In a classic study on motivation, Professor Frederick Herzberg found that the number one factor contributing to extreme job satisfaction was personal achievement (number two was recognition). People want to achieve. They want to set goals and reach them. Tap into this natural wellspring of motivation.

Traditionally, most advice you hear about management assumes a longer time frame where if you spend a little today, you’ll reap bountiful rewards in time. But that’s only true if your organization isn’t on fire. If it is, then all bets are off. At that point, you need to do whatever you can to extinguish the flames.

In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed a famous theory, known today as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, to explain human motivation. The basic idea is that certain needs trump others and you must satisfy lower-level needs before focusing on higher-level ones.

If you can’t breathe, for instance, it doesn’t matter if you are hungry, lonely, or unemployed. At the moment when your face starts turning blue, everything in your being will focus on how to fill your lungs with oxygen. But if you’re breathing fine, it doesn’t mean that life is perfect either. You’re simply now able to address the next most critical barrier to your survival: getting food into your stomach.

Once you’re able to breathe, your stomach is full, and you’re in a safe environment, then you can focus on the next levels up in the hierarchy, such as being part of a community that supports you or contributing something meaningful with your life—what Maslow called “self-actualization.”

Given that you’re reading this book and wondering how you can become a better manager, it’s probably safe to assume that your organization is not on the verge of imminent collapse. But if it is, then set this book down right now and figure out what you need to do to help your team turn things around. Can you rally the troops for a spectacular gambit? Can you brainstorm some MacGyver-esque tactics to get you out of your tricky bind? Can you roll up your sleeves and pitch in on making cold calls or selling glasses of lemonade?

When you are in survival mode, you do what it takes to survive.

When you’re beyond survival in your team’s hierarchy of needs, then you can plan for the future and think about what you can do today that will help you achieve more in the months and years ahead.

The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated,” wrote William James, the father of American psychology. It is impossible to be motivated and do great work if you don’t feel that somebody cares and appreciates what you do.

Studies have shown that for people to be happy and productive at work, they need to experience positive interactions (appreciation, praise) vs. negative (reprimands, criticism) with their manager/coach in a ratio of at least 3:1. (Watch out: For a marriage to work, you actually need a 5:1 ratio!!) So make it a simple habit to thank people each and every day —

and that includes using the word generously in emails to your team.

In Behavior Design, we’ve named this temporary surge in motivation the Motivation Wave. I’m sure you’ve experienced this before: Your motivation crested, then came crashing down. And maybe you blamed yourself for not sustaining it. You’re not to blame. This is how motivation works in our lives.

Can you see how fundamentally the paradigms of the Personality Ethic affect the very way we see our problems as well as the way we attempt to solve them? Whether people see it or not, many are becoming disillusioned with the empty promises of the Personality Ethic. As I travel around the country and work with organizations, I find that long-term thinking executives are simply turned off by psych up psychology and “motivational” speakers who have nothing more to share than entertaining stories mingled with platitudes. They want substance; they want process. They want more than aspirin and band-aids. They want to solve the chronic underlying problems and focus on the principles that bring long-term results.