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In his book, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters, Richard Rumelt illustrates the folly of blind effort and unyielding motivation:

In Europe, motivational speakers are not the staple on the management lecture circuit that they are in the United States, where the doctrine of leadership as motivation is alive and well. Here, for example, is H. Ross Perot: “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.” Hearing this, many Americans nod in agreement. Many Europeans, by contrast, hear the echo of the “one last push” at Passchendaele. There, the slaughtered troops did not suffer from a lack of motivation. They suffered from a lack of competent strategic leadership. Motivation is an essential part of life and success, and a leader may justly ask for “one last push,” but the leader’s job is more than that. The job of the leader is also to create the conditions that will make that push effective, to have a strategy worthy of the effort called upon.1

Like most battles in World War I, the Battle of Passchendaele was a disaster. Troops were annihilated by outdated battle strategies, new technology, and incompetent leadership. Combined casualties during Passchendaele approached 600,000 across allied and German forces. Worst of all, there was little benefit from the battle. The entire massacre occurred for little strategic value.2

As Rumelt explains, leadership requires more than just empty rhetoric and motivational messages:

Fluff. Fluff is a form of gibberish masquerading as strategic concepts or arguments. It uses “Sunday” words (words that are inflated and unnecessarily abstruse) and apparently esoteric concepts to create the illusion of high-level thinking...Many bad strategies are just statements of desire rather than plans for overcoming obstacles…Strategic objectives are “bad” when they fail to address critical issues or when they are impracticable.3

Motivation needs to be backed with competency and a sound strategy. Executing a proper strategy, whether in war or business is a complex task. You can’t avoid tough conversations on strategy and resource allocation in favor of motivational rallies and glitzy marketing events.

Blind motivation and relentless effort can result in “compensating feedback.” Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization, describes how the harder a company pushes, the more the system fights back:

Systems thinking has a name for this phenomenon: “compensating feedback”: when well-intentioned interventions call forth responses from the system that offset the benefits of the intervention…We all know what it feels like to be facing compensating feedback—the harder you push, the harder the system pushes back; the more effort you expend trying to improve matters, the more effort seems to be required.

Many companies experience compensating feedback when one of their products suddenly starts to lose its attractiveness in the market. They push for more aggressive marketing; that’s what always worked in the past, isn’t it? They spend more on advertising, and drop the price; these methods may bring customers back temporarily, but they also draw money away from the company, so it cuts corners to compensate. The quality of its service (say, its delivery speed or care in inspection) starts to decline. In the long run, the more fervently the company markets, the more customers it loses.4

The hardest thing for a leader to do is to stop, step back, and deliberately assess their strategy. The world incentivizes immediate decisions, non-stop activity, and over-the-top confidence. That leaves less time to deliberate on strategic decisions. We demand answers now and any sign of deliberate consideration is regarded as weakness.

The easiest thing for leaders to do is to demand more of the same: more effort, more vigor, and more commitment. But that’s not the core problem. Edward Deming, one of the great operational minds who helped lead many Japanese companies to operational and quality excellence (think Toyota), explicitly states that quality does not come from motivating people to work faster or harder. He advocated eliminating the use of slogans and exhortations since most of the problems at a company were systemic issues, not people issues (and certainly not motivational issues).5

Toyota avoids taking the easy route by tackling the long-term strategic options – investments in people, technology, and processes, not looking for programs of the month:

Unlike most companies, Toyota does not adopt “programs of the month" nor does it focus on programs that can deliver only short-term financial results. Toyota is process oriented and consciously and deliberately invests long term in systems of people, technology, and processes that work together to achieve high customer value. "Systems" are not information systems but work processes and appropriate procedures to accomplish a task with the minimum amount of time and effort. The philosophy of Toyota and its experience support the belief that if it focuses on the process itself and continual improvement, it will achieve the financial results it desires.6

Of course, there’s a time and a place for motivation. But we’ve become so accustomed to trying to solve every business problem with hard work and rah-rah speeches. Hard work in the wrong direction doesn’t help anyone.

Increasing effort won’t solve the hard problems organizations face. The best employees clearly see when tough issues are avoided and replaced with messages of hope. As Deming states, “Hopes without a method to achieve them will remain mere hopes.”7

When you find yourself relying on motivational speeches to encourage your team, ask yourself - Is the problem really motivation? Or is the problem the strategy and execution?

Jason Fried, founder of 37 Signals, says it best:

Sustained exhaustion is not a badge of honor, it’s a mark of stupidity.8

Sources:

1. Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. Richard Rumelt

2. https://militaryhistorynow.com/2017/11/10/slaughter-in-the-mud-seven-grim-facts-about-the-battle-of-passchendaele

3. Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. Richard Rumelt

4. Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization. Peter Senge

5. Notes and quotes from Deming’s Book, Out of Crisis. D.H. Groberg. http://www.sphere.bc.ca/class/downloads/demings-14-points.pdf

6. The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer. Jeffrey Liker

7. Notes and quotes from Deming’s Book, Out of Crisis. D.H. Groberg. http://www.sphere.bc.ca/class/downloads/demings-14-points.pdf

8. It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work. Jason Fried, David Hansson