Loc’s Blog

I had a Eureka moment the other day during a training session. Now the point of attending workshops and taking courses is to learn new skills be exposed to new ideas. In this case, however, one of my fundamental thoughts about being a supervisor was challenged.

It had always been my thinking that I can and have motivated people.

It turns out, I have only paved the way.

Kris Robins, one of the facilitators of the Essential Skills for Supervisors Program through Northern Lakes College, told our Staying Positive – Rewarding and Energizing Employees class last Thursday that, as supervisors, we can only create the environment where people will be motivated, we don’t motivate people ourselves.

I have to agree when it is put that way. You can’t wave your magic wand and, presto, your employees will be motivated.

I suppose that is much like the old adage that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.

On the other hand, Kris noted, we can de-motivate people with a single action or word.

The class was asked to cite examples of what motivates and de-motivates us.

Motivating situations include the opportunity to make a difference, having varied and challenging assignments, a sense of pride in the organization, decisive leadership, the opportunity to learn, and the ability to reach new levels of achievement.

De-motivators cited include negativity, no flexibility, minimal or no communication, lack of variety, poor direction, bureaucracy, and employees thinking in terms of their own department and not the good over the overall organization.

I believe the best employees are self-motivated and our job as managers and leaders is to fuel their fire, to nurture their growth and to give them opportunities to succeed to even greater heights than they can on their own. Essentially, we need to take steps to eliminate items on the second list from our workplaces. Read the rest of this entry »

Original Source: Ben’s Blog

At Engineers Without Borders I have the great privilege of working with the most inspiring and motivated people I know.

EWB overseas volunteer staff member Thulasy Balasubramaniam pores over plans for a rural enterprise with her colleagues in Zambia

EWB overseas volunteer staff member Thulasy Balasubramaniam pores over plans for a rural enterprise with her colleagues in Zambia

So what keeps them going? What keeps them asking the tough questions, and not settling for easy answers? What keeps them up at all hours, working for little or no pay to achieve the millions of little “wins” that will be required for the change we seek?

I don’t always sit back and reflect on those questions, so consider this post a bit of professional development for yours truly as I try to disaggregate what I’ve learned about helping to create this motivating environment at EWB!

I’ve come up with three concepts, each with their own pithy description! Read the rest of this entry »

Many argue that volunteer rates are falling. They complain that people today (usually young people) won’t make commitments to a cause. The problem, people tell me, is that volunteers want to know what’s in it for them. Yep, it’s true. But self-interest isn’t the problem. It’s the solution.

(Photo left: Barack Obama explaining the importance of self-interest)

Why we do what we do

People volunteer for every imaginable reason.

“I have so much, I just want to give back.” or, “We wanted to be part of the solution.” or, “There are people out there who need our help.” Or so on. And so forth.

Some are prompted by an advertisement on the subway. Others are invited to volunteer by friends or family. It may be that they were urged to get more active in the community by our religious leaders. Or possibly, someone took President Obama’s message of activism to heart.

All good reasons. Just not good enough.

The best reason for volunteering is always self-interest.

I know, I know. You think I am drunk-blogging. Hold on, I’ll explain.

“Self-interested volunteering” seems generally at odds with everything we’ve come to believe about volunteering. Right? “Self-interested volunteers.” Isn’t that an oxy-moron? What about altruism and the greater good?

In Realized Worth training sessions we raise this controversial point and discuss two reasons why self-interest is an essential aspect of an outstanding volunteer experience. Both reasons have to do with motivation.

First, as my partner Angela Parker will tell you with great conviction, “We all do what we want.” Meaning, there is always some kind of motivation and pay-off for the choices we make. When it comes to motivation, the discussion can get pretty complicated. Very rarely (if at all) will someone make a choice with singular motivation. Usually there are multiple motivators, each compelling the other. (Test this by evaluating why you chose the particulars of your lunch yesterday.)

The Ins and Outs of Motivation

For simplicity’s sake, I would suggest that we experience two kinds of motivation: one; extrinsic and two; intrinsic. When people volunteer for the first time, they are usually motivated extrinsically. (Such as a desire to “give back.”) Extrinsic motivators exist outside of an individual. They are not intimate. And while extrinsic motivations are important, they are not deeply rooted in our personality. More precisely, they are not essential factors in our journey to become who we are.

