Tag Archives: motivation

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

If the box fits

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For most, our daily lives are framed by constraints.  For example, you  get up at specific times based on committments  or perhaps lack thereof.  You go to bed based on the constraint of when you are getting up.

This framework can form a box (metaphorically speaking) which you comfortably fit into.  The question is, just because the box fits, should you wear it?

Personal Satisfaction/Enjoyment

Routine can be relaxing and followed with ease, in short comfortable.  It might not be the best approach to maximizing your personal pleasure even if it is probably the easiest path to follow.

Going to bed at different hours , changing up your travel routine, trying different daily activities are more likely to challenge you and psychology studies indicate stepping out of the box and mixing it up increases the  probability of self satisfaction (albeit the studies seem to employ somewhat subjective measures.).

Breaking Out

Extreme practices, for example consistently stretching or breaking the box that surrounds you is not being recommended.  As with most things a judicous balanced approach is most likely best.

That is some combination of routine and impulsive behaviour, is more likely to  result in making you feel better over time.

Consistent routine might result in lost opportunities to accelerate your personal pleasure while an reckless approach might be invigorating it could be too stressful.

Give it some concious thought, break away from the unconcious routine, to some extent and check the results. You might surprise yourself.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Structuring for Success – Part 2

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On Wednesday I described the strata theory of organizational structure.  In summary, the workof an organization  (e.g., build a plane) can be categorized by it’s type, e.g., level 1,2,3 ……… and so on.

The type of work at each level generally goes from  long complex tasks requiring a lot of earned power to short simple tasks (i.e., level 1) based on granted power.

My earlier posts describes this in a little more detail. Today I will focus on how the model can help identify problem areas, ultimately leading to resolution. (hopefully)

Comprehension

When direct reports are doing the same kind of work, that is they are both level 3 for example, conflicts quickly arise.  Intuitively you can imagime the angst and confusion when the boss is doing what you have been assigned ( often by the boss).

Terms like micro managing or constructive dismissal can be applied to this scenario.  To solve, study the work done in your organization, based on the length and complexity of the tasks, ensure direct reports are not working at the same level.

Gaps

When someone doing level 2 type work is reporting to a boss doing level 4 work, things can be missed.  Gaps in the work flow , not unexpectedly, create challenges at the lower level of work.

Working Across Multiple Levels

For me, this is both the most common and frustrating.  In this case the resource at (for example) level three sets the direction and goals assigning them to people who work at level 1 & 2.

Unfortunately they then go and proceed to do the work.  That is the senior manager assigns projects aligned to the strategies and then goes and runs the projects alongside those assigned to do this type of work?

The project managers accountable for the work become quickly disaffected and impotent.    Most often, ultimately, they leave the organization.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Wants and Needs

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Whether classified as a want or a need,  both are action terms about attaining something.  For wants, the underlying motivation is a desire and for needs it’s required or essential.

In 1943 Abraham Maslow put forward a motivational theory based on a heirarchy of needs.  The theory was more fully devolped in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality.

In brief, humans needs were grouped into five main categories, in order of priority: self actualization, esteem, love/belonging, safety and physiological.

Needs versus Wants

A very grey area for me is the classification of needs and wants.  Maslow focused on human psychology to define needs.  The categories are broad and distinguishing the essential over the desired is not clear cut.

For example, belonging is  an intrinsic part of human nature but to what degree.  Of course the degree to which we attach ourselves to others (e.g.,marriage, single, hermit) can vary widely.

For one person what might appear only desirable could be a requirement for another.  Often distinguishing between wants and needs can be tricky.

Does it Matter

When you are motivated to act, the strength of desire can be moderated by need versus want.  Rationalization can help influence the decision.  Thoughts like, I really want this, but do I need it.

And so the dilemma begins, is this an inherent need or not.  Is there any definitive way to decide?

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

More behavioural thoughts

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Does the reason you behaved in a specific way mitigate the impacts of that behaviour?  Is personal accountablity tanamount to resonsibility or do external factors weigh in?

An example would be a murderer  who was deemed not accountable for their actions.  In these cases, many cultures are sympathetic making allowances for what is terrifically bad behaviour.

The consequences might become psychiatric rehabilitation, forgiveness and reintegration into society.  Or the killer might recieve the death penalty.

