bythemethod.com blog

Overview

What is it about “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” that makes you want to get up and help someone and how do they manage to achieve so much in so little time.

Introduction

Have you ever watched “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”? They build a house in record time to help a family in trouble.

I used to work in the construction industry so I know how hard it is to achieve what they do. It’s not just down to the numbers of people who work on the project – although this will help. It’s down to the way they get motivated for a project.

What they do

At the beginning of the programme they sit down together and watch a video of a family with a problem. During this watching of the video it gives them a chance to connect with the family. They obviously talk about it together and perhaps are given more information because we then see them being interviewed about the situation.

During the programme there are moments when they reconnect with that family. They might do something that is important to the family or talkk with people who know them.

They also enjoy working together than have a real sense of pride in what they are doing. They will each one take time to talk with the others and tell them about the good job they are doing.

There are also ovbvious points when things are accomplished. They make a big deal of the handing over of the keys to the house – for instance. This gives them a boost to get the last step finished (the last step in any project is often the hardest to pull off.

Then the family comes home and we watch their delight and it can become so infectious that it might even make us want to do something good for someone else.

How does this relate to us?

Well let’s lok at the four steps for motivation I wrote about in a previous post:

• What?
• Why?
• Measure
• Pleasure

What?

They already know what they are going to have to do. They don’t know the details yet but this will be sorted out later. You can work on all of the stages at the same time as long as all the elements are present.

Why?

This is the part when they get to know the family by watching the video. It is important they do this together because when one of them feels the need the rest will pick up on that and it will help them feel the need as well.

Measure

There are obvious points at which they can measure their progress – the handing over of the keys is just one of the points. Watch the programme and look out for the others.

Pleasure

“Bus driver, move that bus.” Anyone who watches the programme knows the phrase well. This is one of the great moments of pleasure. Seeing the reaction of the family is important.

They also encourage each other by telling each other what a good job they are doing.

They also meet people who know the family, and sometimes talk to the family involved, which gives them a boost throughout the process.

Conclusion

What they do is great and makes a real difference to a lot of people. We can use the same prinicipals that they use ourselves to help us in our projects. The more of these four principals we can work into our projects the more successful we will be.