(Article published in “University News” (A Weekly Journal of Higher Education) New Delhi on February, 2009.)
1.
Introduction
There is a story of an eagle, which gently coaxed
her offspring toward the edge of the nest. Her heart quivered with conflicting
emotions as she felt their resistance to her persistent nudging. “Why does the
thrill of soaring have to begin with the fear of failing?”
As in the tradition of the species, her nest was
located high on the shelf of a sheer rock face. Despite her fears, the eagle
knew it was time. Her parental mission was all but complete. There remained one
final task- the push. The eagle drew courage from an innate wisdom. Until her
children discovered their wings, there was no purpose for their lives. Until
they learned how to soar, they would fail to understand the privilege it was to
have been born an eagle. The push was the greatest gift she had to offer. And
the decisive moment dawned and the eaglet was gently pushed from the cozy and
comfortable nest into the unknown horizon. It was her supreme act of love. And
so one by one she pushed them, and they flew. Even the eagles need a push.
The difference between achievers and non-achievers
is that the first group is motivated and the second group is not. Most people are
good and qualified. Most of them can do much better than what they are doing.
But they desist and resist change as it would dislodge their comfort zone and
they would prefer to remain where they are and as they are. Fewer expectations,
less demands and less work. And it works, they think. They have to be shown
that the same things can be done in a better way. The missing link is the spark
of motivation. Achievers do not do different things but they do things
differently.
Motivation is everybody’s problem. You are Principal
of a college and you want to motivate your staff. You are a teacher and you
want to motivate your students. Parents want to motivate their children. From
the time when we get up in the morning to time we go to bed at night, we run into
dozens of situations where we need to motivate others. If we’re frustrated in our efforts (and who
isn’t?). We may give up.
Without motivation there is no change. No
learning. No actions. And, most important of all, without
motivation, there are no results. Life can only be understood backwards; but it
must be lived forwards. Pablo Casuals, the great cellist, was asked why, at
eighty-five years of age, he continued to practice five hours a day. He
replied, “Because I think I’m getting better.” Life is about growing; it is
about change. As it is said those who are not busy being born are busy dying.
As said by Henri Bergson in, Creative Evolution, “ To exist is to
change; to change is to mature and to mature is to go on creating oneself
endlessly.”. How true it is that we cannot become what we need to be by
remaining what we are. Motivation accelerates this process of becoming. The
path we shall follow in this article is not one laden with positive platitudes,
but rather it is a quest for insight, wholeness, integrity and better
performance. We shell embark upon a journey of discovery, to reflect upon and
clarify what is truly important and meaningful to you.
2. Motivation
defined and explained
Motivation is that invisible force that ignites the
mind, sets your heart with feelings of zeal and zest and propels you into
action. It can persuade, convince, inspire, encourage and lead you into action,
changing your vision and life. It is the driving force in our lives. It comes
from a drive to succeed and have fulfillment in life. One has to cultivate the
right attitude and positive self-talks. Knock off the ‘t’ from can’t and
constantly indulge in auto-suggestion that I can.” “Impossible” has to be
turned into I’m possible. My students have taken “They can because they think
they can”, - to be a magic formula. It has done wonders in the lives of
thousands of students both of St Aloysius Senior Secondary School where I was
the Principal for ten years and the students of St. Aloysius College where I am
the Principal for the last ten years. In many of the human and spiritual
resource development programme I conducted in India and abroad for the last
twenty years, I have witnessed the miracle of motivation. To be inspired and
motivated means to move forward with purpose and enthusiasm. Purpose denotes
clarity of intension while enthusiasm is derived form the Greek entheos, a god
or sprit within. The motivated and inspired person comes to life with the
purpose and passion, with the daily desire to grow and contribute. Only
managers who can deal with uncertainty, with ambiguity, and with battles that
are never won but only fought well can hope to succeed. Motivation knows your purpose in life,
Growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others,
enabling you make your life a success. Success is a journey rather than a
destination. You will never exhaust your capacity to grow towards your
potential or run out of opportunities to help others. You will never have the
problem of trying to “arrive” at an elusive final destination. The very moment
that you make the shift to finding your purpose, growing to your potential, and
helping others, you are on the path of success. The only true measure of
success is the ratio between what we might have been and what we have become.
In other words, success comes as the result of growing to our potential. It’s
been said that our potential is God’s gift to us, and what we do with it is our
gift to him. Our potential is probably our greatest untapped resource. Henry
Ford observed, “There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he
thinks he can do.” Find out what you are searching that will set your soul on
fire and pursue it. And then as President Theodore Roosevelt said, “Do what you
can, with what you have, where you are.” Never wait for inspiration or
permission or an invitation to get started. That is motivation.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankel
relates what he learned from his experience as a prisoner in Auschwitz. He
writes, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the
human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to
choose one’s own way.” Again he said, “Everyone has his own specific vocation
or mission in life. Everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demand
fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced nor can his life be repeated. Thus
everyone’s task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.” Stop
being a victim and be responsible. Crisis is often what author and psychologist
Dick Leider refers to as one of life’s “wake up” calls. Who we are, implies
responsibility. There is no tougher challenge we face than to accept personal
responsibility for not only what we are but also what we can be. As the Spanish
proverb says, “He who does not look ahead remains behind.” You need to identify
and sail toward your destination. The past lives now only in your memory, but
the future holds a myriad of possibilities. You can renew yourself mentally by
replacing worn out, stagnant thinking with thoughts that simulate a sense of
hope and positive anticipation about your future. Henry Ford asserted, “The
whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny, and
then to do it.
