The Incredible Transformation of Mark Terrell from Super-Shopper to Super-Coach!

Finally, then, we reach Chapter 9, the last chapter of the book, ‘Mapping Motivation’, from Routledge (http://amzn.to/2eqdSQq - last, excluding the Resources section and Index etc.) and a chapter very different from the rest in that it is the proof of the pudding: it contains two case studies of the Maps in action in actual organisations. One case study is one I did myself with the Ordnance Survey, involving nearly 200 employees in their sales and marketing divisions; the second was undertaken with The John Lewis Partnership by Aspirin Business Solutions who are advanced Motivational Map users and practitioners (we call them Senior Practitioners, but not because of their age!).

The prelude to the case studies goes something like this:

 

The first comment I would like to make about the case studies and about Mapping Motivation more generally is that this process is always about, and highly geared towards, change management. When we think of change management in an organizational sense, then we have a pretty clear idea of what is entailed in this; but change management also affects teams and individuals. We are all changing all the time; sometimes in small, barely noticeable steps, but other times in huge, perceptible strides. And the point that has been made many times in this book is that energy is underpinning all change; energy, or motivation, is enabling all change to occur. If that is the case, how can ignoring motivation be a sensible strategy for an organization, team or individual to adopt? ." [from Chapter Nine of Mapping Motivation: James Sale, Routledge,[  http://bit.ly/2ep0dxJ ]

 

This point – that motivation is really about change is a fundamental point. It must be about change because energy is constantly moving, constantly shifting, always alternating between the poles of positivity and negativity or yin and yang. So if we want to understand what is going on and what is likely to happen, then studying motivation is critical. Now the book in the case studies deal with whole organisations – or large sections of them – because that is the most spectacular example. But it is equally true of individuals. Indeed, there will be a complementary book out soon precisely about mapping and coaching; and as it happens, just one such example has occurred recently that I’d like to finish this series on.

By pure accident – or synchronicity! – I recently migrated from Windows 10 to an iMac and have decided to go all Apple. The consequence of this, of course, is that I have 20 years’ worth of Microsoft stuff, so some sorting has been in order. Thus I came across a file dated 25/8/04 and it was a Motivational Map that I had manually calculated for an MD called Mark Terrell (http://1stclasscoachingsolutions.com ). Keep in mind, the electronic version of the Map only came in March 2006. So this really was at the coal face where it started. Mark, then, was MD of a retail store which was part of a well-known, national licensing franchise. He was very successful, and I had helped his business achieve Investors in People status and along the way had trialled the Map on him.

This first Map revealed that he was motivated by – in order of importance – creativity, belonging, and money. But his least important motivator was controlling or managing people. Which of course was strange: since he had a large shop with a significant number of people to manage, including part-timers and all the fiddlesome stuff that that required. I pointed out to him that being an MD, then, would be stressful in the long term, since although he had the knowledge and skills to do it (and he was very successful), ultimately managing a shop was never going to satisfy him because he didn’t ‘want’ to manage; he could manage, but he didn’t want to. He wryly acknowledged my point, could see and feel the stress points in himself, but knew too that this was he had to do for now.

Roll forward 11 years to 6/11/15 and we find Mark Terrell doing another Map. This time his top three motivators are, in order: making a difference, expertise, and belonging. Wow – what a change! Only belonging remains in the top three. But – wait for it – managing and controlling is still lowest. In fact, has scores even more negatively than it did in 2005. And what has happened to Mark in that intervening period?

He has successfully sold his business – perhaps that is why money is no longer a key driver for him; and he has re-invented himself as a coach, someone who can really help – make a big difference to – other SME business leaders like himself through his coaching expertise and advanced developmental toolkit. That toolkit – yes, it’s true, also contains Motivational Maps. Twelve years on from being one of the first people ever to do a Motivational Map – in the days when I manually calculated and trialled it – Mark Terrell has become one of the big advocates of its power, is an expert in it, and uses it himself with all his clients.

Change or what? Possible or what? Only the other day in the Times, the famous Lucy Kellaway, one of the Financial Times most brilliant columnist (I love her work), who has been a columnist for 31 years at the FT, and is now 57 years old, announced she was giving it up in order to re-invent herself as a Maths teacher in inner-city London schools. She clearly knows her motivators without having done a Map. But most of us aren’t so lucky. As Mark Terrell found, the Map helped guide him to his change destination in a most remarkable way.

If you are the MD of an SME, why not contact Mark to see if he can help you grow your business or even re-invent yourself if you are feeling that you want a change?

Finally, I hope you have found these blogs on my book, Mapping Motivation, interesting and useful. I have to believe they are relevant because we all need motivation!