You can make their day - Ten Tips for the Leader About Employee Motivation

As a manager or supervisor, your impact on employee motivation is immeasurable. By your words, your body language, and the expression on your face, you telegraph your opinion of their value to the people you employ.

Feeling valued by their supervisor in the workplace is key to high employee motivation and morale. Feeling valued ranks right up there for most people with liking the work, competitive pay, opportunities for training and advancement, and feeling "in" on the latest news.

Building high employee motivation and morale is both challenging and yet supremely simple. Building high employee motivation and morale requires that you pay attention every day to profoundly meaningful aspects of your impact on life at work.

Picture Mr. Stressed-Out and Grumpy. He arrives at work with a frown on his face. His body language telegraphs "over-worked" and unhappy”. He moves slowly and treats the first person who approaches him abruptly. It takes only a few minutes for the entire workplace to get the word. Stay away from Mr. Stressed-Out and Grumpy if you know what's good for you this morning.

Supervisors frequently ask, "How do I motivate employees?" It's one of the most common questions asked. Wrong question. Ask instead, "How do I create a work environment in which individual employees choose to be motivated about work goals and activities?"

The right answer is that, generally, you know what you should do; you know what motivates you. You just do not consistently, in a disciplined manner, adhere to what you know about employee motivation.

The ten tips, outlined in this article, are the keys to supervisory success in creating positive employee motivation and morale. The challenge is to incorporate them into your skill set and do them consistently - every day. Author, Jim Collins identified disciplined people doing disciplined things every day as one of the hallmarks of companies that went from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... And Others Don't? ‘You can make their day.’

Here they are:

1. Your Arrival at Work Sets the Employee Motivation Tone for the Day
2. Use Simple, Powerful Words for Employee Motivation
3. For Employee Motivation, Make Sure People Know What You Expect
4. Provide Regular Feedback for Employee Motivation
5. People Need Positive and Not So Positive Consequences
6. It Isn't Magic. It's Discipline
7. Continue Learning and Trying Out New Ideas for Employee Motivation
8. Make Time for People for Employee Motivation
9. Focus on the Development of People for Employee Motivation
10. Share the Goals and the Context: Communicate for Employee Motivation

People expect you to know the goals and share the direction in which your work group is heading. The more you can tell them about why an event is happening, the better. Promote problem solving and process improvement teams.

Happy Leading !

Thoughts in Mind

A man was sitting by a lake. He was throwing small pebbles into it from time to time. A young boy happened to cross by. He was intrigued to see that after every few minutes or so, the man would toss a pebble into the lake. The boy went up to the man and said, "Good pastime, this stone throwing, huh?" "Hmmm," said the man. He seemed to be deep in thought and obviously did not wish to be disturbed.

Sometime later, the man said softly, "Look at the water, it is absolutely still."

The boy said, "Yeah, it is." The man tossed a pebble into the water and continued, "Only till I toss a pebble into it. Now do you see the ripples?" "Yeah," said the boy, "they spread further and further."

"And soon, the water is still again," offered the man. The boy said, "Sure, it becomes quiet, after a while."

The man continued, "What if we want to stop the ripples? The root cause of the ripples is the stone. Let’s take the stone out. Go ahead and look for it." The boy put his hand into the water and tried to take the stone out. But he only succeeded in making more ripples. He was able to take the stone out, but the number of ripples that were made in the process were a lot more than before.

The wise man then said, "It is not possible to stop the movement of the water once a pebble has been thrown into it. But if we can stop ourselves from throwing the pebble in the first place, the ripples can be avoided altogether!”

“So too, it is with our minds. If a thought enters into it, it creates ripples. The only way to save the mind from getting disturbed is to block and ban the entry of every superfluous thought that could be a potential cause for disturbance. If a disturbance has entered into the mind, it will take its own time to die down. Too many conflicting thoughts just cause more and more disturbances.

Even trying to forcibly remove the thought may further increase the turmoil in the mind. Time surely is a great healer, but prevention is always better than cure."

So, before we allow a thought or a piece of information to enter our minds, let’s put it through the triple filter test of authenticity, goodness and value and…

Think well before it gets too late

While a man was polishing his brand new car, his four year old son picked up a stone and scratched lines on the side. In anger, the man took the child's hand and hit him several times, not realizing he was using an iron wrench. At the hospital, the child lost all his fingers due to multiple fractures. When the child saw his father.... with painful eyes he asked “You may polish your car again but Dad when will my fingers grow back?”

The father was so hurt and speechless. He went back to car and kicked it a lot of times. Devastated by his own actions...... sitting in front of that car, he looked at the scratches; the child had written 'LOVE YOU DAD"

The child had shown the father the real meaning of love and forgiveness; the father learnt a big lesson from his own mistakes

Moral of the Story is : The greatest remedy for anger is delay. Anger can do things that cannot be repaired. So think well before it’s too late.

Don't be Serious be Sincere - Speech by Chetan Bhagat at Symbiosis ...

Don’t just have career or academic goals.

Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order.

There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.

"Life is one of those races in nursery school where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same is with life where health and relationships are the marble.

Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die. ……………….

One thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously. Life is not meant to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? …………….

It's ok, bunk a few classes, scoring low in couple of papers, goof up a few interviews, take leave from work, fall in love, little fights with your spouse. We are people, not programmed devices........." :)

"Don't be serious, be Sincere."

Unique flaws and Appreciation

A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the House, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of it's own imperfection and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said.

The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?

That's because I have always known about your flaw. So I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.

Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house?

Lessons to Learn from This Story:

Each of us has our own unique flaws. We're all cracked pots. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them. Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

Remember to appreciate all the different people in your life.

Success breeds Success

There was a farmer who grew superior quality, award-winning corn in his farm. Each year, he entered his corn in the state fair where it won honors and Prizes.

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew his corn. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. "How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" The reporter asked. "Why brother"

'' The farmer replied, "Didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen grains from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior, sub-standard and poor quality corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I have to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors to grow good corns."

The farmer gave a superb insight into the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves.

So it is in the other dimensions and areas of life! Those who choose to be in harmony must help their neighbors and colleagues to be at peace. Those who choose to live well must help others live well. The value of a life is not measured by how long one lived it is measured by how many lives it touches………….

Lessons to Learn from This Story:

Success does not happen in isolation, it is most often a participatory and collective process. So share the good practices, ideas and new knowledge with your family, friends, team members and neighbors and all.. As they say: "Success breeds Success”.

The obstacle in Our Path

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it.

Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.

Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been.

The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.

The peasant learned what many of us never understand!

Moral: Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.