Relaxed motivator

Press, 10 April 1984, Page 7

Relaxed motivator

Many leading Canterbury businessmen and sports people were told yesterday how to bring the best out in themselves. Their teacher was Mr Greg Campbell, an Australian who describes himself as a “motivational scientist.”

Those who attended the two seminars he gave in Christchurch yesterday heard that the tubthumping, “let’s go out and get them” approach was the wrong way to motivate people. “That is a completely mistaken approach to motivation,” he said. People had to feel relaxed, alert, and “good about themselves” to put in a top performance, Whether on the sports field or in the business world.

Mr Campbell, aged 35, has spent years looking for the right way to motivate people to ( reach peak performance. His research took him to Asia, where he found that techniques used by the Japanese samurai warriors and martial arts exponents could be applied to the Western business world.

He is now the managing director of a management consulting organisation and before that was the director of training programmes for the Australian Public Service.

Mr Campbell was sponsored by Diners Club to give talks in New Zealand. His tour has raised $5OOO for the Olympic Games Association. He has helped to motivate members of the Australian crew which won the America’s Cdp yachting

series last year, Australian Rules football teams, and multinational business corporations. Mr Campbell yesterday spoke of the mental and emotional attitude needed for excellence.

To perform at their best, top sportsmen needed to be detached, but also finely attuned to what was happening round them. Creative thinking was another important aspect. His Asian experience taught him the value of meditation and yoga practised by martial arts exponents. He compared the power generated by the “still and quiet” martial artist with that of a cyclone. “The power of a cyclone is proportional to the size of its centre, which is calm. The bigger its centre, the more powerful the cyclone,” he said.

Coaches did not get the best out of their players by yelling at them and working them up. Sportsmen had to feel relaxed before they performed well.

Similar qualities, such as

being alert, relaxed, and able to concentrate, were needed to succeed in the business world, said Mr Campbell.

When a company asks him how it could make better use of its employees, he says he tries to work with people in every tier of the company. He tries to build up the self-image of employees and make them feel positive about their work.

“The cleaner would be just as capable of having brilliant ideas as the manager,” he said.

He asks employees questions such as, “what would be the single greatest thing this company could accomplish if there were no limits on finance?”

This type of approach helps employees become innovative, but they also enjoy their work, he says.

He likes to build an atmosphere where company employees can “talk over problems relaxed on a bean bag with a can of beer.”