Benefits and Way to develop Motivation

We must develop a way to motivate ourselves and “make it happen”. When you are motivated you are ready to take action.

When we are motivated we get following benefits.

* creativity – Once you become focused and motivated, creativity is a natural “side-effect”.
* energy – People who are motivated need less sleep and possess more excitement.
* health – When you are motivated, you have more reasons to get and stay healthy.
* magnetism – Others are naturally drawn to winners and people who are constantly energized.
* momentum – Building and maintaining momentum will breed more motivation and vice verse.
* multiplication – Motivation and energy is contagious! It will spread like wildfire.
* recognition – Others respect you for your achievements because people want to be associated with a winner. They will willingly offer their assistance.
* productivity – Motivated people get more done. They move quickly, deliberately, and maintain a can-do attitude along the way.

How to Develop Motivation

We must keep our goals in mind daily through writing them or reading what we have already written. It’s so easy to get caught up in the daily cycle that we make no effort to push forward. How many times have you said to yourself, “Wow, it’s Friday already?” Long-term goals get placed on the back burner and we simply react to whatever happens in our lives instead of leading the way. We may have been “busy” this week, but most times we haven’t accomplished anything significant. This will only make you feel worse which creates a domino-effect. Staying thankful of the things that you do have is a solid way of warding off negative thoughts and emotions.

Once we reach a major milestone, it is crucial to create a much higher goal and celebrate the achievement. In fact, it’s a good idea to celebrate the achievement before it arrives. When you do this, you put faith in God(universe or whatever you believe in) and yourself that what you desire WILL happen.

Are you motivated? What’s holding you back?

Accept Change, Move On

When the word ‘creativity’ is used, we generally understand it as the ability to create something physical and unique. Creativity is often taken in the context of art and literature. An artist expresses his creativity through the colors he uses, a writer through words, an architect through his buildings and a musician with his instrument and musical notes. But there is more to creativity than that. It can also mean recreating one’s life.

In any life, the only constant is change. Everyone faces different phases of life. Our ability to deal with those changes dexterously is called creativity. It requires that one be willing to step away from easy answers and quick solutions. It needs one to look beyond the familiar and into uncharted territory. Ultimately, creativity is about risk and courage.

As a toddler; we find life gloriously free from responsibility. As we grow older, social norms require us to adapt our behavior to the external world. Gradually, we get programmed to behave in a certain way.

It is almost a metaphor for life, which forces us to adapt to real time change. For example, life changes once we get married and have children, The carefree life changes into a life of responsibility. It is possible to feel stifled by the link between one’s behavior and the way others fee.

Every aspect of life requires us to be creative. As circumstances change, we should be able to dance in the moment. Many people find themselves unable to accept changed circumstances, making for great frustration. For instance, a strategy shift in an organization inf the form of either a merger or an acquisition will affect many employees. Some get more responsibility and some may lose jobs. Just months ago, recession forced change on reputable organizations, some of which filed for bankruptcy. Many faced management changes, retrenchment and relocation of employees. Many found employees resentful and confused.

These reactions indicate a collective and destructive emotion even though every individual should instead, take ownership of his/her reaction. The downturn was an irreversible process. But how does one handle such a devastating situation? We need to understand that once an event has occurred, it is entirely up to us to choose the way we accept and move forward. When we resist change, we stagnate.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self.

Creativity in our interaction with people is one of the most crucial skills a human being can have. It is also the one that people focus on least, choosing instead to concentrate on developing our academic skills or general knowledge.

So, what is it that prevents us from accepting change? Our fear of failure because we underestimate our capacity to learn new things. It appears unthinkable because the mind says, “I am best at what I do”. But how will you ever know if you are good or bad at something else unless you try it. There are also the social pressures of being at a particular level in our job and egotistic anger about being passed over, say, for promotion. The right question for those who wait for the perfect job, perfect boss, perfect organization and perfect colleagues, is; “How perfect am I?”

Change by definition is temporary. The pace at which a person accepts the change and moves on truly shows his creativity. Re-creating one’s own life the highest form of creativity because “the future doesn’t just happen, it’s shaped by decisions.”

10 Tips for leading your team to peak performance

#1: Focus on results and productivity and not the time clock

When you manage salaried knowledge workers, you should almost never have rigid clock-in/clock-out times unless there is a coverage issue in relation to serving customers (e.g., maintaining adequate help desk coverage during call hours). Instead, set clear goals that you know should take your employees about 40 hours/week to accomplish. Require that they show up on time for important meetings and are available during the team’s general working hours. Provide them with the tools to access their work remotely, when needed. Then let them manage their own time. This sends the message that you trust your employees. If you’ve got people you don’t trust, that’s another issue. Manage them up until you do trust them or manage them out to their next opportunity.

