Archive for motivation
What the Oscars can Teach you about Life
Posted by: | CommentsA few life lessons inspired by the Best Picture nominees of last night’s Academy Awards…
Inception “The mind can accomplish more than you ever thought possible – don’t be afraid to challenge it.”
Black Swan “Beware of disillusionment – it can be your downfall.”
Toy Story 3 “Never get too old to have a little fun. Enjoy the kid inside.”
The Fighter “Hard work and determination will pay off in the end.”
The Social Network “Money can’t buy you friends – but learn to be nice to the computer nerds.”
127 Hours “You can make it through even the darkest times – albeit a bit scathed.”
The Kids Are All Right “Sometimes the unconventional way to do things is best.”
Winter’s Bone “The road ahead is rarely pretty and easy.”
True Grit “Belief in a cause and morals can get you through the toughest battles.”
And the winner is…
The King’s Speech “True leaders inspire confidence in others, even when they are not so confident in themselves.”
Exercising Introspection
Posted by: | CommentsYou ever wonder what makes you.. you? I often reflect on who I am and what I am doing. Often, I distract myself from becoming more aware of who I am. Sometimes its scary to explore your inner thoughts and motivations.
Introspection is the conscious process of evaluating one’s own feelings, thoughts, and reasoning. Some call this self-reflection. Whatever you may call it, looking at yourself and evaluating your actions can be a fruitful process. Why do I avoid confrontation? Why do I always get frustrated when someone says that? Sometimes the answers to these questions are floating on the top of your conscious.
Sometimes people use various activities or substances to avoid introspection. I personally enjoy playing online video games with my friends from back home. Instead of playing these games for fun, I was using these games to avoid myself and responsibilities. It had been distracting me from things like working out, spending time on my thesis, and reading books that I have been meaning to read. It was also an escape from the fact that I am going to graduate soon and I need to get some things together! These game distracted me from my own reality and goals. My goals seemed daunting and unattainable. Part of my introspection, was realizing I can achieve these goals and I am responsible for my fate. I had to come up with a plan of attack. I quit these games recently until I get my first job, finish my thesis, and read those books.
Self-reflection not only helps you understand yourself but it can give you information that can help you deal with others at work. If you are cognizant about your own abilities, thoughts, feelings, and motivations, you will be able to communicate, feel, and work better with others. See introspection as a tool to emphasize your strengths and dampen your perceived weaknesses. Utilize your strengths to achieve your goals, you will be proud of yourself and of your accomplishments.
Psychological assessments are a great tool to help one with introspection. Check out our link here.
Find Your Drive
Posted by: | CommentsI began writing this post today with the intention of writing a book review on Drive by Daniel Pink. It was going to be pretty standard. I would write a short summary on the book, mention some of the main theories, and give my opinion on whether I recommend it for others. However, in my preparation it has become more than that. It has become something that I think would make Daniel Pink very proud.
You see, Drive is all about motivation. Are people motivated by extrinsic rewards, such as money? Or are people motivated by intrinsic rewards, such as being able to work on something that will stretch creativity? I started this piece motivated by extrinsic rewards: it is part of my job to write and in writing I get to keep my job (okay, I wouldn’t lose my job if I didn’t write, but I would probably get a stern look). Pink argues that this type of motivation actually hinders productivity and quality of work, because it becomes less about the task and more about the “carrot and the stick.”
Today during my preparation, I began asking my co-workers what they thought of the book. We each read Drive with the intention of applying its theories to what we do here at Monar. Think of it as a business book club. Each comment brought a new layer of the book to light for me that I hadn’t focused on before.
Christy really enjoyed how Pink built upon his ideas by bringing in the history of varying theories of motivation. The idea that adding monetary value to a task takes away from its personal value really resonated with Danielle. Maggie felt that allowing employees to take 20% of their time for personal projects is a very easy and practical way to increase intrinsic motivation. Marie appreciated the inclusion of employee engagement and the subtle humor in Pink’s writing. We were divided on Pink’s use (or overuse, depending on who was talking) of computer references. Between the five of us, our opinions were flying back and forth–and I loved it!