2.1 External
motivation
External motivation comes form outside the person, such as
promotion, money, social status, fame and name. It could be fear of being
fired, demoted, ignored or isolated. Fear of getting spanked by parents and
fear of getting suspended or terminated from work, could be examples of
external motivation. Fear is a powerful source of motivation and deterrent. It
gets the job done quickly, meeting your deadlines and improving the performance
of the person concerned. But it is not lasting. As long as the motivator is there,
the employee is motivated. In the long run, performance goes down and destroys
creativity and gets limited to mere compliance of the minimum work.
Many corporate sectors motivate their employees with incentives, bonuses,
commission, and recognition. It can work as long as the incentive is strong
enough.
2.2 Internal motivation
“Internal motivation comes from within, such as
pride, a sense of achievement, responsibility and belief.” One would not focus
on external elements of success, failure, incentives, fear and so son. It is
for inner satisfaction and fulfillment that one works. Feeling of contentment
and accomplishment as a result of doing ones own work and translating ones own
dream into reality. Vision, mission, goals and objectives have to be kept in
mind constantly and a person should be self-driven. Recognition and
responsibility are the two most important motivating factors. Recognition gives
the person concerned dignity and respect without which one would not work hard.
Responsibility would instill in the person a sense of belonging and ownership.
One would be responsible and accountable and would accomplish things on ones
own.
2.3
Self-motivation
Self-motivation has two parts: mental and physical.
Mental consists in planning where you want to go and physical consists in
taking action to get there. Before you start driving your car you should know
where you really want to go. Mental and physical, thought and action will go
hand in hand for any self-motivated person. Problems and obstacles are always
considered as opportunities and challenges. You will be successful if you allow
problems to motivate you to find productive solutions. We must always remember
that you are either a part of the problem or part of the solution. We should
always be proactive when confronted with problems. It is good to keep in mind
that it is better to light a candle than to curse darkness. Such persons are self-driven. They will have
in depth knowledge, required skill and right attitude.
3. How to motivate?
A multinational shoe company sent two sales
executives to one of the island of the Indonesia to explore possibilities of
the sale of shoes. One wired back and said, “There will be no sale of shoes as
no one wears shoes here.” Whereas the other one replied, “Plenty of scope for
the sale of shoes as no one has any footwear. Dispatch shoes immediately.”
Everything depends on our perception of the same reality. Our attitude
determines the altitude the same reality motivates people differently because
of the difference in perception and attitudes. What we basically require is a
paradigm shift and the ability to act proactively.
A new employee is to be molded to the culture and
expectations of the organization. Training and orientation programme will be of
immense help and in service training will do wonders. Often the new recruits
are not properly introduced to the demands of the work and the expectations of
the organizations and the students. As a result the other staff misguides them.
Professional organizations take special care at the time of recruitment and
induction. They explain to them the terms and conditions, conventions and
traditions, expectations and demands, vision, mission, objectives and means.
SWOT analysis of the teacher and college will be of immense help to take stock
of the ground reality and make strategic planning. This will have direct
bearing on the performance. Performance appraisal from the beginning itself
will create competitive and healthy attitudes. How true, a motivated
professional learns the trade and brings in the required changes and lasting
result, but a de-motivated employee starts sabotaging the company. His
performance is marginal. He makes fun of the good performers. He rejects new
ideas and spreads the negativity all around. Performance is the parameter of
motivation. A self-motivated persons performance appraisal will show
qualitative results. De-motivated and ineffective staff should be identified
and set aside, ignored or taken to task. Self-driven and self-motivated people
will not look for reason outside themselves. They have their own inner resource
to translate their dream into reality. It is about driving people and friends
towards higher levels of achievement. Staff members, teaching and non-teaching,
are the institutions only sustainable resource centre. If they are well
motivated they will do much better and faster.
Motivation is the willingness of an individual to do something betters
than otherwise done.
3.1 Vision and Mission to translate your dream into
reality
Before you can think about how to mobilize the staff
to achieve results, you have to be clear about what results your college aims
to achieve—it’s vision and mission. You also have to be clear about how you
plan to achieve that mission—your college's strategy. The mission states in
broad terms the college's purpose. The strategy lays out a plan for fulfilling
that purpose—a set of more specific goals to be achieved, an array of
approaches to be used, a mechanism for evaluating progress and improving
continuously.
The mission should capture the very reason the
college exists; the strategy should be the blueprint by which the college
leader acts to achieve that mission. Your mission and strategy are critical
building blocks for all the activities that fall under the term "human
resources." When you recruit and select new teachers, you look for
individuals that have the qualities needed to implement the strategy and
achieve the mission. When you help individual staff members or teams set goals,
you align those goals with the college's broader aims. When you provide
coaching or design professional development opportunities, you seek to build
the specific capacities that allow the college to live up to its purposes.
A dream gives us direction and increases our potential.
A person who has a dream knows what he is willing to give up in order to go up.
If you move in any direction other than toward your dream, you’ll miss out on
the opportunities necessary to be successful. Without a dream, we may struggle
to see potential in ourselves because we don’t look beyond our current
circumstances. But with a dream, we
begin to see ourselves in a new light, as having greater potential and being
capable of stretching and growing to reach it.
Every opportunity we meet, every resource we discover, every talent we
develop, becomes a part of our potential to grow toward that dream. The greater the dream, the greater the
potential. E. Paul Hovey said, “ A blind
man’s world is bounded by the limits of his touch; an ignorant man’s world by
the limits of his knowledge; a great man’s world by the limits of his
vision.” If your vision – your dream –
is great, then so is your potential for success.