Alternatively they may be caged for a long time to protect them from others and or rehabilitate them.  These actions resulting from this murderous behaviour vary, and are principally determined based on motivation.

Pure Personal Accountability

If the determining factor for consequences was soley based on personal accountablity, the reactions to a persons specific behaviour would probably be more consistent,

That is, a killer made the decision to kill, (other factors are irrelevant) the behaviour is theirs and theirs alone).  The contextual and external reasons for the behaviour do not mitigate it.

 You made me do it

The question is, can any factors, ( for example hunger, torture, ridicule, greed), drive your behaviour or are action decisions yours alone to make.

A interesting personal test of this can be tried the next time you are angry.  Simply start with the internal question – Why am I angry?  Usually you will be able to quickly think of the prime causes.

Most likely it will be something like he/she made me mad, or a scenario or circumstances.  These will rarely include; “I chose to be angry or I decided anger was appropriate in this case to address the things that were occurring.”

Part two of this self examination is the question, if I did not choose to be angry, is this acceptable.  Are not my emotions, thoughts and deeds mine to control?

For me, this is a rhetorical question.  The answer is an emphatic yes.  So, I try to learn from this and vow to myself, next time I will conciously decide if I want to be angry.  Owning my actions is so much more satisfying than not.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Behaving Naturally

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There is a multitude of research into human behaviour.  Things like, what are the common reactions under certain specified conditions, what do stress factors do, testing for underlying motivation and so on.

Intuitively, recognizing much behaviour is  situational and/or affected by a variety of physical and pyschological drivers , on the whole,  an individual default behaviour is foused on their own benefit.

Altruism Aside

This is not to disregard the numerous instances of charitable behaviour or cases of putting others first.  I would argue that even in these cases, their is some element of personal satisfaction or internal desire that is driving the actions.

Healthy Cynicism

As cynical as it may seem, at the base of every interraction I have with others or other actions (both mine and others) lies a personal motivation that is “all about me”

Influencing Others

Believing this to be true is a key underpinning to understanding why others behave the way they do.  This understanding is a critical success factor supporting your influencing skills.

Money, power, friendship and respect are often used as examples of ways to drive behaviour.  (e.g., if you help me cut the grass I’ ll give you ten dollars.)

The underlying reason though will most likely be associated with psychologicla benefit ( i.e. feeling good ) or with a basic need (e.g., hunger).

Adressing both the obvious external driver together with the basic emotional needs as you try to influence others behaviours will increase your likelyhood of success.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Throwing Bowling Balls

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Sometimes communication needs a little punch.  A colleague of mine calls this throwing bowling balls.  Sometimes I  get a snappy email response from him, “thanks for the bowling ball”

A touch of levity empowers communication  and as long as it can be taken in good humour, as a bowling ball versus a nuclear detonation there is nothing wrong with spicing the message to increase noticeability.

Getting Attention

Not surprisingly, getting attention is not as useful as keeping it.  When crafting your message, verbal, written or even through body language the key is not just to be noticed but more importantly to be heard.

Bowling balls come in hard and fast, you need to pay attention and react or risk getting hurt.  It’s the reaction which creates the opportunity for dialogue and ultimately opens the door for understanding.

Mutual ackowledgement and understanding (very different from agreement) is the place to start the communication.  Moving on to agreement, if you can, is the next step.

Why Listen

Communication entails transmission of a message.  Most important to the sender is receptivity.  Without motivation why would anyone waste time on your communication.

In today’s environment digital messaging abounds.  People with a large volume of email can be selective about what they pay attention to.

In some cases this is just a defensive tactic.  Time management can be over whelming and the motivation to bypass seeming innocuous or low priority messages is high.

So send that bowling ball spinning to it’s destination when some motivation toward having your message selected for attention is warranted.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Manipulation

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Manipulation is mainly considered to have a negative connotation.
One online definition I found states  ” the action of manipulating someone in a clever or unscrupulous way”.

I would argue, unsucessfully so far, that if your manipulation is clever (but not unscrupulous) it is not bad nor a behaviour to be avoided but rather, used in the right context (cleverly) it can be helpful.

Motivation, goals and manipulation

All human behaviour is motivated by something.  In a circular argument I would say even “no reason” is a reason.  The motivation is explained by the goal being sought.

If manipulation is the tool employed to achieve the goal you are motivated toward, I see nothing wrong with that, provided it is not done unscrupulously.  Clever, is the byword and my hat is off to clever people.  Good for you.