Soon, my motivation to write this blog moved from extrinsic to intrinsic. I wasn’t writing because I had to, but because I was enjoying listening to everyone’s point of view. I wanted to share these views with you, our readers, so that you can read not just my opinion, but also our collective opinions. If you have read the book as well, I encourage you to comment and add your opinions. My intrinsic motivation is the fun I have discussing and debating different theories and ideas and wanting to share them with others. According to Pink, this intrinsic desire should make this post better and more creative than my others. I guess you can go back to my other posts and judge for yourself…
Question: Has anyone read Drive? What are your opinions/likes/dislikes?
For the Love of Vampires: How to Re-Motivate
Posted by: | CommentsFor some, swine flu breeds fever, delirium, and quarantine. For my dear friend and ex-roommate, it bred one of the most innovative articles I’ve ever read on real-life vampires. I have to admit that in the aftermath, I was left with a mix of discomfort and disbelief, wavering between thinking the whole thing was a narrative hoax and not knowing how to handle the fact that there were people running around the country emulating Edward Cullen. But she confirmed that everything was, in fact, true. Discomfort was the triumphant sentiment.
Despite how appalling the concept of real-life vampires is, the article is incredibly well-written, and it grabbed the attention of her professor, who subsequently entered the piece into a journalism competition. She won first prize, which loosely translates to recognition and praise, a glowing review by Esquire’s Mike Sager, a $100 cash prize, a certificate that she decided to make for herself, Facebook bragging rights, and this blog post dedicated to her accomplishment. Not too shabby. And she didn’t even compose her piece with any of these rewards in mind. When asked about why she DID write the article, she simply stated, “I did it for the love of the vampires.” As a caveat, she added, “And who would’ve known that swine flu could’ve been so great?” It was well deserved. Mazel tov.
Motivation used to be limited to realization of biological functions, which Daniel Pink refers to as “Motivation 1.0” in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. The upgraded “Motivation 2.0” presumed that rewards and punishments were what drove people’s actions. It failed to take into account, however, the drive that humans have to learn, create, and better the world. Pink refers to this motivational force as “Motivation 3.0.” It is the freedom, challenge, and purpose of undertaking the task itself. Money and recognition still play a role, but they don’t act as the mitigating factors to action. Intrinsic motivation should start playing a larger part in guiding a person’s behavior (internal motives such as desire to succeed, results-oriented thinking) than extrinsic (monetary rewards, cookies, etc.) It’s safe to say that my award-winning journalist friend wrote this article not for rewards or as a response to Darwinistic beliefs. She was operating under Motivation 3.0, and that was what drove her to success.
The question is: how can organizations create an environment that encourages Motivation 3.0 above extrinsic rewards? People tend to take more ownership of their work and reap more personal satisfaction when they act on intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic. How can people be encouraged to focus more on internal motives for completing their tasks?
Pink has several tactics, one of which he calls assigning “Goldilocks tasks” to employees. For those of you who despite all warnings to the contrary have tuned society out, this refers to the “just right” mentality of the protagonist of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Pink advises organizations to embrace tasks that are “not too hard, but not too easy.” There needs to be a bridge between what people must do and what people can do. Those tasks exceeding an employee’s capability are met with anxiety; those tasks that insult their abilities are met with boredom and contempt. If organizations want to avoid reverting to a rewards/punishment system of motivation, they need to provide their employees with tasks that they can both accomplish and are energized to accomplish. Pink calls it “living on the knife’s edge between order and disorder,” which makes slip-ups sound painful, but does well to stress the importance of constant balance.
Ever the well-read author, Pink uses another literary reference to present a second tactic. He calls this one the Sawyer Effect, referring to Mark Twain’s masterpiece and the timeless first scene where Tom Sawyer convinces his friends what a wonderful idea white-washing his fence would be. Tom is painted as manipulative at worst, innovative at best, turning a mindless task into a fun game. Pink suggests that organizations emulate Tom’s example and attempt to turn work into play. Whether or not a task is enjoyable, it still needs to get done. Giving employees the freedom to reframe and expand their tasks outside of their job description gives them autonomy, something Pink stresses is crucial to self-motivation. Adding these extraneous tasks into a job description can remove ownership and decrease motivation for employees to complete them. They need to be given the ability to seize these opportunities themselves, and complete them for their own personal gain.