A dream puts everything we
do into perspective. Even the tasks that
aren’t exciting or immediately rewarding take on added value when we know they
ultimately contribute to the fulfillment of a dream. Each activity becomes an important piece in
that bigger picture. It reminds me of
the story of a reporter who talked to three construction workers pouring
concrete at a building site. “What are
you doing?” He asked the first
worker. “I’m earning a paycheck, “he
grumbled. The reporter asked the same question of a second laborer, who looked
over his shoulder and said, “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m pouring
concrete.” `Then he noticed a third man who was smiling and whistling as he
worked. “What are you doing?” He asked the third worker. He stopped what he
was doing and said excitedly, “I’m building a Cathedral.” He wiped his hands clean on a rag and then
pointed, “Look, over there is where sanctuary will be. And that over there is the main altar…” Each
man was doing the same job. But only the
third was motivated by a larger vision.
The work he did was fulfilling a dream, and it added value to all his
efforts.
3.2 Setting
goals: prerequisite for motivation
According to a study of American employee attitudes,
only about half of employees say they understand how their organizations will
assess their job performance. Supporting performance needs to start with making
expectations clear. Without clear expectations, it's difficult for staff to
know where to focus their energies, how to improve, or whether they're doing a
good job.
When thinking about setting goals and expectations,
keep in mind these points:
Align individual and team goals with college goals. To ensure that teachers and
other staff are applying their energies in ways that help the college achieve
its mission, work hard to align expectations for individuals and teams with the
broad goals of the college. In part, doing so is a mechanical process of
thinking through what each team or individual needs to accomplish for the
college to meet its goals. We need to communicate the College's Mission, Goals, and Expectations to Staff
As familiar as you are with your college's mission
and goals and with your expectations of staff, each staff person comes to your
charter college with a lifetime of experiences that shape how he or she sees
the world. To keep staff on the same path as your college, you must communicate
your goals and expectations repeatedly. That means repeating the same things,
in new and inspiring ways, and it means encouraging the staff to find new ways
of making the mission and goals more real in daily college life. Write it, say
it, draw it, talk about it, and improve it. Here are some concrete ideas:
·Focus on a particular college goal at each
faculty meeting. You might do this by reviewing the benchmarks for the goal, outlining progress or
highlighting particular efforts
towards the goal, and/or asking teachers to speak about his/her ideas for
and/or perceptions of the goal.
· Post the mission and college goals around the
college and on college paraphernalia (t-shirts, mugs, letterhead, etc.).
·Provide professional development (e.g., training,
coaching) around college goals and expectations. Base teacher evaluations (e.g., self, peer, and college
head) in part on how the teacher is
contributing to college mission and goals.
· Celebrate the reaching of benchmarks.
·Communicate mission and goals to parents so that
they may also keep teachers focused on the college's vision. Model the behaviors you
demand of your staff. Set goals at all relevant levels of the college. Every
college is organized differently. Some have departments, others have teams, and
so on. Whatever your college's organization, create a goal-setting framework
that matches the college's structure. If your teachers are organized into
different departments, for example, set goals for each Department, and then for
each individual within the department. As you move "down" the
structure, goals become more specific and tailored. For example, all teams in
the college may share broad goals having to do with improving student achievement
in the core subjects. But different grade levels may have different emphases or
additional goals, depending upon unique challenges faced by the team. And
within teams, different teachers may have different goals based on the
challenges they face and the particular developmental needs they bring to
college. Consider multiple goals and measures. It would be unusual to find a
college where the expectations for a teacher's performance could be boiled down
into a single goal or indicator. Performance for professionals is likely to
involve a range of attributes, and your systems of goals should reflect the
complex nature of the professional's job.
3.3 Make Goals “SMART”
There are lots of catchy frameworks for thinking
about what makes a goal or expectation a good one. Here's one such framework
that may help you evaluate the expectations you currently have for staff, and
set new ones. A goal is "SMART" if it is Specific, Measurable,
Ambitious but Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based:
3.3.1
Specific. Goals like "the teacher will contribute effectively to the
college's curriculum planning process" aren't very helpful in guiding a
teacher's decisions and activities. To be effective, expectations need to
contain very specific ideas about what kinds of behavior and performance are
valued.
3.3.2 Measurable. Leaders and staff need ways of
measuring whether a team or individual staff member is attaining each goal.
"Measurable" does not necessarily mean "quantitative." But
even qualitative attributes can be measured - not with simple scores on tests,
but using rubrics that define different levels of performance. Creating such
rubrics is hard work, but without them, it's impossible for everyone to
understand what constitutes high performance.
3.3.3
Ambitious but Attainable. Setting goals requires striking a tough balance. On
one hand, to spur improvement, goals must be ambitious, pressing staff toward
higher performance. On the other, they must be attainable or staff will soon
come to disregard them as "pie-in-the-sky."
3.3.4
Relevant. Think of relevance in two ways. One, noted above, is relevant to the
college's broader goals. The other is relevance to each staff member's own
professional development. Most people work harder to attain goals they find
intrinsically valuable, and decades of research on educators makes clear that
this generalization applies particularly to people working in colleges.
3.3.5
Time-based. Goals should have a timeframe attached to them - a statement about
when the goal should be achieved. This month? This semester? This year? Over
the term of the charter? There's a place for all kinds of timeframes, but each
goal should have one that makes sense.
