By Sumantra Ghoshal and Heike Bruch

MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW
2003, Spring Vol 44, no 3, 51-57

What is Volition?

Motivation is the passion or desire to do something. Volition is the commitment to achieve a result.

Motivation Plus Volition = Performance

To achieve a result you need both: motivation and volition = performance. Remarkably, volition has been neglected by researchers and business schools.

In Going beyond motivation to the power of volition, academics Sumantra Ghoshal and Heike Bruch identify five strategies to go beyond motivation to volition.

The Five Strategies

Strategy One: Help your people visualize their intention.
People need a vivid picture of the goal to activate emotion and protect their intention through the action taking phase.

Strategy Two: Encourage people to confront their ambivalence.
People need to openly confront the downside of what will happen if they don't follow through.

Strategy Three: Prepare people for obstacles.
Don't downplay the obstacles by overplaying the benefits. People need to appreciate the personal costs of proceeding with the task. This means fewer projects will get started but the vast majority will be successfully completed.

Strategy Four: Help people see and exploit choices.
Freedom to choose is a critical part of commitment.

Strategy Five: Build in stopping rules.
Once you get people committed it's hard to stop them, so you need rules to end the project at the start.

This article is of fundamental importance because it proves we need motivation to move beyond the creation of hype. Volition is just as important.