great speeches. That's not me. Uh, right there is. It goes much deeper than that. And I, and I think it's good for those out there who might have that concern that hopefully this discussion will kind of diminish that, that fear.

Speaker B: I fully agree with that. And you know, as you dig deeper into each of your individuals and understanding what those, their values are, their purpose or their inspiration, slash their motivations are, it makes your role a lot easier to partner with them. Because if you think about um, you know, trying to get people out of bed just to even show up, right? You think of if you have children or you have spouses or anything, you're trying to get them out of bed and they just keep hitting the snooze button and you're hollering at them. But how long as a leader, if you have a group of six on your team, if you have 60 or more, how often, how long can you do that and keep that up and keep your energy level up before your, your energy starts to dip and drop down? You're like, man, I can't just keep doing this. But if you understand what drives those people now, you can put things in front of them or uh, put it, position it in a way that's very meaningful to them. And now it's them doing it. So you get to that more lifelong. It's not you having to be that, that rah rah for them every moment of every day. Which gets harder as the larger teams that you lead, um, it becomes overwhelming. And all of a sudden your personal well being is impacted because you're taking care of so many people and trying to understand how do we keep them going. But if you understand them deeper and there's different tools that you can get into to understand that, that's very simple.

Speaker A: You know, there is that adage out there, you know, the old or the old debate, right? Can you truly motivate somebody? Right? And I think kind of like the example you used of yelling and getting your kids out of bed, which is something we, you know, many of us probably have to deal with. If you have kids, the reality is, is that truly motivating them, right Versus to, to what you're saying, get, find other means, other ways.

Speaker B: And how do you get them to. It's that, it's that self driven part of it. Hey, here you go. You might be able to do it once or twice. And you're like, you need to take care of this on your own. Same with our teams that we lead. How do we get them to do that on their own? And that's where I say, if you understand that what those are for each individual, um, you can go. That's where I come back to. So many want to go with that blanket approach. For example, some folks leading sales teams, and most people say, oh, my goodness, every salesperson is driven by money, fame, they want to walk across a stage, they want the public recognition. And that's a blanket approach. There's some stuff out there you can, you can go and find, but it's really the difference between managers and employee. So, uh, there's many things out there. It's like a, I'll say a top 10 list, but there are 10 things. And you can create those, um, or you can just pull one off of, off of, offline. But if you think about benefits, that can include vacation or healthcare, growth opportunities, pay, job security, appreciation, um, any of those things. So if you just list those and you know, then you, as a leader, if you fill it out for your teammate and you have them do it on their own, and then you come together and you compare them, you're going to be very surprised of what you think. You assume that it was with somebody to what they put down it. It's so interesting. But in every. Most things that you'll see online around this, it is almost exactly inverted from what jurist thought to what employee filled out.

Speaker A: Is that wild? I mean, I remember. I, uh, mean, I haven't. I looked at a study. I can't even remember what it was, but it was like years ago. It was probably like 10 years ago. And, and it was, it was crazy to see how inverted it was. Right. And it sounds like that, that still holds true today and what, what you came across.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think it's probably even more so in today's environment. Think about all the different generational, uh, gaps and approaches. What's important to people, people early in their career, Something might be different, someone deeper in their career and their life cycle. Maybe job security, maybe benefits are more important than growth opportunities. That's just not the driver for them. Look at the workforce today. Some thrive going to an office. Um, if you're looking at the corporate setting, others are like, hey, I've gotten comfortable working right from home and I have zero desire to have to go to an office. That's very Different. If you don't understand that as a leader, even if you're bringing people into your team, where's that at? Because change management is part of that. And if you don't understand your team and there's change coming, how can you navigate that without just a blanket approach going?

Speaker A: You know what?

Speaker B: I think Rob's going to take this a little bit different than Brenda will. So maybe I need to cater this just a little bit to make sure, hey, we have some longevity with this and manage through that change. But it really is one. It's fun to do with your teams. It doesn't take much time and I wouldn't suggest doing it as a whole group effort, but do it one on one. You could walk them through, but then have those one on one conversations and say, let me see your list of 10. Let's talk about that. And I guarantee you all the leaders will be like, holy moly. I never thought that would be your number one. I thought this would be your one. And it brings good dialogue and just good engagement that opens the door for that deeper relationship that is very meaningful.