3.4 Performance appraisal
Evaluating,
improving and rewarding your college and its staff are critical parts of
creating a motivating, high-performance climate. Good performers in
organizations of all kinds find it motivating both to hear what they are doing
is well and to learn how they can improve staff members who are committed to their
own and college success will be hungry for any information that helps them
understand how they can keep doing better and better. A well-designed
performance appraisal process and appropriate reward system can help you feed
the natural desire of committed staff to succeed.
Your evaluation process should begin with your
college mission and goals and individual staff role expectations. You then must
seek ways of measuring how your college, teams and individual staff members
have contributed to meeting goals and expectations. The best evaluation
processes address both measures of achievement (to what extent have we met
goals?) and underlying causes (why?).
3.5 Rewards, recognition
Rewards, recognition and non-cash awards reinforce
and guide behavior whether you want them to or not. For example, not using
rewards to discriminate between high and low performance (at a college, team or
individual level) reinforces the message that performance does not matter. Not
surprisingly, research has shown that high-performing organizations are more
likely to use rewards that discriminate between high and low performance than
are average performing organizations. Rewards must be designed carefully to
reinforce the behaviors and results that reflect your college's mission,
goals and work process. Monetary rewards are temporary and short-lived;
they are not gratifying in the long run. In contrast, seeing an idea being
implemented can be emotionally gratifying by itself. People feel that they are
not being treated like objects. They feel part of a worthwhile team.
4. Motivating Actions
Reengineering Performance Management: Breakthroughs
in Achieving Strategy Through People, offers a simple list of such motivating actions:
- Defining staff performance expectations
- Communicating expectations with staff
- Creating a "motivating environment" (using influence
strategies and visionary leadership)
- Coaching employees (both before and after assessment; to improve
both strong and weak performance)
- Assessing performance (both achievement of goals and behaviors
used to get there)
- Confronting poor performance
- Reinforcing good performance
- Modeling the behavior you want your staff to emulate
4.1 Build a “college climate” that encourages
performance
4.1.1 Write out and make inspirational speeches. Let the staff and the
public knows whom you are and what you stand for, what the organization's
purpose and mission are, what your expectations are and what others can do
together to make the mission happen.
4.1.2 Articulate the mission statement often and passionately. When every
you speak to the staff, write memos, or issue bulletins, reiterate the mission
statement.
4.1.3 Develop a yearly theme that is consistent and connected to the
college's mission. This is necessary to break the mission into doable,
understandable segments.
4.1.4 Be visible to the staff, students, to the parents, to all
constituencies. Walk around. Be in the classrooms. Observe work in progress.
Everyone needs to see the leader and know who he or she is and what his or her
expectations are.
4.1.5 Publicize successes and the celebration progress of individuals,
groups, or a class. Recognize small wins as well as large ones.
4.1.6
Departmental meetings, Academic council meetings, and staff council meetings
will keep everyone informed and abrest. Programmes like art of living,
Vipassana and yoga will infuse new life into the staff.
4.1.7 We have
developed a new motivational programme for the staff called “onward inward
journey”, wherein each Head of the Department gives an input session on topics
of academic interest and the discussion is concluded by the Principal with his
comments, observations and concluding remarks. This has been found very
interesting, enriching and participatory.
4.2 Recruiting and selecting the staff
With your work towards creating the college's
framework (vision, mission, strategy, leadership, and governance), you have
created the structure from which all activities will flow. As vital as this
framework is, though, without people to live it out, your mission is simply a
platitude, your strategic plan a piece of paper, your leadership/governance
system an empty shell. Recruiting and selecting staff is the first step to
ensuring your college operations support the college's purpose. It is your job
as a college leader to decide whether your staff is going to be an instrument
through which to achieve the mission, or an impediment with which to cope. In
business terms, you must ensure that your staff is a source of "strategic
advantage." As with all elements of building an organization, tapping your
staff's strengths requires a well-thought out approach, beginning with your
plan for recruitment, which should include recruiting steps, role description
for each staff, required and desired qualifications and characteristics.
5. Motivational Factors
In reflecting upon how to build college spirit, it
is interesting to note that organizational factors that contribute to job
satisfaction may be distinct from factors that contribute to job
dissatisfaction. In an article in the Harvard Business Review, Frederick
Herzberg outlines both types of factors based on a number of studies conducted
in a cross-section of organizations and with a broad range of employees. These
studies suggest that factors responsible for job satisfaction include:
achievement, recognition for achievement, the work itself, responsibility,
growth or advancement, Factors responsible for job dissatisfaction include:
company policy and administration, supervision, interpersonal relationships,
working conditions, salary, status and security.
This distinction between job satisfaction and job
dissatisfaction factors suggests that measures you would adopt to keep staff
happy are not necessarily the same ones you would adopt to keep staff from being
unhappy. Thus, you must assess the status of the "spirit" at your
college. If your main objective at this point is either to encourage people to
join or to keep people from leaving, it might be wise first to concentrate on
factors of job dissatisfaction such as salary and working conditions. If, on
the other hand, turn-over is not high and morale not low, it might be better to
focus on issues of job satisfaction--for example, by creating a sense of
achievement and increasing the levels of responsibility, rather than focusing
on salary, status, and other job dissatisfaction factors.
5.1 The key to motivation: respond to human needs.
Motivation is all about finding out the need inside
a person, which if satisfied, will make him work more efficiently and produce
better results about which he takes pride. The process of motivation begins
with an unsatisfied need, anything that he desires abut is deprived of. This
creates tension, and when it is positively dealt with, results in increased
efforts and better performance. When it is negatively dealt with it results in
poor performance, frustration and aggression. When needs, legitimate or
otherwise, are not met it results in employees’ indifference and inefficiency.
