Top trainer and coach Susan Fowler urges leaders to stop trying to motivate people! It's frustrating for everyone involved, and it just doesn't work. You can't motivate people - not if you want a genuine commitment to excellence from them. Applying recent, often surprising psychological discoveries, she lays out a tested process for helping people motivate themselves, in ways that not only increase productivity and engagement but that also give them a profound sense of purpose and fulfillment. Traditional carrot and stick techniques may result in some temporary gains, Fowler argues, but once the bribe or the threat is gone, people's commitment flags. And these kinds of techniques make people focus more on the reward or the punishment than on their jobs. Her Optimal Motivation process shows leaders how to move people away from dependence on external rewards and how to help them discover how their jobs can meet the deeper psychological needs - for autonomy, connection, and competence -