What keeps me motivated?

The days are always tiring, always abusive, there is always a customer shouting on your phone, there is always a issue that is waiting for you to take care of it. All of this is not just my part of routines.. I am sure for everyone who is one way or the other linked to MONEY. No one has peace, everyone has to struggle hard... so in all these times what keeps you motivated? I was asked this question by an ex-colleague... he had seen me working for first 4 yrs of my career and all through he had been consistently seeing me pass the years on.. his question was... I need my break every few months, I need a fresh start every few years... what is it that keeps you active and motivated to keep others going at the same pace as you are?

I push answer to those questions as this post....

1. Inspiration :

One of the reasons why our motivations get screwed up, is lack of inspiration. We dont see enough people around who can inspire us to do things and then we turn into pothole, just laying around the roadside and been nothing but a waste. When I count back my career, I realise the times when I have done worst is when I had no inspirational pictures around...Today what keeps me going is the art of drawing inspiration from everyone and everything...

1. Puneet inspires me when he talks about setting up iPhone development..inspires me to do some cool looking game app that can get 1 million downloads in a day ;)

2. The security guard that sits out of office inspires me when he works all day along to study his graduation and comes out with flying colors.

3. I get inspired when Nikhita says that "Keep a big joint family Happy, is not a very difficult task, not easy though"

4. I get inspired when an I read about an undergrad who builds a 1M Unique user app.

After all inspiration is the key.. if you stop seeing inspiration around you are dead.... Everyone around me inspire me... keeps me to look forward for a greater future ahead too...

2. Commitment :

No one in this world is less committed. Everyone is committed to what they do... the size of the commitment is more or less and depends on people's passion...I have realise that commitment is what lets you flow. Lack of commitment drives anyone to a rock state, what life would be if you are not committed to the product you work on? to the job you do? to your Team? To your team that works hard for you? Its the commitment that adds up the spice to the betterment of motivation...

A soul committed can see future in a better way.

3. Love :

The love and affection of Teams, Management and customers can change your level of confidence... Call me lucky but if you are loved by your Team, Management and colleagues you surely are going to succeed.. Love and trust is important and if you can get that.. you are cruising..This love keeps me going.

4. Criticism :

I have learnt a few things very hard way. I made mistakes and I turned those mistakes to blunders.. only reason was I never had someone who would stand by and tell me "How wrong I am". I found a critic in my own. I took my habit of blogging and criticizing my own decisions and behaviours over my private blog. I write what I do wrong, what I do worst.. then I read it after a few days to understand what I did wrong...

But that is never enough.. after all I am always soft on myself... So I find a few absurd rivals from my past and I tell them what I am doing and how.. my rivals have over the years turned into my friends... and they openly blame, criticize and puke thoughts on how I did something wrong. I have learnt that if you are not been criticized, you are going terribly wrong.

6. Hatred :

People who always hated me, motivated me. More the hatred , More the motivation. After all from "Guru" the movie I learnt that when people start hating you or talking against you, it means that you are growing....

7. Team :

Well one lucky thing around me is the the Team. They are appreciative, inspirational in different ways, funny, thoughtful, engaging, supportive, critic an at the same time warriors. The teams I worked with motivated me always, they stood by , guided me, helped me and loved me. Now if one person or thought can change someones life... imagine what a full team can do... I love to be a part of this Team and to be a part of the Team I have to work hard, keep myself updated... aren't they the thoughts that already motivate you?

I want to write more, more and more... but you may have realized that I am off beat. I am fixing things that went wrong... and I needed the much awaited motivation.... your love... Yes you readers motivate me when you read one single line of this....

Keep reading... and Keep me motivated :)

Read More

What keeps you Motivated?

A few posts from me on Motivations and Rewards and Rewards and some humor affecting motivations and then nothing after? Well yes the truth is that I am not motivated enough to write on motivations these days... the simple fact been that there has been lack of Intrinsic Motivation off lately...

Well that also made me think on what keeps me motivated? I feel everyone we work with is bonded by the fact that intrinsic motivations work... somewhere and somehow and such factors really affect the growth and downfall of talents... In reality the downfall is seasonal and the growth is continous, specially due to the fact that anyone who is not motivated (Or on a downfall) tends to switch to either another job or a role or open the disaster doors... and this leads them to the begining of the growth... isnt it?

Yes. I thought I would share with you on what I feel keeps me motivated.. and maybe it applies to you as well...