Needs can also be classified into two categories:
organizational and individual. Individual needs will have to be structured,
regularized and channeled into organizational need fulfillment. Individual
willingness to make extra efforts and walk the extra mile must be enlisted for
optimum performance and productivity. This should also cater to satisfy the
individual, personal needs of the persons concerned. The failure to perceive what people really need is the biggest
motivational problem. The more you understand about the needs that motivate
people. The more effective a motivator you can become. The core of motivation
is meeting needs. If a person’s needs
are all being met, he’s totally satisfied with his situation and isn’t open to
any kind of change. The satisfied person
is generally self-motivated – but if he isn’t, he’s pretty hard to motivate.
Trying to fit everyone into the same mold yields people who don’t fit in at
all. Different strokes are needed for different folks. “The only person who
behaves sensibly is my tailor,” said George Bernard Shaw. “He makes new measurements every time he sees
me. All the rest go on with their old
measurements.”
As individuals we have four basic needs and these
needs become a powerful motivator in our personal lives: need to love and
loved; need to belong; need for autonomy and need for self worth. Often we are
driven from within to meet these basic human needs common to all people all
over the world. The need to love and love is the basic of all needs. Without
love one cannot survive. So also we all have a need to belong to some one or
the other, to some organization or the other. The next stage is intense need
for autonomy. All need their own space and time. Without intruding into the
mystery of the other person we need to let him or her work. Without a sense of
self worth people will create problems for oneself and for the other. A positive self-image will play a vital role
in making a person self motivated. Needs of a child will be different from a
teenager? It will again change when one reaches adulthood. At a later age the
needs would be different. In the same way the needs of a deprived person would
be food, clothing and shelter. When he acquires all these, his needs will
change. Both the employee and employer should be aware of the dynamics of human
needs.
Abraham Maslow was the father of the human potential
movement. He spent years researching the
healthy personality and learned that all of us have the same basic needs. These needs always come in the same order,
for everyone on earth. The second level
need won’t even be considered until the first level need is met. The third level need will become an important
priority when the first and second levels are taken care of. And so on.
Maslow’s hierarchy shows that you can’t motivate a person through his higher
needs until his more basic needs are met. In his theory on the hierarchy of
human needs said that an individual progresses through five need levels-
physiological (relating to his need for food, sex and other basic
requirements), safety (relating to his need for shelter, security), social (the
need for friends, family)’ esteem (relating to his need for recognition and
respect)’ and finally his self-actualization reflecting need for achieving
greater things. A successful manager will have to discern the changing profile
of individual needs. Once employed and confirmed in the job, one would clamour
for other things. The needs of a child are different from that of an adult.
Again the needs of bachelor would change as soon as one gets married. This again
would change when gets older. Our perception, understanding and needs vary as
the years go by. We are constantly changing. Change is the only thing that does
not change. As one grows in age and in his profession the needs will vary, and
to optimize productivity we will have to find out the growing individual needs
and make it compatible with the organisational and institutional needs. We
should work on synergy and synthesis; collaboration and co-operation, avoid
unhealthy competition and comparison.
Often people think that money is a big motivator.
The higher the salary the greater the motivation. But slowly on it will wear
out and some other need will arise. The real motivation will come from
recognition. Positive strokes will take care of one’s basic need and hunger for
recognition and respect. It gives a sense of being acknowledged needed and
appreciated, instead of being taken for granted their presence, work and unique
contribution. Unfortunately it is short supply, though it is cost free and has
magical effects. We must take initiatives and make others feel that they exist
and they are important “People are your
most important resource and if the people you work with can become your friends
they would be with you even in hell helping you taste success.”
5.2 Management of time: key to efficiency
Though time and tide wait for no one, we often while
away our time. Free time in the college is often used for socialising and
gossip. In a college it is left to the conscience of the individual teacher how
he/she can have optimum utilisation of the given time those who don’t control
their time will find that it controls them!
Some steps that will lead to more effective use of
time:
·
Every day, make a list of the things you need to do.
·
Decide which of the tasks you need to do are most important. Mark an A beside those. Mark a B beside those, which need to be done,
but not as soon as the first list. Mark
C beside all the others.
·
Spend your time doing only a task, until they’re all completed. Let the Bs and Cs remain undone until the day
they move into the A category.
·
If an A task is too big to do all at once, do it a little at a time
until it’s done.
·
Promise yourself a nice reward for when you finish a big project – and
give it!
·
Learn how to say “No” to requests that are not directly connected to
your vision and mission in life.
·
Use normally wasted moments to accomplish something worthwhile.
·
Learn to relax, so you’re not pushing all the time. Then, when you return to your work, you’ll be
more effective than ever before.
·
Set goals to help you determine what’s important in your life.
·
Keep in mind the 80/20 rule; we get 80 percent of the benefit from
working on a project in the first 20 percent of the time we spend on it.
·
Concentrate on only one thing at a time.
·
Delegate all possible tasks to others and spend time in providing
academic leadership to the college.
·
Group activities together – spend a block of time doing creative work,
another block for phone calls, another block when you’ll be open to
interruptions, etc.
