The MAP Method: Why Elite Teams Never Lose Motivation

This scenario will feel all too familiar…

• You’ve asked your team to do something.

• You’ve reminded them in the all-hands.

• You even pinned it to the top of Slack.

And still… nothing’s changing.

I’ve been there plenty of times which is why I researched this topic so heavily 😅

Before you blame motivation, laziness, or “needing more accountability,” consider this simple but powerful model from Stanford professor BJ Fogg:

This formula is used by companies like Google, elite military teams, and Olympic coaches to engineer desired behaviours.

All human behaviour (whether it’s brushing your teeth or launching a new sales playbook) comes down to three ingredients:

1. Motivation – the desire to do the thing.

2. Ability – how easy it is to do.

3. Prompt – the trigger that tells you: “Do it now.”

If one of those is missing, behaviour doesn’t happen.

If all three align, change becomes almost automatic.

This is the model that explains why:

• You check social media within 30 seconds of waking up.

• Only 10% of people finish online courses.

• Navy SEALs can consistently perform under extreme stress.

• Your team means well but still doesn’t follow through.

Let’s look at how world-class teams use this science to consistently show up and execute.

1. MOTIVATION

Most leaders throw the word “motivation” around like it’s a switch you can flip.

Reality check:

• Not all motivation is created equal.

• Some fades fast. Some lasts forever.

The best leaders know how to pull three different types of motivational levers:

A) Identity-Based Motivation

“I do this because it’s who I am.”

This is the strongest, most sticky form of motivation.

People are irrationally consistent with who they believe themselves to be.

That’s why someone training for a marathon will run in a blizzard. Not because they like pain but because they see themselves as “a runner.”

The All Blacks use this throughout their culture e.g. the famous “Leave the Jersey Better Than You Found It”.

Each player sees themselves as a guardian of the jersey: a custodian of something sacred.

The result?

They sweep their own locker rooms, hold each other accountable, and dominate global competition.

What you can do:

Make your team’s identity bigger than the task.

• “We’re not writing code. We’re building the product our grandkids will use.”

Then ask: What identity are you reinforcing every day on your team?

B) Purpose-Driven Motivation

“I do this because it matters.”

This is about meaning and connecting the task to a larger mission.

It’s not about KPIs. It’s about why those KPIs even exist.

Patagonia’s mission isn’t to sell outdoor gear, it’s to save the planet.

• Employees aren’t motivated by sales goals.

• They’re motivated by activism, sustainability, and protecting the wild.

The result?

Patagonia once ran an ad telling customers not to buy their jacket to reduce waste.

Sales soared 🚀

What you can do:

Link every task to a deeper “why.”

Even for mundane work, connect the dots:

• “This doc helps us launch 3x faster.”

• “This call helps our clients feel safe.”

• “This system saves 200 hours a year. Hours we now spend with family.”

Don’t assume people know why their work matters. Say it, often.

C) Social/Peer Motivation

“I do this because people like me do this.”

Humans are tribal. We’re wired to seek belonging.

So one of the most powerful motivators is not wanting to let the group down.

At Stripe, engineers don’t brag about their job titles.

They brag about how much they’ve built and shipped.

When you join, you don’t want to look lazy, you want to keep up.

The social norms are the motivation.

Fascinating interview with the Stripe CTO below 👇

What you can do:

Use social cues, not shame.

Normalise high standards through visibility:

• “Team A just shipped their onboarding in 3 days.”

• “Shoutout to John for turning around a client issue in 20 mins.”

• “Everyone at exec level logs 1 insight per week. What’s yours?”

Use recognition to spotlight what good looks like, so others follow.

Why Most Leaders Fail at Driving Change

Most leaders rely only on motivation.

They assume a big enough vision will move mountains.

But motivation is a slippery beast… it comes and goes.

It’s great for one-off sprints, not long-term transformation.

Over 100 million people start an online course every year, but only 10% of them complete them.

Why?

For the same reason that people accumulate unused gym passes in their wallets and dusty vegetable juicers in their basements.

They got caught in a common human mind trap: they overestimated the power of motivation alone. 

They had the aspiration… just not the ability or prompts to follow through.

2. ABILITY

Here’s a truth most leaders forget:

People don’t avoid what matters. They avoid what’s hard.

• If something is easy, people do it.

• If it’s hard, they delay, defer, or quietly quit.

Your job? Lower the bar to entry.

Duolingo doesn’t ask you to “become fluent in French.”

It just asks you to “do one lesson.” Sometimes that’s tapping on one word.

The result?

A streak so addictive that people do it on their wedding day. No joke.