1. Challenged and Challenging Job: I think this is the biggest motivation to anyone... If you are not been challenged in a job you take it easy and when you take it easy it is no more helping you. I have seen highly productive engineers performing bad just becuase the challenges were not thrown at them... Now wonder why Deepesh , Amit , YN, Savio and Rhushi always need to be kept on their toes?

2. I need to be listened? Yes.. If you are not implementing what I say is still OK but at least listen to what I want to say? The de-motivation of anyone begins when we dont listen... Recently I went through a phase analaysis where one persons Ideas were rejected in and out analysed the reaction and it appeared that the moment this happened the person started to look for a change.. He was off for a few days attending interviews?

3. Where is my share? Everyone wants to be recognised, human nature. Its Managers duty to ensure that everyone doing better is recognised in an appropriate way. This recognition should also be linked to the Business results for instance: The 4 Quarter delivery we achieved is yielding us to a another bigger contract with the customer, This is due to the hard work from Rama, Yogesh , Deepesh, Savio , Rhushi , Nikita , Ani , Saket , Natwar and many more...

"Congratulations guys, Your efforts are getting us through a bigger more contract and this will definitely help us in achieving broader and bigger goals for the next few quarters"

4. Pay me peanuts?
This is a sensitive and a bigger part of Motivations, Top talent always wants to be paid appropriate. You pay to what they do and contribute. Usually top talent is over looked and this really causes frustration. The compensation is also linked by the talent to the goals they achieve... for example when Nikita last time told me that "My average appraisal mean that I will get a average compensation change" it showed that a person contributing value to the growth expects an at par growth for what they are making in terms of money.

5. Where do I go?
Uff... The Roadmap.. I need to advance... I want to grow.. I want to change the direction of myself and my organisation. I want to fire missiles from the bullets that my organisations has given me. All of this means that I need to see how I can grow with the people I work with and the organisation I am into. It is important that a timely and frequent review of growth options is discussed with top talent or to that matter every mammal that can be motivated.

6. Too much in the office - Too less in socials
Some balance should be maintained. Lot of hard work also means lot of frustrations and lot of road blocks. People who work hard , smart and effective also needs time to have a good social life... I have seen several people who leave the organisations when they are growing or are on a better growth path, just becuase after a few years they are frustrated becuase all of a suddent they realise that they did not have any social life for the time they were with the organisation. I feel that people who work long hours in office and on weekends will have a average 1-2 year relation with their organisation as opposed to people who balance their lives well who may stay for 4-5 yrs.

Now do you think its important to ask people not to work on weekends and also leave office early everyday?

7. Love each other
A healthy environment is required where team likes to work with each other. The fact that it is very important not only to have better Team compositions but to also have better understanding and chmistries between the Teams to deliver at peak. Team members that value and love each other.


Now can you tell me if there is anything more that keeps you motivated?

I am sure everyone of us wants to grow.. and

Read More

Motivations?

I read this in an email forward and found it funny... the best part of the humour below been at least there was some planning ;)

--------------***************----------------------
Once upon a time, a British company and a Japanese company decided to have a competitive boat race on the River Thames. The Japanese won by a mile.

The British firm became very discouraged and morale sagged. Senior Management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found and a project team was set up to investigate the problem and recommend the appropriate action.

Their conclusion: the Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering. The British team had one person rowing and eight people steering. Senior Management immediately hired a consultant company to do a study of the British team's structure. Millions of pounds and several months later they concluded that too many people were steering and not enough rowing.

To prevent losing to the Japanese next year, the team structure was changed to four 'Steering Managers', three 'Senior Steering Managers' and one 'Executive Steering Manager'. A performance and appraisal system was set up to give the person rowing the boat more incentive to work harder and become a key performer.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles. The Executive Steering Manager of the British companywas heard to say: "Next year that lazy SOB is going to have to row a lot harder!" But his underlings laid off the rower for poor performance, sold off the oars, cancelled all capital investment for new equipment and halted development of a new boat. They gave high performance awards to the consultants and distributed the money saved to Senior Management.

--------------***************----------------------

Read More

Rewards : Do they Motivate? - II

In my earlier post regarding Do rewards Motivate? and to my promise in the same post to tell you what would be an Ideal Reward like..... I felt the need to explain the differentiation between rewardful and rewardless motivations... To what I feel and I can easily describe why rewards were ever introduced is to create a passion in the people to do things better to have optimum or more than optimum results and to think beyond the boundaries that they work under.... I am not sure if I can call it extrinsic Motivation..... but the reason I feel I can call them extrinsic motivation is the fact that the motivation is in form of some or the other sort of rewards... this somehow clearly mean to me that the moment rewards are off the motivation can go for a toss... surprising no? The other fact about the extrinsic motivations is that it comes with a cost which obviously not so very easy to be managed by startups and smaller organisations who have to work over limited costs until they grow bigger. One of the blog post I read from a startup CEO was "How to Cut down Costs" and if of course talked about costs related to non business activities.