Speaker A: It reminded me of a scenario where I did this activity with one of my teams years ago. And, uh, I forget how many things I listed on air. It might have been 10, you know, kind of rank what your top motivators. Money was one of them. Right. And, uh, and I assumed, uh, wrongly, of course, right. That that money would, would not be at the top of her list. When I got her list back, I was having a discussion with her and she had money number one. And I looked at her, I was like, money is your number one top motivator. She's like, oh, yeah. She's like, that drives me day in and day out. And she's never talked about that. Three years working for me, right. And I figured I've got all this experience, you know, as a manager, led multiple teams.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I'll just do this exercise. And it was very eye opening to me how what I thought was completely off base. I probably got, you know, I probably fell into the trap of being complacent and not doing and leveraging some of these tools. Yeah, yeah, it was a good lesson that I learned.

Speaker B: And it's great because then you also understand, you know, when we assume the wrong thing, think we're putting something out there as a positive for somebody and it's actually all of a sudden a demotivator. And also they're starting to question it. Am I in the right place? Is this the right that I want to partner with because I've got an amazing fun story on public recognition that was so amazing how it turned out but it could have turned out very bad. So if you want I can share a little fun story with you.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: You know I was at a uh, nice organization and had the sales operations team uh as part of my, my group and one individual on there was just a genius genius when it came to territory alignments. Knew every river, road, mountain range. You can't this in this territory because there's. It's a two and a half hour drive around a mountain because there's not a road that goes over the mountain. New all crazy stuff and you just look and go how do you know all this public recognition was a thousand percent a demotivator to the point that he would be like if anything was wrong he would the first one to say I'll just quit on the day I am um, I'm good, I'll just leave. We'd done a lot of stuff with this organization and, and he did amazing things for the entire field force. He was loved by the field force one who did. I see. So that's. Everyone loves the person that does ic so that's always good. Um but we always did one corporate person that was done by the exec team to, to achieve chairman's club, president's club. And this individual was getting it and I knew that but I also knew

Speaker A: as an internal person.

Speaker B: As an internal person he also got

Speaker A: awarded the top award.

Speaker B: Yeah. So we picked one from like the corporate setting. Sure. That would go uh, with the field team that achieved that. I knew he would not like walking across the stage. We were at the national meeting, you know the big celebration and I had to think do I just let this surprise just let him go? I mean let him just take it in. But I really knew deeper inside that no the chances of I could lose him like that night because he did not, that was how much he did not want to go. So I pulled him um aside and said look here's the deal. Your name's going to be called so you can either walk across that stage, take it all in. Because look at all these people. We're literally in the back as all the stuff's going on. All these people want to celebrate you and thank you. That's their way of thanking you for everything that you've done for this organization. I said I know that's not your thing. I said so if that'll disrupt your personal beliefs, feelings.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: I can arrange that. You don't have to walk across there. But a lot of people in this room are going to be disappointed that they don't get to celebrate you. But I understand where you're coming from. And he just looked at me and he's like, you got to be kidding me. Like, no, I said, I don't want, I didn't want to ruin the surprise, but I also know how important this is for you. He goes, I appreciate that. He goes, let me think about it for a minute. And he comes back to me and he goes, I do not want to do this, but I will. But here's the deal. He goes, you gotta buy my drinks for the rest of the night. I was like, man, that's the easy part. But he was so appreciative that I took that thought and understood where he was coming from because it was that deep in him that just social anxiety almost, right?

Speaker A: It's almost like an anxiety.

Speaker B: Not the thing even. You know, we'd be at leadership meetings, we'd be going to dinner and he'd always like, uh, oh, I've got to go work on something. So I'm just going to go back to my room. That was, I mean it was that heavy, that great one on one, but put me in the group. No. So he, he did it. Uh, he walked across the stage and he came back. We celebrated him like no other anime. And he actually gave me a big hug, then was like, thank you. One, this was pretty cool. Two, but just for acknowledging and taking that into consideration versus me being so anxious about what was supposed to be such a good thing. So, you know, I would have assumed that everyone wants to walk across that, uh, page. Everyone wants that recognition, but not for those people. So as leaders, if we don't understand that down to the personal level, you're having a huge mess now. I'll say now you're going back to being a boss or a manager versus leader and a partner to say, I know my people, I've built that trust. Let's go deeper and deeper.