5.3 Communication is at the heart of motivation
One of the biggest impediments of good motivation is
bad communication. The problem runs all
the way from our most stately boardrooms to our most humble homes: workers and
children alike are unable to please their motivators because they frankly don’t
know what’s wanted. Motivation will improve when communication improves. When
you want someone to do something, make sure you communicate very plainly what’s
wanted, specifying how big, how soon, what for, how expensive. That means you
yourself need to know what you want. Sometimes management is the blind leading
the blind out to shoot – and the casualties are people. When the staff knows
precisely what’s wanted he or she will be able to provide it.
Some suggestions on communicating effectively:
· Define why you need to communicate.
Decide how you want the teacher to respond – what do you want him to
think, feel, and do? Set clear
objectives.
· Carefully choose the setting of the communication. People respond differently to communications
in different settings: in an office or out in the hall, over the phone or in a
memo, from a podium or sitting around a table.
Select the setting that will best help you accomplish your objectives.
· Select the right time for the communication. Mondays are different from Fridays for
anyone. Don’t try to have a heart-to-heart talk with your staff at the very
moment when he’s ready to leave for home
· Use a variety of effective ways of communicating ideas: charts,
pictures, stories, metaphors, analogies, apperception, and feelings.
· Get the audience involved in the message. The more they personally do during the
communication, the more they’ll remember.
· Make use of verbal and nonverbal communication.
· Learn to communicate your feelings and thoughts; your new vision and
mission in life, in such a way that they understand the benefits of it.
· Communicate positive strokes, timely correction and guidance. Rather
than fear, motivate by caring, Persuasion, a challenging assignment, a little
praise, with a pat on the back.
Encouragement and clear indication of the advantages and disadvantages
of the given assignment will spur them on to greater accomplishment.
· Communication is not only speaking but also
listening. One must learn to listen not only with his ears but also with
his/her heart to the ideas, suggestions and other comments. Academic Leaders
who establish a climate that’s conducive to suggestions end up being more
effective. They feel more motivated and
assume responsibility for what they’re doing, and they respond accordingly.
Leaders make all the difference in how they respond to suggestions. The leader
doesn’t have to follow all the suggestions he or she receives, but each
suggestion should be treated with respect.
5.4 Minimax: minimize weakness and maximize
strengths
The more you’re able to minimize weaknesses, the
stronger your group will become. If, in
addition, you’re able to maximize strengths, your staff will be incredibly
motivated. Minimax is a valuable motivational tool. The person who uses it is able to get the
most out of those he works with.
Step 1: Avoid emphasis on weakness.
If you waste time trying to correct a lot of
weaknesses, you’ll just end up with frustration and dejection. And if you look for weaknesses to avoid when
you’re hiring, you’ll probably end up with mediocrity. Emphasis on weakness
destroys morale. It can destroy your
entire operation.
Step 2: Build on strength.
It’s not enough to avoid emphasis on weakness. That first step will make the employee glad
you’re off his back – but it won’t help him grow. So you build on his strengths. Learn what he does best, and then help him do
it better.
When you recruited your staff you have seen
something outstanding about him, something that made you say to yourself, “This one can really do the job!” Always keep that initial enthusiasm in
mind. What job was it you knew he could
do? Answer that question and you’ve got
a good lead on his main strength. Now
build on it.
5.5 Help teachers to enjoy their work
Here’s the secret: If you want to motivate your
teachers, make their teaching assignment enjoyable! Apply to work the reasons why playing games
are enjoyable. The students in the classroom moan and groan every time you give
them an assignment? Turn the assignment
into a game, complete with rules and rewards.
Then watch them work like never before, because they’re having fun!
Teachers gravitate to their types of jobs because
initially they enjoy them. Then
something happens. Someone, probably a
principal/ manager, says, “Hey, work shouldn’t be fun. Work should be work! If the workers are having fun that means that
they aren’t being as productive as they could be. Fun is against the Puritan ethic!”
Then the manager goes
about establishing rules and regulations and college policies that methodically
destroy the spirit of his workers. And,
before too long, they put up with their job only because they have to. The
paradox is that people generally get a heck of a lot more done when they’re having
at least some fun than when work is drudgery.
Make work fun for your teachers– and they’ll really be motivated to
work!
5.6 Create healthy habits
As habits die header, we need to create healthy
habits in the college. Aristotle has said, “We are what we repeatedly do,
excellence then is not an act but a habit.” Ninety-nine percent of everything
we do is a matter of habit. Give or take
a percent. It is said “sow habit, reap character; sow character, reap destiny”.
Too often people will be
ordered to change their old patterns, but they won’t be given another way to
go. Provide a Better Route. If you want someone to change, show him or her the
better way you want him or her to go. If
you don’t they’ll only see a threat- and they’ll positively balk (and snort) at
your proposed. But you need to do more than given them a better alternative:
they need to see that it’s better. People are usually quite comfortable with
how they are. So when you go about changing them, you need to show them that
your approach will be even better for them.
5.7 Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
Frederick Herzberg is a behavioral scientist that
has seen people and their relationship to work in a new way. He has done extensive studies, asking his
subjects to think of times when they felt particularly good or particularly bad
about their jobs,
Herzberg learned that money is not a prime motivator
in getting people to do better work - although it may be very important as a
means of getting things that do motivate, such as prestige and recognition. He learned that security is not a prime
motivator either, nor is a bright cherry atmosphere in the workplace.
In his final analysis, Herzberg showed that every
manager has two different kinds of factors he must consider in dealing with his
workers. Both kinds are absolutely
necessary in getting the job done, though they must be considered separately -
the factors are not directly linked.
These factors are labeled motivation factors and maintenance factors.