Rewards and biology work well enough to push us to act, but tasks for knowledge, creativity, or simply the tasks’ sake require a new way to frame an organization. To encourage people to take autonomy of their successes, they must be given tasks that strike a balance between challenging and doable, and they must be given the freedom to make their work into play. My friend’s article may have been a final project, but it ended up being enjoyable enough that it actually felt like a project and not an assignment. And while it obviously involved a lot of work, it proved to not be outside of the reach of her abilities to complete it, and complete it well.
Disclaimer: This blog was written completely out of intrinsic motivation to sing the vampire article author’s praises, but this blog’s author would not be opposed to the article’s author using her prize money to take her out to dinner.
To our readers: how can you make the switch to external to internal motivation? What motivates you to do work?
**Stay tuned- tomorrow Jessica will provide a book review of Daniel Pink’s Drive…
You Jump, I Jump: Peer Pressure as a Motivational Tool
Posted by: | CommentsI may have been young, but this didn’t seem sound. At the time I was in the throes of my drugs and alcohol resistance education program, and this seemed to go against everything I was currently being taught about “just saying no” to peer pressure. This was actually defying the rhetorical nature of the question, “if all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” Except instead of a bridge, it was a ship. And there were plenty of lifeboats. And we as audience members were led to believe that the water was REALLY cold. And there was probably equal chance for survival on the boat as in the water, so why not prolong the time that your clothes would stay dry? Rose seemed to be willing to trust this kid and his whims simply for the same reason I was–good looks can be persuasive. It’s science.
Ultimately, though, Jack was right, and—spoiler alert—even though his own idea didn’t help him survive, it let Rose live a rich life filled with horseback riding, air travel, and framed photographs of it all. So I had to ask myself…can peer pressure be wielded for good? Can it be used as a positive means to an end?
I wrote a few days ago about getting ideas and initiatives to stick with an audience. But how do they catch? For the last few days, the Monar crew has sat doggedly in front of a white board, scribbling ideas about how inclusion and diversity can be perceived as “the cool thing to do.” It was the first time in a while that I had heard it as a means of achieving a desirable end instead of a cautionary tale about an older classmate trying to convince me to take up smoking. There are several reasons why peer pressure works, and can work to incite change. What are they? Brace yourselves. The iceberg’s approaching.
Balance theory, proposed by Fritz Heider, states that we humans are motivated by a drive toward psychological balance. We want our attitudes and ideas to be consistent with those people we like; when our friends are enemies with one another, that’s psychologically–and just generally–uncomfortable. Or, to refer to our previous example, if Rose likes Jack, and Jack likes the idea of jumping, balance theory explains why Rose will subscribe to the idea of jumping–to maintain psychological balance. It’s pretty straightforward. It’s how advertisers get Michael Jordan fans to buy Hanes t-shirts. And it can also be how people in an organization can go about getting people to make change. If employees see the people they like and respect within their organization embracing a new initiative, they will be more inclined to embrace it as well.
There’s also the idea that the herd mentality might actually be beneficial to us. If we’re attempting to decide on a restaurant, and we see one is packed while the other has only a few patrons, we assume that the first restaurant is better Why? We trust that the individuals inside the first have information that we might not be privy to. Groupthink can actually be a useful resource, especially with the multitude of decisions we’re expected to make on a daily basis. If employees notice that many people in their organization are embracing this I&D initiative, they might assume that this group of individuals knows something about the utility of the initiative that the employees personally do not. They may join simply because everyone else is joining. And for our purposes, that may not be a bad thing.
Rose jumped because she assumed Jack knew more about survival techniques in cold temperatures than she (he was kind of scrappy, in stark contrast to her high society upbringing). She also jumped because, well, she liked the guy, and liking increases perceptions of trust. As easy as it is to shy away from change, people might realize how beneficial moving forward can be after being nudged by their peers. Jumping may have seen a preposterous means of survival for the young lovers, but it worked.
At least for one of them. I personally contend there should have been some sort of time-share going on between the two of them with the clock piece that Rose was lying on.
To readers: Do you think peer pressure can be used for good? How?
