Leaders do nothing more important than get results. But you can't get results by yourself. You need others to help you do it. And best way to have other people get results is not by ordering them but motivating them. Yet many leaders fail to motivate people to achieve results because those leaders misconstrue concept and applications of motivation.

To understand motivation and apply it daily, let's understand its three critical factors. Know these factors and put them into action to greatly enhance your abilities to lead for results. 1. MOTIVATION IS PHYSICAL ACTION. "Motivation" has common roots with "motor," "momentum," "motion," "mobile," etc. — all words that denote movement, physical action. An essential feature of motivation is physical action. Motivation isn't about what people think or feel but what they physically do. When motivating people to get results, challenge them to take those actions that will realize those results.

I counsel leaders who must motivate individuals and teams to get results not to deliver presentations but "leadership talks." Presentations communicate information.. But when you want to motivate people, you must do more than simply communicate information. You must have them believe in you and take action to follow you. A key outcome of every leadership talk must be physical action, physical action that leads to results.

For instance, I worked with newly-appointed director of a large marketing department who wanted department to achieve sizable increases in results. However, employees were a demoralized bunch who had been clocking tons of overtime under her predecessor and were feeling angry that their efforts were not being recognized by senior management.

She could have tried to order them to get increased results. Many leaders do that. But order-leadership founders in today's highly competitive, rapidly changing markets. Organizations are far more competitive when their employees instead of being ordered to go from point A to point B want to go from point A to point B. So I suggested that she take a first step in getting employees to increase results by motivating those employees to want to increase results. They would "want to" when they began to believe in her leadership. And first step in enlisting that belief was for her to give a number of leadership talks to employees.

One of her first talks that she planned was to department employees in company's auditorium.

She told me, "I want them to know that I appreciate work they are doing and that I believe that they can get results I'm asking of them. I want them to feel good about themselves."

"Believing is not enough," I said. "Feeling good is not enough. Motivation must take place. Physical action must take place. Don't give talk until you know what precise action you are going to have happen."

The Story Part 1: The Conundrum When Lynn, long time leader of a growing organization, drove into office parking lot at 7:41am, something didn't seem right. He had arrived home late night before after an extended overseas trip. He was still experiencing jet lag but parking lot seemed empty to him when compared to six months earlier. He remembered feeling that things were going well then, that everyone seemed motivated, excited and happy. They came in early and stayed late. They were genuinely happy to be back each morning and cheerful when greeting co-workers. The pace of action was quick and efficient. Now, in contrast, people seemed to be dragging. They were just doing their jobs. Morale, it seems, had sagged. As he parked and walked, he made a mental note: "Our leadership activity needs a shot in arm," he thought.

Analysis and Perspective In his leadership role, Lynn was appropriately, if informally, monitoring a leading indicator of performance when he noted waning level of engagement by organization's members. He appropriately hypothesized that this decline was related to a reduced "velocity" of leadership across organization, amount of time spent on leadership activities. Because reduced engagement and intrinsic motivation are expected outcomes of a decline in a specific type of leadership influence, called deep blue leadership influence, he realized that he needed to initiate programs to reenergize this type of leadership in organization.

Lynn's experience and training had taught him that three steps were required: first gather information about current situation and diagnose issues; second, initiate specific leadership activities designed to shore-up deeply held, social identity of team members with respect to his organization, sense of purpose that provides intrinsic motivation; and third, institutionalize change by integrating these initiatives into organization's culture.

Lynn realized this would not be easy. His leadership teams must find ways to influence members' deeply held sense of identity, toward an organizationally appropriate collective purpose. This sense of purpose, identity and vision would provide intrinsic motivation to increase engagement, quicken everyone's pace and fill parking lot.

Case Study Examples Many organizations face periods where weariness or ennui sets in, where motivation drops. Up and down cycles naturally occur in individuals, even Lynn was dragging that morning, but when reduced motivation occurs broadly across organization, leadership intervention is required. Otherwise, culture itself may change permanently.

When Lucent Technologies was preparing to spin-out from AT&T, employees felt discarded. Their identities were injured, their motivation low. Although CEO Henry Schacht didn't have a name for it at time, he knew that deep blue leadership influence was needed.

He began with an intense data gathering effort and a thoughtful assessment and diagnosis of situation. This was followed by an organization wide identity creating effort that used as many people as practical to develop a shared vision for IPO "road show". Over and over he and his team communicated essence of their collective experience using theme "the opportunity of a lifetime." They were careful to hone their vision statement in a cascading effort that energized organization.

In a matter of a few months, Lucent employees went from being crushed to being enthusiastic leaders in their own right. Their motivation soared and pushed organization to a successful IPO and years of strong growth1.

* * * When Steve Jobs returned to Apple after many years, he found a demoralized team and a shattered identity. Apple had lost desktop wars. Collective identity was shattered. There was no vision to motivate people.