Motives

Motivation is a central concern of leadership. One definition is: "motivation is the process that energizes our knowledge and skills and focuses us on our most important goals. Motivation has the effect of initiating and sustaining the level of mental and physical effort required to achieve a goal. It “initiates” by converting intention into action and thus helps us to start doing something new or different. Motivation sustains action over time by supporting our persistence at a team task in the face of distractions and other competing work goals. It encourages mental effort when novel work goals require adapting or developing new strategies. The most skilled team in the world will not succeed without adequate motivation” (R.E. Clark, 2005 pg 14). The resources on this page explore the nature of motivation in congregational life. You can find a few articles on motivation indexed on the Change page also.

A Framework for Understanding Motivation: (Posted 1 November 2006). This is an introduction to the topic. The paper includes a simple functional formula for encouraging motivation.

Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation: (1 November 2006). This 2002 article was written by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham for the academic journal American Psychologist. It is their summary of the 35 year journey to learn how goal setting functions as a motivator. An excellent summary of the literature. These two authors have been the leading researchers into this aspect of motivation.

Readiness for Change: (Posted 22 January 2007). A very common view today is that any organization will change if it is given a "compelling vision", regardless of its current reality. Well, I don't know what church those people go to, but it's not a lot of the ones I've attended. A substantial part of a congregation's motivation to change comes from its own readiness to change. This article explores what a leader can do to strengthen readiness for change before your church even begins to think about its future. This is a 25 page pdf document which may become part of a larger work.

"The Change Message": (Upcoming). When your congregational leadership is ready to get some change underway they will want to roll out a change message. The message speaks of the goal or vision for the congregation's future, the rationale for it, the benefits, etc. This is a critical make-or-break element in a change process. This article explores some important aspects of the change message leaders should remember.