Motivation factors directly affect the motivation of
the worker, making it higher or lower according to whether or not the manager
is using a particular factor. The
presence of these factors will both satisfy and motivate. Though their absence may not necessarily
cause dissatisfaction, it will ensure an absence of motivation. The factors:
- Achievement: The worker
needs to feel that he has accomplished something.
- Recognition: The worker
needs to feel that his achievement has been noticed.
- Interesting duties: The
worker needs to feel interest in the work itself.
- Responsibility: The worker
needs to feel that he’s responsible for himself and for his own work. Responsibility for new tasks and duties is
also important.
- Opportunity for growth: The
worker needs to feel that he has the potential to grow within the organization.
Maintenance factors simply keep the worker on the
job. They keep him or her from going
elsewhere for work. The presence of
these factors causes satisfaction; their absence causes dissatisfaction. Their presence or absence has no effect on
motivation, however. The factors:
- Supervision: The worker
feels that the manager is willing to teach and delegate responsibility.
- Administration: The worker
feels that management has good communication with the worker; also the worker
feels good about company and personnel policies.
- Working conditions: The
worker feels good about the physical conditions at work.
- Interrelationships: The
worker feels good about his relations with peers, subordinates, and superiors.
- Status: The worker feels
that his job has status and rank.
- Security: The worker feels
secure about his job.
- Salary: The worker feels
adequately compensated for his work.
- Personal life: The worker
feels that the job (hours, transfers, etc.) does not adversely affect his
personal life.
The maintenance factors must be met to keep the
worker doing the job. But the manager
must separately use the motivating factors to get the worker to do the work
better. It’s like we’re all a bunch of batteries. The battery has a limited
amount of energy available to it-but the demands are almost unlimited. First
you light up one 50-watt bulb. Then you need to light up a 100-watt bulb as
well. Then a motor is attached to your battery. Each new problem adds another
drain on your battery. So far you’re all right. But if another energy drain is
attached, you’re in trouble.
If you take too much out of it, you’ll only end up
with a dead battery. Then you’ll have a
lot of down time while you recharge it again.
People need to be recharged. Time, encouragement, a change of scenery
can all create more energy flowing in than out.
5.8 Belief system and self fulfilling prophecy
It is said that the greatest motivation comes from a
person’s belief system. That means he needs to believe in what he does and accept
responsibility. That is where motivation becomes important. When people accept
responsibility for their behavior and actions, their attitude toward life
becomes positive. They become more proactive and productive, personally and
professionally. Their relationships improve both at home and at work. Life
becomes more meaningful and fulfilled.
Your beliefs determine what you do in life. They
become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. One person says. “I can’t do math.”
Because he doesn’t believe in himself, he fails. And then he says, “See, I told
you I couldn’t do math.” Everything
about us stems from our beliefs (or lack of them). “Kids are irresponsible. The
won’t do anything you ask them.” People in organizations are like sheep: they
look to their leader for guidance before they’ll do a single thing.” Think of
how much of our lives are controlled by these beliefs. Everything about us
stems from our belief (or lack of them).
Reasons for Japanese productivity have been sought
for more than two decades. What is the answer? Is it the programs or techniques
or approaches? Actually, it’s none of the above. Processes or methods are not
the answer. The answer lies in the shared beliefs of the Japanese workers.
Shared beliefs can make a difference in other ways. Suppose you’re a teacher in
a classroom and the students share this belief: “We’re not as good as the kids
in the private school down the road.” How will your kids act? Unfortunately,
they’ll fulfill their own prophecy, and they won’t do nearly as well as the
kids in the school down the road. But what if you as the teacher can change
those beliefs? What if you can get them to believe this: we’re every bit as
good as the kids in the private school.” Then they’ll start to act like it. And
what if you can take it a step further and they start to believe this: “We’re a
heck of a lot better than the kids in any other school in town, including the
private schools.” Then they fulfill that prophecy and become the best students
around. What we need is a paradigm shift.
5.9 Faculty development programme
For motivating the staff our focus and thrust should
be on human resource development programming for the staff. Much of the college
development would depend on the inner disposition of the staff. On going
in-service training programme, refresher courses, attending national and
international seminars and conferences will enable and empower them to explore
the unexplored frontiers of knowledge. Often stagnation in profession is the
result of lack of academic exposure. Encourage the staff to invest their time
in research and publication. A good teacher is the one who is willing to learn
till the very end. Reading motivational books and the latest books and journals
in the subject concerned will give the necessary insights and fresh ideas to
become better and more effective capacity builders. Our students are entering
into a highly competitive world and they should have the benefit to a really
learned professor. He should be able to inspire and motivate the students to have
a scientific temper and the required skills and attitude to apply his knowledge
to build up a better world. He should be aware of the national and
international challenges and should have the ability to respond positively and
proactively. A teacher who is a role model in academic excellence and
excellence character formation will be able to bring the required
transformation in the lives of our youth.
Education is not just filling the empty minds with
information but formation and transformation of the mind, heart and soul.
Education is a process of exploring possibilities and blossoming our own innate
and God-given talents, so that students can make a difference in the lives of
others. Going beyond the concept of giving analytical intelligence (IQ) alone,
one should be able to give emotional intelligence (EQ) and spiritual
intelligence (SQ). Who else can do this better than a well-informed, committed
and motivated teacher? As it is said, a teacher affects eternity, and no one
can say when his influence stops.
6. Ten Qualities of a motivating visionary Leader
1. He must learn to stand
adversity and negative criticism. If you are a bandmaster you must face the
music Things will not always go well. Failures will happen. A good leader will
bounce back.