Speaker A: How many managers do you think would never have even said anything and just, I mean, it's.

Speaker B: Sadly, I would guess probably 90%.

Speaker A: I agree.

Speaker B: Would have done the assumption of everybody wants to do that.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I don't want to ruin the surprise. Right. And yeah, no, I think, I think that is a great example of, um, where you really have to, like you said, you have to really get to know your people, know what their motivators, what their fears are. Right. And, uh, it is amazing how many people think Public recognition, you know, because they just apply it to themselves. So why do you think he did. What was it that you think gave him the uh, I guess the motivation to walk across or maybe it's the inspiration. Is this kind of like where you're going with this? Is this more like, uh, you're trying to like pull more on the lever of the inspiration piece to try to inspire him?

Speaker B: No, I wouldn't. No, not at all. I was literally. I was one fearful of losing him because that was his thought of this is so against me that I'm just going to go pack my bags.

Speaker A: And he was that type of person. He was that. To that extreme.

Speaker B: That's how strong it was. I was like, no, I just want to maintain you because you're an amazing individual human being. And you know what was neat is so it wasn't inspiring or motivating. It was really just knowing because of those things, understanding where he was coming from as a leader that would do it. But what was cool is, you know, that size of an organization. It was field force of 220 or something. He knew everyone's geography, everyone's name, could tell you everything about all of those people. And when it came to what they, where they were at, could probably tell you their street address of their home. That's how amazing he was. But that's the part I think that made it feel so good for him is that it wasn't a. It's a group of strangers because he doesn't know their faces. He just knows a name and uh, a territory. But I think the rewarding part for him was that they got to say thank you to him as you told the story.

Speaker A: I think that was probably the key. You made it more about them on what they needed. And in the role he's in, that probably kind of hit the right lever to get him to. But I don't know. I think that's kind of like that in itself is a form of inspiration. The way you kind of served it up just in terms of how you were able to get him to agree to do that.

Speaker B: And it was just that opportunity to think through and give him that a little bit of space.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: To go. You know. And it's so much because, you know, typically when you have those things, amazing trip that comes with it. He didn't even go on the trip.

Speaker A: Oh really?

Speaker B: He took a pie out and was like, I'm good. So that's typically.

Speaker A: Typically you offer like a cash like equivalent. Right. Or he took the payout is that what it was. That's hilarious.

Speaker B: So that's how important it is for him. But it was neat to see the smile on his face after he did it and the appreciation that the entire organization had in his efforts, you know, and that takes me to another thought. I was working with another group, uh, and this leader made a comment that has stuck with me, and it really just was in the last 12 months. So it stuck with me. But I'm like, man, that just won't get out of my head. And it's like, as leaders of people, think of the influence that we have to that individual's life and their family. As leaders, you're kind of make or break. You see all the stats of, hey, people don't leave organizations. They leave, uh, leaders or managers. And the phrase that came up is, you may know some of the names of your team members, families, spouses, children, whatever it might be, but you don't know them.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But think about all of those families. They sure know you by however your team member, your employee describes you at the dinner table or at, um, home. And so the phrase was, so how do they know you?

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: If you would walk and go and have dinner, what is their thought? What's the picture? Who are you to them based on what your team member has described? Because, you know, it's happening. You get that your employees get home from work and they're like, uh, Rob did this, Rob did that. Rob was amazing at this. They have a, uh, an opinion about you. And what is that based on what your team member has described for them?

Speaker A: Huh?

Speaker B: Uh, you've never thought about it that way. That's a different spin. And you're like, mm, what is that? How am I portrayed deeper from my team members to their family? And how do they know me? And how do you want to be known? And you think about that.

Speaker A: I think that's the key right there. Right. How am I, you know, viewed by. I've never really thought about it from. From that angle that. I mean, first of all, I'm terrible with names. And so you try to remember family names and things like that and kids names. Right.

Speaker B: But.

Speaker A: But they sure do know my M name. Right? Yeah. And to your point, how am I viewed? Right. I think that's actually pretty. That's pretty powerful perspective.

