What motivates you? What motivates the team? Answers will likely differ. But there are some striking and very hopeful similarities.
Waking up well before sunrise and sometimes arriving home near dark, the greenkeeper’s profession requires varying levels of motivation. Those making up the average golf course maintenance team may not have as much invested in our line of work. They may not see it as their profession or contributing to their chosen vocation. They may see it as “just a job.” At the end of the day, that’s precisely what it is. But our goal should always be to outgrow that mindset and help the team do the same.
Consistently seeing beyond the finite lens of the day’s work is the first step. Overlapping short- and long-term perspectives, what Abraham Maslow described as deficiency-motivation (D-motivation) and growth, or being-motivation (B-motivation), we begin to see and feel more. That’s when the extra gear kicks in. Feeling this innate drive, a level of motivation always gently nudging us forward, we can reach our full potential.
Taking it one step further, we can examine what exactly is driving us. How are we staying motivated? How is the team? Answers won’t be the same, but there may be some common paths to maintaining a motivational mindset.
D-motivation
It’s in our nature to be reactive and think short-term.
The deficiency-motivations at the base of Maslow’s hierarchy translate to the workplace. Completing tasks between clocking in and clocking out is driven by what needs to be done now. So is the kind of psychological safety achieved through gossiping. We may feel a surge of excitement or confidence, but the feeling is short-lived. The fleeting payoffs of deficiency-motivation is where many of us live: one day, one moment, one job at a time. It’s natural. And for good reason.
There is value in staying in the moment. Focusing on the task at hand is often critical. However, remaining in this mindset all the time can make it hard to look long term.
The greatest risk of being driven only by short-term motivation is the slide into toxicity. When nothing anchors beyond the moment, it’s easier to become emotionally reactive, and that can spill onto teammates and leadership. Toxicity is the fastest way to destroy motivation. Spreading quicker than any positive force, it drains individuals, erodes leadership and can cause damage to trust and team morale.
Moving beyond “the grind,” we get better at discerning toxicity. Feeling a higher level of motivation, we can face the resistance that drives long-term evolution.
B-motivation
Outgrowing our own nature is difficult. But anything that helps us, the team and the golf course evolve always will be. As we grow an aversion to what is easy, short-term gratification, we move closer to what is a fondness for what is difficult. The hardest part is getting yourself and the team to consistently follow this path, one that is not the least resistance.
The resistance that we and others feel toward doing what’s best for us despite its difficulty never ends. We all feel it. Every day we have to face this fight within and outside of ourselves. But it doesn’t have to be so hard.
The longer we inhabit this motivational mindset, where we are always looking ahead to our own and the team’s growth, the more we can also feel ahead. We can feel the joy of the process.
The highest level of our motivational mindset allows us to zoom out into a third-person perspective. From this meta viewpoint, we are able to continuously reassess and evolve the sources of our motivational mindset.
Meta-motivation
This is where it all comes together.
Our motivational mindset becomes more permanent when it’s built within our operation. Establishing cultural and operational standards is the first and last line of defense against toxicity and a fixation on short-term gratification. Evolving systems and processes, such as orientation and training programs, keep our long-term, self-actualization lens in focus. Evaluation and quality control programs allow us to look outside of the lens altogether.
Apart from regularly reassessing sources of motivation within the work, we can provide the same opportunity for growth to our team members and the team as a whole. To avoid tipping the balance between control and freedom, we have to place responsibility for being an essential part of these programs into everyone’s hands. Giving everyone a chance to be a leader, they can share the light of their own motivational mindset.
Mark Wiebe is the (incoming) deputy head greenkeeper at Royal St. George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, England, and a nine-year GCSAA member.