When Ability is Low, Motivation Must Be Sky-High

This is the fundamental tradeoff:

Which is why complex systems, unclear instructions, or cognitive overload kill momentum.

Tactical Examples to Increase Ability

What you can do:

• Every task you assign: make it shorter and clearer.

• Then make the first action laughably easy.

• Let momentum do the rest.

3. PROMPTS

If you want to predict whether a behaviour will happen, the prompt is the most important piece.

Because you can be motivated… and capable…

But if you’re not reminded at the right time? It never happens.

When Phelps was asked how he stayed so consistent…

• He didn’t talk about motivation.

• He didn’t wake up and hope he’d feel like training.

• He had a trigger: the “videotape.”

Every night before bed and every morning before training, he’d mentally rehearse a perfect race, down to the sound of water and the number of strokes.

When the real moment came? He’d already done it in his mind 1,000 times.

The “videotape” was his action prompt.

It told his brain: Now is the time to lock in.

By the time race day came, he wasn’t “motivated.” He was programmed.

The highest performers don’t depend on motivation. They engineer triggers.

Want your team to consistently do the right thing?

Anchor the desired behaviour to something they’re already doing.

This is where prompts become gold.

Fogg outlines three categories of triggers and how to weaponise them for performance:

A) Contextual Triggers (Your Environment)

These are triggers in your surroundings.

• Phone on your nightstand? That’s why you check Instagram first thing.

• Cookie jar on the counter? That’s why your diet’s toast.

• Soap on the sink? That’s why you wash your hands.

Elite teams use these too:

• Dropbox placed sharing reminders in the UI right after file uploads.

• Apple uses ambient red dots to trigger app engagement.

• Great managers use whiteboards, dashboards, or Slack sidebars as visual nudges.

What you can do:

• Make your desired behaviours visible and accessible.

• If you want more 1:1s, make the default calendar template include them.

• Want more feedback? Put a “quick feedback” link in your email signature.

B) Internal Triggers (Your Body/Mind)

These are feelings that spark action:

• You feel hungry → you eat

• You feel bored → you scroll TikTok

• You feel anxious → you check email

But most behaviours don’t come with a natural internal prompt.

There’s no gut feeling to update the CRM or prep for a Quarterly Business Review.

Elite teams know this, so they don’t wait for a feeling.

They build systems that bypass the need for internal willpower.

What you can do:

Build externalised rituals instead of hoping for internal motivation.

• “Every Thursday at 3pm, we update the sales pipeline.”

• “Before any pitch, we use the 3-point checklist.”

C) Action-Based Triggers (Habit Stacking)

This is the gold standard for behaviour change.

You link a new habit to something you already do consistently.

BJ Fogg’s example:

Why does it work?

• No scheduling needed.

• No memory required.

• No motivation necessary.

You already flush. You just stack on top.

Elite Teams do this too:

• Salesforce reps log notes immediately after a call.

• Execs review metrics right before board meetings.

• Devs pull retros right after each sprint ends.

What you can do:

Stack your team’s new habits onto daily workflows:

Starter Steps = Real Momentum

New habits don’t need a motivational speech.

They need a first step that’s so easy it’s laughable.

Want your team to plan their day better?

• Ask them to write one sentence after their morning meeting.

Want more proactive updates?

• Have them drop a 3-word summary in Slack at 4:45pm.

The key is make it so easy it feels dumb not to do it.

The Power Of All Three Together: How the Red Cross Raised $21M in 7 Days

In 2010, a massive earthquake struck Haiti. The Red Cross needed donations and fast.

Their secret? Not marketing. Not guilt. Just a perfect MAP stack:

• Motivation: People saw the devastation. Emotion was high.

• Ability: To donate, you just replied to a text. No credit card needed.

• Prompt: A text message, straight to your phone.

Result: $21M raised in under a week.

While people were at the gym. On the train. At work.

The best-performing teams and businesses don’t use one of these motivators.

They layer all three.

Your Challenge This Week

Here’s your MAP checklist to drive real change:

1. MOTIVATION

   • Is the emotional “why” clear and urgent?

   • Does this task connect to purpose, mastery, or identity?

2. ABILITY

   • Is the task effortless to start?

   • Can they do it in 60 seconds or less?

3. PROMPT

   • Is there a clear trigger?

   • Can you anchor it to an existing behaviour or routine?

Fix the weakest of these three and watch action follow.

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Steph Curry’s important lesson that applies to any walk of life, not just sport (video)

For Your Team

• Airbnb’s Brian Chesky on how to hire the best people (video)

For Your Health

• Bryan Johnson 🗣️ Why Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) has better impact for you than Ozempic (Diary of a CEO clip)