Talent Coaching Tips – Motivation

Motivational Speaker Tony Robbins

For content directors, show producers and even co-hosts, knowing how to motivate your talent or co-host is critical to your show’s success.

You don’t have to be Tony Robbins either, just understand it is a very personal thing. Some personalities are motivated by ratings or getting a competitive edge, while for others, it’s the thrill of executing a killer idea. Or it can even be as simple as feeling like they are valued and making a difference.

This seems very obvious but apparently, it isn’t common practice. In fact, it was highlighted for me when I recently caught up with a friend who was deflated after their content director said to them “if you get stuck in and keep your head down, you could be lucky enough to be here still doing this job in 15 years”.

While I believe the comment was intended to be positive (e.g. “you’re good enough to be here a long time”), the issue was, my friend is motivated to make it to a bigger market. Hearing these words he felt deflated as he thought the boss didn’t think he was good enough to step up to a bigger market.

This is a simple one to fix. Get to know your team and ask about their personal goals. Provided they line up with the station’s goals for success, actively help them achieve them and use them as motivation.

Ryan Rathbone runs talent coaching and development business Revolver Consultancy and is the network content director for Mediaworks radio station The Edge.