Speaker B: Extremely. When I was in a group and that was spoken, the quietness that just sat over the whole group of senior leaders of, uh, divisions and all that, the looks on the faces and how quiet everybody was, was, uh, almost that lean back in the chair, like oh, let me think about that. And does that influence how I lead and how do I move towards my people? Do I understand what their inspirations are, their motivations are? And now can I come to them and partner with them in the way that makes them feel very fulfilled and enjoying? I say to my teams all the time, like there's three things that I always hope for you that you love, what you do, who you do it with and who you do it for. Ah. And my thought is if any one of those three fall off, then it's probably going to be tougher for those people to get out of bed and go do what they're going to do.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And us as leaders, how important is it for us to understand what could be those barriers? And now how do I partner with them? Knowing the look on the face of your teammates when they come in of uh, knowing hey, they're super up or they're super down, you know, how can you help lift them up? But if you understand it, it's, it's almost what's not said that you can pick up as a leader versus just what are they portraying of like, hey, everything's great, let's go. But you can pick up different things if you go with the non verbals or saying hmm m, something's a little different. What is that?

Speaker A: I uh, guess the example around this too, right. Is you see some employees that under one leader they're completely like disengaged. Right. And then all of a sudden there's uh, a change in leadership. Uh, you know, they get a new leader and all of a sudden they're like a completely different person.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Age, right. They're forming. And I think this goes back to, you know, you've got one leader who's probably taking just a general blanket approach versus another leader that's finding, that's, that's really taking the time, investing time to learn about their people, digging deeper. It's what you were saying and trying to figure out what are the right motivators.

Speaker B: And then as a leader then you, if you understand that now you can position those things in front of them, the motivators in the right way that they're like ah, uh, here it is. And now maybe it's not just a short lived thing now it's a, it's more of a flat line versus the peaks and valleys that you get from a lot of different things. And that's why I say motivators are short. How so how often can you do that as a leader? Before you're worn out saying, ah, uh, but if you can place things the proper way because you know and understand what that person's drivers are. Mm mhm. Now that partnership goes deeper and deeper. And now you've got a winning team. And uh, people want to come to you. You're a people attractor. People want to come to your team and grow. And I think as a leader, that's the fun thing.

Speaker A: So this is all about as a leader, right. Trying to create the environment, putting things in motion that's suitable for what might

Speaker B: inspire or motivate your employee and not assume.

Speaker A: And not assume, not assume what it is.

Speaker B: Because as your story said, uh, like, whoa, that's not what I thought. It's important and it comes into place so many different times of how people will react. How can you get in front of those things when you can and understand that? And it's, it's just powerful. And if you, you know, and as people go in the duration that they're on your team, those things will shift a little bit. So it's not maybe a one and done thing. If you do your, your 10 things on a list and rank them, do it every once a year, see if anything has changed, just have that conversation, understand what that is and what drives that importance. And now you're driving to be, uh, an amazing leader and not a boss, not a manager, but a true leader of your people.

Speaker A: You know what? I think that's a great point too. So do you think someone's list can change over time?

Speaker B: I have 100%. 100%. Our lives change, things in our lives change. And I think that kind of inspires people to say, hey, now this is a little more important. I would say they definitely, yeah, I

Speaker A: would definitely agree with that. And so I think that's really good insight there too. Right. For, for those of us out there listening that, you know, if you've done it once, may not be good enough. Right. To revisit it every year, every couple years.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because to your point, things change not only in professional life and in your personal lives. Right.

Speaker B: 100%. And, and we know how much that the personal life influences our professional life.

Speaker A: Totally.

Speaker B: So that's even, you know, what comes to work with an individual as leaders, you're like, oh, this is not what I thought we were going to be doing today. But it's important for me to be there for a person, or what does that look like? But it's also, what do they take back to their personal life from work? A lot of that falls for the good or bad. I look at it for the good on the shoulders of a leader and that's the whole thing. We were joking prior in our conversations of, you know, when you're teaching new leaders and I used to walk in the door when I was training new leaders and I'm like, congratulations. When now ever you meet with your leader, it's never going to be about you. Mhm. Oh, this is the day. It's never going to be about you again. You might get a last 30 seconds as you're walking out the door of oh, hey, how are you doing by the way? It's like we just spent three hours talking about all of my team, all of the results, whatever it might be, but not a whole lot on us. So we can invert that a little bit as leaders. Let's think about that. But sadly, typically those conversations are about your team and whatever that performance might be compared to you as an individual. So there's always work for that in leaders. But um, it's amazing when you as a leader can make it about that person.