2. He must be able to delegate
authority. He must be able to give up power, to trust those under him.
3. The leader must discern and
make decisions and implement the same. The person who cannot take a stand does
not deserve to lead others.
4. The leader must be free from
prejudices. “Prejudice,” someone once said, “is a luxury only little people can
afford.” He will be fair and just and will avoid favouritism.
5. He must learn to give
positive strokes and share the credit.
If he tries to take credit for everything, he will not lead; he will only
frustrate those under him.
6. A true leader will assume
responsibility for his own mistakes and admit it.
7. Encourage health
competition. Your college needs its competitor. Your teachers need to have
competition in the ranks. Your students need to compete with each other. You
never see a good horse race with only one horse.
8. Avoid comparisons between
the staff members. Look for the good in what a person is doing, not just the
bad. He will try to pull people together and push them up to better performance
rather than push them down and discourage them constantly.
9. In conflicting situations is
an instrument of reconciliation and forgiveness.
10. Practice the five Cs of
effective motivational leadership in daily life:
C- Commitment: Unshakable
commitment to the vision and mission of the college will be the first
characteristic feature of a good academic leader.
C – Character. He/Should be a person of good character.
Refinement and firmness of resolve
should guide him/her always.
C- Communication A Principal
should possess required skills of effective
communication.
C- Compliment the teacher
for the work he or she does. Every body likes positive strokes and a word of
affirmation will go long way in motivating a teacher.
C- Compassion. Academic
excellence has to be combined with the human element of compassion. His/her attitude should
always reflect a sense of understanding and empathy to the multitude of problems
one undergoes.
7. Conclusion
Mobilizing and motivating people to achieve results
is one of the principal imperatives of the college principal. But effective
colleges also face a compelling opportunity to do things differently when it
comes to mobilizing and motivating the staff, just as they do when it comes to teaching
and learning. But the hard work of helping people achieve their best ultimately
happens not on the pages of a guidebook, but in the colleges themselves. This
hard work starts with the building blocks of mission, strategy and governance.
It moves from there to creating the major systems of people and
resource-management discussed in this publication—recruitment and selection,
setting goals, coaching and development, evaluation, and rewards. It comes
together in the culture the college creates, the ways of working together that
make the college a unique place to be employed, and to be educated. And—if it's
successful—hard work pays off resulting in improved learning for children.
President Theodore Roosevelt, said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where
you are.” Yet never act on it. They are waiting for inspiration or an
invitation to get started. The only true measure of success is the ratio
between what we might have been and what we have. In other words, success comes
as the result of growing to our potential. It’s been said that our potential is
God’s gift to us, and what we do with it is our gift to him. Our potential is
probably our greatest untapped resource. Henry Ford observed, “ There is no man
living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.”
Helping the people carry out the college's strategy
and achieve its mission is the job of the college's leadership. The Principal
plays a pivotal and crucial role in building the college community. When we
study the powers and functions of the Prime Minister of Britain, we see that he
is the first among the equals and he is the sun around which the planets
revolve. He is the cornerstone of the cabinet arch and he represents the people
and government. Similarly, the Principal of a college has the most significant
function to fulfill in providing academic and visionary leadership and
sustained progress of the college. The way governance is structured in the
college can have a great influence on how Heads of various departments carry
out their work and produce results.
Today knowledge is power: knowledge of self and
others; knowledge and expertise of the subject matter concerned. Such knowledge
will lead a person to have the right perception and discernment. SWOT
(Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) analysis will be of immense
help to take stock of oneself. Motivated persons will acquire the necessary
skills to handle any situation. Knowledge without skills will like having a car
without anyone knowing to drive.
Attitude, positive or negative will be decisive of your success. They
say that attitude decides your altitude. How rightly it has been said, “they
can because they think they can.” You must believe that you can. For this, one
has to believe in oneself and learn to love oneself. Discover your own hidden
talents. Have enthusiasm and passion for life your life goals. Indulge in
taking and reasonable risks and creativity. Creativity will lead you to
serendipity. Serendipity is discovering something totally unrelated to the problem
you are trying to solve. Columbus discovered America while searching for a
route to India. Pioneers travelling westward stopped for water and found gold
nuggets in the stream. Self-motivated person will believe in change and growth,
be willing to take the risk of stepping from the known to the unknown. One who
has learned to love oneself will have Self-confidence. Such a person will not
be under the tyranny of anger. Anger dissipates your vital energy. A
self-motivated person will handle tension and not let it manhandle himself.
Conflicts and tensions are part of life. One must learn to handle it with care.
Failure is stepping-stone to success. Successful people are those who have
learned from their failure. To fail is not to be a failure. You can never be a
failure unless you give up and quit trying. Jesus told Peter to cast your net
again when he was giving up. We learn from our failures how not to do things.
Edison failed at his first 6,000 attempts to develop a light bulb. When asked
if he were discouraged, he replied: “No, I am now well informed on 6000 ways
you cannot do it.” It is perception that matters. Failure is never final.
Robert Schuller, the famous author said that success isn’t the opposite of
failing. A runner may come in last, but if he beats his own record, he
succeeds. As Aristotle has said, “We are what we repeatedly do; excellence
then, is not an act but a habit.” Develop this habit of pursuing excellence.
And success will follow such a motivated person.
A
leader is best when people hardly know he exists. Less good when they praise
him and obey him. Worse when they fear
and despise him. But with a good leader,
when his aim is met and his dreams fulfilled, they will say: “We did this
ourselves. ” (Lao Tsu).
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