Manipulation or Influencing

Whether your base behaviour is to cleverly manipulate or influence an outcome, I postulate that all human behaviours contain some element of these practices.

That is, everything a person does is motivated, it is directed toward goal achievement and manipulation or influencing is required to try and achieve it, always.

Even if the result is not the original  goal (and often we don’t even conciously know what that was) some form of manipulative or influential behaviours will have been employed.

My days are filled with manipulative behaviour, of the clever sort, and I am proud of it.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Keeping your brain alive

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Intellectual stimulation, exercising your brain, is as important as physical exercise to maintaining your health.  Elongating your life span requires attention toward all body parts – muscles, vital organs and thinking processes.

Supporting thought

On and off my posts focus on leadership behaviours.  A critical tool in understanding and motivating others is to create an environment that allows for positive exercise of intellectual prowess.

Properly orchestrated this can enrich the performance of the team, group or organization, through a series of a productive set of behaviours, that addresses not just physical well being but possibly more importantly, mental health.

Like your muscles, without regular active use your thinking processes can become atrophied.   Leaders must not just motivate action and outcomes but enable others to do so in a mentally stimulating way.

Setting the Environment

One approach is to encourage respectful dialogue.  Exchanging information in a reasoned manner while encouraging dissent and opposing views can be a very powerful motivator.

More importantly, this behaviour results in higher levels of engagement which in turn raise motivation and ultimately outcomes are better.

These outcomes hopefully map to the groups goals and objectives.  Encouraging the team to mentally challenge themselves includes the use of scenarios specifically targeted to make everyone think.

In these cases, the goal or objective may be in and of itself, about the thinking process, no more no less.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Motivating High Performance

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Performance, in the context of the post refers to the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.  High performance should lead to better outcomes.

Applies to Everyone

In a group situation (e.g., family, corporate , charitable) the more the individual performances integrate (i.e., synchronize) the greater the outcome.

Motivating performance is most effective when balanced (a favorite concept of mine) between the group and the individual.  If my soccer team has a superstar I might win sometimes.

If every player on the roster is a superstar, and collaboration is their mantra, the chances we will consistently win are high.  That is both individual and team performance are key success factors.

Enabling Motivation

The most powerful form of motivation comes from within.  Achievement orientation is an extremely important emotional intelligence characteristic.

Selecting group members that identify with this value and display the associated behaviours is the first step toward building a motivated team.

Having a high level of individual motivation practiced by everyone in the organization sets the framework for leaders to provide the motivational direction.

In this case, the individual contributors naturally combine and leverage each other.  They recognize a true team effort is the route to great success.

The secret to successful motivation is to create an environment where self motivation will occur organically.  This is no so much about direct action on the part of the motivator.

The key is recognizing what each individual needs to fuel their inner motivation and then give it to them.  Observation and barrier removal is mainly what this entails.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Emerging Markets

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Less developed countries or the more politically correct term,  Emerging markets, refer to  countries that have some characteristics of a developed market, but do not meet standards to be a developed market. Frontier market is used for developing countries with slower economies than those of emerging countries.

This is a bit of a subjective classification.  What are generally considered to be obvious examples of each category are:

  • Developed – U.S., Japan, Canada, U.K., France
  • Emerging – India, Russia, Brazil, china
  • Frontier – Kenya, Cote de Ivoire, Nigeria

Capital Investment Opportunities

A colleague and I recently had a fascinating discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of investing in Emerging and Frontier economies.

The number one benefit is the opportunity for outrageous returns.  Return on capital of 1000% is not unknown – this over a short term of 5 to 10 years.

Of course the risk of losing everything is very high.  The more “frontier” the economy the greater the risk.   In short investing in emerging or frontier markets follows the basic axiom; high risk, high reward.

Mitigation

A key driver of the potential for poor results or significant losses arises from the environmental unknowns.   Things like political maneuvering, cultural norms (e.g., are bribes allowed, even expected), material constraints and so on.

My colleague suggested  these risks can be easily overcome by employing locals inhabitants or management firms who can guide your  investment past the trip wires.

My question was, why would I take these risks when my North American investment capital could return me 100% over 5 to 10 years with none of the environmental risks or unknowns?

Simply put why venture into the unknown when the known works just fine.  I guess ultimately it boils down to your appetite for risk.