In nearly two decades now of managing volunteers, extrinsic motivators are almost always the reason volunteers offer for showing up. And honestly, that’s great. There’s nothing wrong with extrinsic motivation. But as time went on, and my volunteers came back, we would invariably have the following conversation:

“Hey Chris, can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Sure,” I’d say.

“Well, it’s just that I’m feeling a little guilty about something.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, I love volunteering and everything, but I think I’m coming for the wrong reasons.”

“Okay…” I’d answer, trying to look like I didn’t know what they were going to say next.

“Um, yeah. I mean, at first I wanted to help out, you know – make a difference. But now, I think I’m getting more out of it than they are. I just don’t know if I am helping anyone here, but I keep coming back because I’m getting a lot out of it. Is that bad?”

“Nope, that’s not bad. That’s how it’s supposed to work.” I’d say, mentally adding this volunteer to the list in my mind labeled, “Valuable.”

It is essential that people begin to discover their intrinsic motivations for volunteering. Why? Because when the things we do connect to who we are, we become personally invested. Our own identity works itself out in conjunction with volunteering. As we reach out to others, we begin to take a journey inward. We begin to discover and express our truer self.

If we remain motivated by exterior voices trying to convince us that we must help, or it is our duty, we will unfortunately remain personally detached from the work itself. In fact, extrinsic motivators such as rewards, incentives, or public recognition at a year-end celebration, may have a negative effect in the long run. In a 1974 study by Green & Lepper, children were rewarded and reinforced for drawing with felt-tip pens. The surprising result? The children showed little to no interest in playing with the pens later on. It seems that the extrinsic motivation of verbal reward replaced any intrinsic motivation, thereby diminishing the innate enjoyment of the activity.

Creating the right kind of space in a volunteer program for people to discover their intrinsic motivation is essential. This is probably the single most important factor in the recruitment and retainment of volunteers. This kind of space is highly valuable for the volunteer manager because it allows for the possibility of meeting volunteers at their highest level of contribution.

There’s another reason why self-interest is essential aspect of an outstanding employee volunteer program. (Actually there are a whole bunch of reasons!) In our next blog post, we’ll talk about how volunteering fosters objectification. It may, in fact, inoculate people against the desire to participate in social action.

Chris Jarvis
Senior Consultant, Realized Worth, Toronto, Canada
Email me; chrisjarvis@realizedworth.com
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Original Article Found Here

By Scott Berkun, June 1, 2006

In part one, I covered getting started, why managers are different and other essentials. Here in part 2 we get into tactics you need for the first few weeks.

Getting acclimated

Survival training of any kind teaches you one thing: before you act, know where you are. Say, for example, I dumped you, blindfolded and dehydrated, in the Swiss Alps. Your first move wouldn’t be to run around, tripping over stones, yelling orders at sheep. Instead you’d be best be served by figuring out how to remove that blindfold and get your bearings. Only then could you possibly find the direction most likely to provide you with shelter and drinking water (or at least some Swiss chocolate. Yum).

When you become a manager, even in an organization you’ve worked in for years, the landscape changes because of your new managerial status. Before you throw orders around and correct the mistakes of manager’s past, stop, look and listen. Observe what is happening today, right now. Talk to the people you’re working with and ask them what they see happening that you should be working on in your first weeks, especially the most experienced and respected people on your team. See what concerns or ideas they have that perhaps went unheard before. If nothing else, start building relationships from day one with those that work with and for you. Watch the clock in these meetings: make sure you spend more time listening to them than talking. If they ramble, ask them for recommendations. If they have nothing to say, invite them to follow up if they wish, but move on: there’s a lot to do. Read the rest of this entry »

As a positive counterpoint to my list of why managers become assholes, and as a counterbalance to my tendency to write cynically,  here’s a list of why people become great at managing others, trying as much as possible not to just do the stupid thing and invert my other list.