#2: Align people with the stuff they are good at

Make sure you have the right people in the right seats. This is especially true if you take over the management of a team that is already in place. Take stock of all the talents you have on the team and reshuffle the deck if it means that your team has a better chance of success. Don’t keep someone in a job role just because they’ve been doing it for long time if you truly think their talents are better suited and could make a bigger contribution in another role. Employees might be reluctant to move in a case like this, so you may need to work hard to convince them that the change is in their best interest, as well as the best interest of the company.

#3: Align people with the projects they are passionate about

Another part of getting people in the right seats is finding what your employees are genuinely passionate about and seeing if they are ways to align them with job roles that let them channel some of that passion. Occasionally, that can mean putting someone in an area where they don’t have much experience. But if their previous work history makes you think they can succeed in that role, it’s usually worth it because their passion will fuel a strong desire to learn and grow. Once they’re up to speed, that passion can become a strong driver of innovation and growth.

#4: Put your best performers on your biggest opportunities

When you have a big opportunity that could propel your organization forward, you need to step back and think about who is the best person to lead the charge. In addition to finding someone who has the talent for the work involved or who has a passion for the subject matter, you need to look at who has a track record of success. Big opportunities come around only once in a while, and they can be lost. So even if it means taking someone off something important, you should always put your best performers on your biggest opportunities.

#5: Find the balance between aggressive and realistic goals

Create a culture of performance by setting aggressive goals and holding your employees accountable for regularly reporting on their progress. However, the goals can’t be so aggressive that your employees quickly fall behind and feel like they can never realistically achieve them. Otherwise, they will quit stretching to reach the goals. That means that you have to regularly re-evaluate the goals (at least on a quarterly basis) to decide whether they need to be scaled down or scaled up.

#6: Trust your people — and let them know it

Knowledge workers typically have jobs that require creative solutions and decision-making. They need to stay sharp mentally to achieve top performance. The onus is on management to create an atmosphere that fosters and encourages that kind of creativity. One of the best things you can do is to let your employees know that you trust them and that you have faith in their ability to do the job, solve the problem, and/or meet the deadline. If you don’t trust them, again, you need to manage them up or manage them out.

#7: Avoid blame (a.k.a. throwing people under the bus)

In any business (or organizational enterprise), there are going to be times when you fail, and there will be things that simply don’t pan out the way you had hoped. Do a post-mortem (even if it’s informal) to figure out what went wrong and learn from it. If there were egregious errors made by individuals, deal with them privately. If necessary, let the person know your expectations for how this should be handled in the future. Don’t publicly blame individuals — either directly or indirectly — in meetings or team e-mails. If you do, you risk creating an atmosphere in which people are so afraid to make mistakes that they don’t spend enough time doing the proactive and creative work necessary to avoid future problems — or more important, to drive new innovations.

#8: Foster innovation by killing projects the right way

Another important part of fostering innovation is knowing how to kill projects effectively and gracefully. There are times when failed initiatives will expose the weaknesses of certain employees, but there are plenty of times when you have good employees working on projects that simply don’t pan out. Figuring out the difference between those two scenarios is part of becoming a good manager. If it’s a good person on a bad project, the person who was running the project isn’t any less talented because the project didn’t materialize. So make sure you use the project as a learning experience and reassign the person to something new without excessive hand-wringing. Otherwise, you will make your employees overly risk-averse, and they will be reluctant to jump into the next big project or to make bold moves when managing the project. That type of atmosphere can quickly stifle progress.

#9: Don’t provide all the answers — make your employees think

You are the manager. You are the leader. That does not mean that you have a monopoly on all of the good ideas. If your employees are hesitant to make decisions without asking your opinion first, you haven’t properly empowered them. If your employees aren’t making enough of their own decisions, you should change your tactics. When they present you with information and ask what to do about a situation, push the ball back into their court and ask them, “What do you think?” They might be surprised at first, but after you do that several times, they’ll start thinking it through before they come to you so that they’re fully prepared to discuss the matter and make a recommendation. That’s a good thing, because they’re usually closer to the customer and more familiar with the details of the work. You need their opinions. And you need them to make some of their own decisions.

#10: Build consensus by letting people know “why”

One of your key responsibilities in management is communicating about new initiatives and strategy changes. The worst thing you can do is surprise your staff members with a fully formed idea about a new way to do something that will drastically alter their day-to-day work. When you spring it on them, people will naturally be defensive and skeptical. Whenever possible, give people an informal heads-up that a change is coming and let them know some of the reasoning involved. They will be glad you kept them in the loop. If they don’t agree with the reasoning, they can express their dissent. They might even bring up a caveat or a gotcha that should be considered before the final plan is solidified. An even better course of action is to have a brainstorming session with your team when you are still formulating a new idea or strategy change, so you can gather their ideas and feedback. You may sometimes have to spring something on your team, but make sure that you limit those occasions. Even then, take the time to let them know the reasoning behind the decision.

Resource: Techrepublic.com