Letter to instructor
To: Instructor
From: Student
Re: Stop Trying to Motivate Your Employees.
Date:
Sharing knowledge in the workforce is very crucial in our professional spheres. It plays an incredible role in fostering the vision in other people besides strengthening the ties among professionals. Sharing with others deepens your knowledge and engrains that which you already know. It is from simple gestures that new conversations and opportunities arise, and this is a sure way to new opportunities. Everyone in the workforce, regardless of the length in time, has some professional expertise that includes unique sets of skills, experience, and knowledge. It is essential to think of ways to impact this to impact other peoples’ lives. It is an excellent service to share your expertise with colleagues. It provides an opportunity to mind about others and not just you
The Ted Talk video, “Stop Trying to Motivate Your Employees.” Has been an eye-opener for me on issues regarding working and managing people with a different motivation. From this video, I have learned that many organizations are working towards a better understanding of how best they can engage their workforce. To understand this, organizations need to dig deep and get to know why people do what they do at their places of work. A clear understanding of why people behave the way they do in the workforce is the genesis to understanding Motivation. The speaker argues that Motivation is very key to success. One assumption about Motivation is that it’s all about the energy and ability to deliver the best; another definition is that it’s about quantity and quality. Thirdly, Motivation is about quantity and quality that is an employee who is motivated productively. Employees who do a myriad of activities in their workplace to bring a positive outcome in their work. All these are positive motivations. However, some bring negative Motivation in the workplace. Many employees yet have a combination of both positive and negative Motivation; some are produced for us and those that are counterproductive. For instance, some workers are motivated and productive in their work, but on the other side, they have a bad side that comes along with much negative energy. This is a clear illustration that Motivation has both the quantity and quality aspects. Success, therefore, can only be realized by elevating productive Motivation and minimizing counterproductive Motivation.
The speaker has made me appreciate the fact that it is essential for the organization to put healthy teams together when they are engineering their teams. This is different for people who assume that workers can be brought together, get inspired, and get motivated. However, A closer look at what Motivation is has made me understand that Motivation is simply the drive to seek pleasure and avoid pain because human beings are wired to do things that either bring pleasure or those that avoid pain. Our success is determined by how many productive motivations we have in life and how effective we are at minimizing the counterproductive behaviors. Research has shown that it is possible to measure Motivation and know the main factors contributing to our success. On the pleasure side, for instance, there are two motivations, which include ambition and accountability. On the other hand, some are motivated by pain, such are the kind that has the power of noticing things that can jeopardize what they have. These are people who are good at mitigating risks. People tend to be motivated by both pain and pleasure; however, there is always the dominant focus. This is important for employers as it makes them realize that employees are already motivated and that the only concern should be on how to help in unleashing that Motivation through understanding how each employee is motivated.
This knowledge sharing has made me understand that people should be hired about their kind of Motivation. Researchers have argued that most employers make decisions on who to hire using their emotions. This they do base on how much they like somebody or how similar the person is to the employer. Understanding employees and communicating with them on their Motivation and communicating this with them will ensure that employees are matched with projects that match their motivation style. Moreover, organizations need to invest in their people instead of investing in equipment, technology, and processes. In the future, those that are sure to succeed are those that will invest in their people.
Work Cited
Clark, Richard E. “Fostering the work motivation of individuals and teams.” Performance Improvement 42.3 (2003): 21-29.
Ray, Jason. “Staff motivation and its impact on performance in a retail environment.” (2016).