So lets leave what we don't have to opt for... I am sure all of you would be wanting to know the other side of motivation that does not ask for tangible rewards. But like any other product sale this type of motivation needs COMPLETE support from the individuals... Yes we are talking about the intrinsic motivations... the same that lead the leaders of countries , CEO's, Business Managers and many others to create a path to success by way of fantabolous innovations and aspirations... Yes creating a passion and intrinsic motivation can be the Ideal Reward.... The reward that can help someone achieve goals not only in line to organisation goals but beyond that.

So Whats the tangibility of this Ideal Reward?
Who Gives this Award?
How can it motivate those who look money as rewards?
What type of Employers can reward them?
Is it only verbal and nothing tangible?
and of course hell lot of questions that I see driving 90 miles an hour in your heads...

So to begin with the promotion to be intrinsic motivated is not at all tangible... you wont get any motivation in a handy form... however intrinsic motivation will lead you work towards something that you have always wanted to do...

When we started TechShepherds Software that was the Idea... and the way the motivation went to the associates was through a share in the profits of the organisations directly... how fun it was when I really saw everyone working as if it was their own company... of course challenges came for every hard or strategic decisions we made or the approach we took... and that's how the empowering for most worked.... to that matter 5 out of the 13 run their own setups big or small and I am sure they follow the same approach towards success now... Yes create a motivation that makes everyone feel been a part of it and just not closer.

Who can reward here or who creates this passion within?
Yes its the leadership that works in front or behind the scene here.. remember The Commodity Leaders have no role to play here, specially because the commodity leaders want to Empower Themselves to achieve success...

How can it motivate those who look for Tangible gifts?
So the answer here goes for 2 layers of people... this cannot be implanted in them who:

1. Think that the Employees/ Resources are a liability.
2. Think that money and designation is the only way to grow.

Is it only Verbal?
Yes it comes in different forms and different stages... Which I would really like to share....

What are the Stages of this reward or how this motivation works and helps?
1. Create a feel of responsibility and intrinsic interests in the goals the organisation is working for... (remember this is not easy and needs lot of understanding of the resources you work with). A typical phscycological study of human behaviours might be required. Also remember that the leaders have to show a vision of the organisation and not self....

2. Understand the Objectives and Goals from the Team and individuals, its very important to do that... for instance if someone has core interests in making movies he might not be a good developer but he definitely can be a good Product Analyst or a Web Designer. It might not be easy to understand this too... You wont find many people who can tell you what they want to do in their life.... but all will conclude to earn money and retire ;)

3. Identify the rockers and the boulders.... both of these types cannot be motivated so do not waste your time creating intrinsic strategies on them...

4. Throw responsibilities but do not control. Passion at work is affected badly when responsibilities handled by the associates are been directly and minutely controlled by someone. The effect it has is the Member who has intrinsic interests have a feel of failure and thus been controlled. This can also make the intrinsic motivated run on a different side.

5. Let the motivation be transferred.... and let the authorities , visibility and responsibilities rotated... this helps the teams and the players to be very effective to work towards a goal.

6. Let them have their shares....
Its very important that the players with intrinsic motivations get their share of success in whatever form it comes... this also means that the leaders have to let these players accelerate well and at times well enough to overtake the leaders themselves... Solidatory success needs to be lonely settled with them... one of the good qualities of players that are intrinsically motivated is that they thrive for the next thing and want to move fast... the speed of the organisation and individual goals should be able to match this... else its too late.


7. Praise and Curse
Doesnt go in the same words though... make sure that the innovations from every player is praised and whenever required failures are cursed so that the feel of failure lead them to success... its very important to de-motivate the players so that they understand what , when , how , where and which is important for their lives. Make use of talented hunour to give the message out. Use quality humour to praise and show whats wrong, Be direct and clear when required, Be hard and firm when necessary and be Soft and calm when must. All of these help the person to identify himself and find a way to move in the direction of desires and aspiritions.

Well there are many more thingsz that you can definitely do.... unfortunately I think its enough at this moment if this post works as a motivation for you to motivate others to do miracles...

Remember Our Teachers and Mentors have made us, and we have to take their seat to be equally effecient and effective for others...


Regards
Sameer Shaikh
http://pm-better-than-sex.blogspot.com

Read More