Speaker A: And that's the hard reality too. I talk about this all the time, my workshops. You become uh, a leader day one, it's no longer about you. Right. That's, that's the reality. That's a hard reality to accept too.

Speaker B: As a good leader, you're going to have a team that really cares about you. If you get into understanding them, they're going to be just as curious about you. And it's fun to have them almost turn that table around on you that they want to learn about you. So what are yours? And you're like, oh, here they are. So there's your value up within your individual teammates as well.

Speaker A: You know, I got one question for you. Uh, as before we wrap up. Do you think of, you know, managing by fear is an effective way of trying to motivate or uh, a hundred percent.

Speaker B: That's 100% my side.

Speaker A: Just kidding.

Speaker B: No, I mean I can say that's not my style at all. I go for the partnerships and it goes back to my three things of if they love what they do and who they do it with and who they do it for, if it's all driven by fear, unless that's someone's motivator and they just need negative consequences all the time, then that's what I would give them. But I, I'd have to be honest and say that's probably not going to be a, uh, very long term relationship.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: Just because the style's just not. I don't know. My, uh, I would say my. What I build in teams to be successful is not a fear factor of that. And um, I think it's okay for people to make mistakes.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: And, and uh, most people say it, uh, and they say the right thing of, oh, it's okay, we learned from our mistakes and let's go forward. But in reality, how many times have you got knocked over the head because something went wrong? Right. But if we really know and we take that accountability, we call it a, hey, you know what? I messed that up. But here's what we did and here's what we're going to go. Most times it's like, all right, good enough, let's go. I don't know. Versus like trying to sweep it underneath. But now managing by or leading by fear not my cup of tea.

Speaker A: It's amazing how, I mean, you and I both have seen those type of leaders and yeah, they may get a little bit of a, of a bump in, out of a little rise out of their people, but it's only temporary.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. And, and, and then the uh, you know, then you start to see, you know, retention issues and all those things. It's amazing. But you do see it.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's kind of even on the opposite side I've seen before. We'll kind of go back to sales teams that have incentive comp with that. You know, sometimes it's incentive comp programs maybe not aren't just the right program for the time and space. So what do they start doing? They start throwing contests in there. All of a sudden your IC plan is driven by all these contests and it's just blips. It's blips. It's blips. But if so you've got to look deeper into that of uh, what. Why do we need so many contests? Because people are falling off and performance is dropping as soon as contest ends. So it's really. I find it interesting to see, but I think that's the same with people. If it's, if that's what the person needs is that fear of, hey, we've got to do this. I'd rather the longer flatter line of growth.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Consistent growth versus uh, the peaks and valleys both on a performance wise and just through the relationships with my team as a lead.

Speaker A: You know what? I think you have a good point. Because, because I think there's the extremes on both sides. Right. And, and even with the uh, dangling the carrot too far out there also influences some bad behavior, too, at times.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Right. Questionable behavior to get to that carrot. Uh, you and I have seen that over the years as well, so I think that's a great point. You just need the balance and finding

Speaker B: that balance, which kind of takes us back to the first part of exactly. Know your individuals and, you know, you're met, your team members, you can find that balance as best as you can, depending on the size of your teams and any of that. But it's amazing the longevity of the relationships that you can have, the trust that you build when you take it down and not do that blanket approach, but really understand the people as individuals as much as possible.

Speaker A: Well said. Well, Jeff, I think that's a great spot to end and I appreciate you coming on. Love the discussion. I know topic you're passionate about and. And it's a topic that I certainly love to go into and, and really appreciate your insights and some of the tips that you talked about.

Speaker B: Well, it's been great to jam with you, Rob.

Speaker A: Thanks so much for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to share it with a friend or colleague who you think might also get some value from it. I'm, um, Rob Fonte, and I'll see you on the next episode of the Leadership Jam Session podcast.