Super Motivation

Super Motivation.

Super Motivation is self sustaining, organization-wide, high motivation. There are 2 major components of human performance: ability & motivation. They are related as follows:

      Performance = Ability x Motivation

Ability means nothing unless it is used. When multiplied by motivation, ability comes alive!

All people without any exception have virtually unlimited motivational potential. This innate self-potential has simply been temporarily suppressed because most employees are working in environments that inhibit its suppression. 

In a Super Motivating environment, even those with formerly low levels of motivation will be able to excel, while those with higher levels of motivation will be able to realize their full potential. Although high motivation is not difficult to attain, it tends to be much more difficult to sustain. Motivation can be sustained only if it is built into the organization itself. This way, motivation will no longer be subject to the whims of people or the initiation of new programs that come & go.

The Super Motivation approach involves two parallel processes. The first is reducing de motivators; the second is adding motivators. The combination of these two processes will create dramatic improvements in the motivational climate of any organization willing to accept the challenge. De motivators include all of those nagging daily occurrences that frustrate employees & drain so much of their motivational energy. Motivators on the other hand does not include people, they are environmental conditions. 

Self-Motivation is the most powerful motivational force there is. It releases the latent motivational energy residing in all of us, & has the potential to energize extraordinary human performance. 

Highly motivated people possess their own internal incentives to act. They don’t wait for external forces to motivation them. Highly motivated people are invariably driven by strong internal desires.

According to Shad Helmstetter, “To motivate someone, anyone, to do anything, you must influence his emotions.” 

When positive thoughts arose positive / energizing emotions, large quantities of motivational energy are typically released. This in turn, energizes productive &, most importantly, creative behavior. Creative behavior manifests itself when employees go beyond the “normal” requirements of the job & take initiative to solve a problem, improve a work procedure, or give a customer extraordinary service. This is the kind of behavior that characterizes the highly motivated employees.

The motivating cycle goes something like this. Positive thoughts result in positive / energizing emotions which results in high energy. Once you consistently possess high energy in your place of work irrespective of the external conditions it culminates into productive / creative behavior. While enhancing productive behavior, the de-motivators which drain the talent & energy of the individual must be attacked. Thus, slowly & steadily you are winning the war on de-motivators.

The motivators have the awesome power to positively transform the context of work. They motivate because they increase desire. Motivators make people want to work, want to get involved, want to learn, want to achieve, want to gain recognition & so on. It is an active state. People who are motivated want to participate in life, not just be idle observers. 

For super motivation to work or create wonders one needs to go ahead with a super motivating planning. As work becomes more complex & competition grows keener, organization must become increasingly skillful at planning. It is becoming more & more apparent that “those who fail to plan, plan to fail.”

If planning is so essential, them why do so many smart people & organizations fail to plan? And why does the prospect of planning generate so little enthusiasm?

The reason is two fold: Most of use doesn’t know how to plan, & we are not motivated to do so. 

Formal planning requires time, discipline, procedures, paper work & commitment. It also requires people to adopt new behaviors that often lie outside their comfort zones. Given the widespread low motivation to plan, it should not be surprising that most of us find it much easier to take immediate action & worry about the consequences at a later date. Thus, to go ahead with super motivation you not only need to know how to overcome resistance to planning but also know how to achieve high involvement planning.

Once the planning process in place, the next is the revitalizing the production system which is a motivational challenge facing any organization. Production is what most employees are paid for, & what employees spend most of their time doing. Everybody, in every organization, is in involved in some form of production work. It is the value-adding process through which something of less value is converted into something with more value.

After the high productive systems are put in place the next step is to transform the communication system openly & powerfully. Approximately 80% of our waking hours are spent in some form of communication. Communication involves not only effective communication amongst members but also a superlative writing & listening skills. When the communication is good, relationships tend to be positive; when it is poor, relationships also tend to be poor. When people are communicating effectively, nothing is impossible.

Once the communication aspects are taken care of, the next aspect is investment in training their employees. Training systems in large organizations generally offer a wide range of developmental activities, including new employee orientation, job-skills training, continuing professional education, supervisory & management development, interpersonal skills training, conceptual skills training & even the basic skills training. Regardless, of the methods used, the training system in any organization is aimed at enhancing the collective competence of the workforce.

After the training, the next step is the evaluation. However, it is not evaluation itself that is the problem; the problem is how evaluation is used at work. In other contexts, such as in sports & games, evaluation is highly motivating. In fact, evaluation in sports is so motivating that enthusiasts spend endless hours studying evaluation statistics, even memorizing them. So why can’t evaluation be motivating at work? The answer is: It can.

Once the evaluation system in any organization gets successfully drawn the next step is the reward. Many organizations are increasingly discovering that not only are traditional rewards becoming extremely limited in their ability to motivate today’s workforce, but they are also extremely costly. Just as with other organizational systems, motivationally transforming the reward system requires looking at it with a fresh, new perspective. The most important question to ask in evaluating the reward system in your organization is, “Do the rewards elicit the kind of performance management desires?” 

Rewards of low cost, creative rewards to tell employees how much they are appreciated, such as following.

• Refreshments.
• Meals.
• Gift certificates.
• Magazine subscriptions.
• Books, audiotapes, videotapes.
• Memberships.
• Personalized items.
• Work environment.
• Training.
• Sports.
• Transportation.
• Commendations.

If one starts using a small proportion of these concepts & principles as enunciated above, one should be able to increase the effectiveness of the organization scientifically & significantly. So make the Super Motivation happen by following some of these guidelines & principles. 

Super Motivation definitely shall increase productivity & profit; it won’t add a penny to your costs. There is no doubt in our mind: World-class organizations need world-class motivation-& the most successful organizations in the future will be SUPER MOTIVATED.

Super Motivation Approach = Putting Super Motivation into Action which is comprising of

• Super Motivating Planning
• Super Motivating Production
• Super Motivating Communication
• Super Motivating Training
• Super Motivating Evaluation
• Super Motivating Rewards
• Super Motivation: Making it happen.   

(The said article has been written by Iyer Subramanian. Presently attached to Bombay Chamber of Commerce, Ballard Pier, Mumbai).