1. Enjoy helping people grow.  Few things feel better than helping someone who is new to a role, or who has been struggling, into becoming a productive, confident person. There’s a kind of satisfaction in helping someone figure out how to be successful that doesn’t come from many other living experiences. Great mangers love seeing this happen on their teams.
2. Love creating positive environments. A great manager creates a team and and office environment that makes it easy for smart people to do good things. They love that moment when they wander the halls and see all sorts of amazing things happening all on their own, with passionate, motivated people doing good work without much involvement from the manager.
3. Want to correct mistakes inflicted on them. Some great managers are looking to undo the evil managers they had. Rather than take it out on their subordinates, they want to do a kind of pay it forward revenge: prove to themselves and the world that it can be better that what happened to them in the past. This can create the trap of fighting the last war: your team may not care at all about avoiding the mistakes of your previous manager. They want to avoid the mistakes you, and your blind spots, are probably making right now.
4. Care deeply about the success and well being of their team. Thoroughbred horses get well cared for. Their owners see them as an expensive asset and do whatever they can to optimize their health, performance, and longevity, even if their motivations are largely selfish. A great manager cares deeply about their staff, and goes out of his way to protect, train, care for, and reward their own team, even if their primary motivation is their own success.
5. Succession mentality.  A successful manager eventually realizes their own leadership will end one day, but if they teach and instill the right things into people who work for them, that philosophy can live on for a long time, long after the manager is gone. This can go horribly wrong (See, history of monarchies) but the desire to have a lasting impact generally helps people think on longer term cycles and pay attention to wider trends short term managers do not notice.
6. Long term sense of reward.  Many of the mistakes managers make involve reaping short term rewards at the expense of long term loyalty and morale. Any leader who inverts this philosophy, and makes short term sacrifices to provide long term gains, will generally be a much better manager. They recognize the value of taking the time to explain things, to build trust, to provide training, and to build relationships, all of which results in a kind of team performance and loyalty the short term manager never believes is possible.
7. Practice of the golden rule.  It’s funny how well known this little gem is, and rare in life people follow it. But I think anyone in power who believes in it, and treats all of their employees the same way they truly would want to be treated, or even better, treats employees as they actually want to be treated, will always be a decent, above average manager. A deeply moral person can’t help but do better than most people, as treating people with respect, honesty and trust are the 3 things I suspect most people wish they could get from their bosses.
8. Self aware, including weaknesses. This is the kicker. Great leaders know what they suck at, and either work on those skills or hire people they know make up for their own weaknesses, and empower them to do so. This tiny little bit of self-awareness makes them open to feedback and criticism to new areas they need to work on, and creates an example for movement in how people should be growing and learning about new things.
9. Sets tone of healthy debate and criticism. If the boss gives and takes feedback well, everyone else will too. If the boss is defensive, passive-aggressive, plays favorites, or does other things that work against the best idea winning, everyone else will play these destructive games. Only a boss who sees their own behavior as a model the rest of the organization will tend to follow can ever become a truly great manager. Without this, they will always wonder why the team behaves in certain unproductive ways that are strangely familiar.
10. Willing to fight, but picks their battles. Great managers are not cowards. They are willing to stake their reputation and make big bets now and then (I’d say at least once a year, as a totally random, put possibly useful stake in the ground). However they are not crazy either. They are good at doing political math and seeing which battle is worth the fight at a given time. A manager that never fights can never be great – they will never have enough skin in the game to earn the deepest level of respect of the people that work for them. But a manager that always fights is much worse. They continually put their own ego ahead of what their team is capable of.
11. (Bonus!) Instinctively corrects bad behavior within their team. True story:  on a new team I once saw a mid level manager make a personal attack of a junior employee in front of the VP. I looked at the VP, expecting him to jump in. He did nothing. Not a thing. Message to team? It’s ok to pick on people if you outrank them.  Micromanaging is never good, but correcting destructive behavior, is always appropriate even if you have to jump levels to do it (Sure, perhaps there was an offline conversation. But something like this was so egregious it should have been corrected on the spot). Nothing builds morale and respect faster than a manager who jumps in to the fray to defend someone who is being picked on by a bully, except perhaps a manager who gets rid of the bully altogether.

Also see: Advice for new managers (A popular essay)

What did I miss? Think of the last great manager you had and what traits you’d add to the above.

Source: http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2009/top-ten-reasons-managers-become-great/