motivation

The motive of the press, Mencken writes, is to keep the general public in line for the purposes of the ruling elites, and that seems as though that's exactly what they've been doing during COVID.

Reprint: R0806C When a company finds itself unable to execute strategy, all too often the first reaction is to redraw the organization chart or tinker with incentives. Far more effective would be to clarify decision rights and improve the flow of information both up the line of command and across the organization. Then, the right structures and motivators tend to fall into place. That conclusion is borne out by the authors’ decades of experience as Booz & Company consultants and by the survey data that they have been collecting for almost five years from more than 125,000 employees of some 1,000 organizations in more than 50 countries. From this data they have distilled—and ranked in order of importance—the top 17 traits exhibited by the organizations that are most effective at executing strategy. The single most common attribute of such companies is that their employees are clear about which decisions and actions they are responsible for. As a result, decisions are rarely second-guessed, and accurate competitive information quickly finds its way up the hierarchy and across organizational boundaries. Managers communicate the key drivers of success, so frontline employees have the information they need to understand the impact of their day-to-day actions. Motivators—like performance appraisals that distinguish high, adequate, and low performers and rewards for fulfilling particular commitments—are also important but are most effective when applied after decision rights and information flows have been addressed. That holds true for structural moves as well. Surprisingly, the most effective structural moves turn out to be promoting people laterally—and more slowly. How can you make the most educated and cost-efficient decisions about which change initiatives to implement? The authors have developed a powerful online diagnostic and simulation tool that can help you test the effectiveness of various approaches virtually, without risking significant amounts of time and money.

Improve Employee Engagement, Reduce Staff Turnover, And Increase Productivity With Peakon

Take charge of your team’s motivation, priorities and collaboration with recurring health checks.

KATRINE BENDT-ANDERSEN, PA Consulting

Selfishness is often regarded as an undesirable or even immoral characteristic, whereas altruism is typically considered universally desirable and virtuous. However, human history as well as the works of humanistic and psychodynamic psychologists point to a more complex picture: not all selfishness is necessarily bad, and not all altruism is necessarily good. Based on these writings, we introduce new scales for the assessment of individual differences in two paradoxical forms of selfishness that have lacked measurement in the field – healthy selfishness (HS) and pathological altruism (PA). In two studies (N1 = 370, N2 = 891), we constructed and validated the HS and PA scales. The scales showed good internal consistency and a clear two-dimensional structure across both studies. HS was related to higher levels of psychological well-being and adaptive psychological functioning as well as a genuine prosocial orientation. PA was associated with maladaptive psychological outcomes, vulnerable narcissism, and selfish motivations for helping others. These results underpin the paradoxical nature of both constructs. We discuss the implications for future research, including clinical implications.

Ryan Stephenson is a cyclist from St. Louis, MO. Join Strava to track your activities, analyze your performance, and follow friends. Strava members can plan routes, participate in motivating challenges, and join clubs. Get started by signing up for free.

A whole new way to listen to employee feedback with employee surveys. Learn more.

an intro to the a mental contrasting tool called WOOP — Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan.

Background One of the twelve agile principles is to build projects around motivated individuals and trust them to get the job done. Such agile teams must self-organize, but this involves conflict, making self-organization difficult. One area of difficulty is agreeing on everybody’s role. Background What dynamics arise in a self-organizing team from the negotiation of everybody’s role? Method We conceptualize observations from five agile teams (work observations, interviews) by Charmazian Grounded Theory Methodology. Results We define role as something transient and implicit, not fixed and named. The roles are characterized by the responsibilities and expectations of each team member. Every team member must understand and accept their own roles (Local role clarity) and everbody else’s roles (Team-wide role clarity). Role clarity allows a team to work smoothly and effectively and to develop its members’ skills fast. Lack of role clarity creates friction that not only hampers the day-to-day work, but also appears to lead to high employee turnover. Agile coaches are critical to create and maintain role clarity. Conclusions Agile teams should pay close attention to the levels of Local role clarity of each member and Team-wide role clarity overall, because role clarity deficits are highly detrimental.

Top-down leadership is outdated and counterproductive. By focusing too much on control and end goals, and not enough on their people, leaders are making it more difficult to achieve their own desired outcomes. The key, then, is to help people feel purposeful, motivated, and energized so they can bring their best selves to work. One of the best ways is to adopt the humble mind-set of a servant leader. Servant leaders view their key role as serving employees as they explore and grow, providing tangible and emotional support as they do so. They actively seek the ideas and unique contributions of the employees that they serve. This is how servant leaders create a culture of learning, and an atmosphere that encourages followers to become the very best they can.

Learn the Science of Total Motivation with New York Times bestselling author, Lindsay McGregor. In this keynote, delivered at Culture Amp's Culture First conference, shared how to build truly high performing teams and cultures. Lindsay McGregor is the Co-Founder of Vega Factor (http://www.vegafactor.com/#intro) and Co-Author of the New York Times bestselling book "Primed To Perform." Learn more about Culture Amp here http://www.cultureamp.com

Clearly defining your Purpose, Vision, Mission, Values, and Measures will help your team understand what you're trying to achieve. Aside from motivation, this will enable them to make decisions independently, rather than referring to the chain of command. It will also help your organization track whether or not it's achieving its goals.

Why is it that American football uses eleven players, Canadian football twelve, and Gaelic fifteen? Why eleven in European soccer? Why does baseball field nine players, basketball five, volleyball six, water polo seven, and cricket eleven? Simple as these questions are, they are deceptively hard to answer. But whatever the historical reasons, the number of […]

Quartz is a guide to the new global economy for people in business who are excited by change. We cover business, economics, markets, finance, technology, science, design, and fashion.

Today is the last day of what was a very exciting year; we grew the team at Corporate Rebels, launched the concept of Rebel Events, started to write our very own book, and -as the cherry on the cake-

Leadership expect Jim Dethmer shares practical advice about becoming more self-aware, ditching the victim mindset, and connecting more fully with the people in our lives.

It comes down to self-expression, experimentation, and purpose.

Antidote to Micro Management Understanding the Agile Manifesto principles via games This game predominantly covers "Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done." Also implicates the principle "The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams." I'm on LinkedIn if you want to hire me for your team's agility https://www.linkedin.com/in/myleshocking/

Reprint: R1105C What is the best way to motivate employees to do creative work? Help them take a step forward every day. In an analysis of knowledge workers’ diaries, the authors found that nothing contributed more to a positive inner work life (the mix of emotions, motivations, and perceptions that is critical to performance) than making progress in meaningful work. If a person is motivated and happy at the end of the workday, it’s a good bet that he or she achieved something, however small. If the person drags out of the office disengaged and joyless, a setback is likely to blame. This progress principle suggests that managers have more influence than they may realize over employees’ well-being, motivation, and creative output. The key is to learn which actions support progress—such as setting clear goals, providing sufficient time and resources, and offering recognition—and which have the opposite effect. Even small wins can boost inner work life tremendously. On the flip side, small losses or setbacks can have an extremely negative effect. And the work doesn’t need to involve curing cancer in order to be meaningful. It simply must matter to the person doing it. The actions that set in motion the positive feedback loop between progress and inner work life may sound like Management 101, but it takes discipline to establish new habits. The authors provide a checklist that managers can use on a daily basis to monitor their progress-enhancing behaviors.

Some lessons creep up on you gradually; others hit you over the head like an anvil.

The most-engaged employees work together in ways companies don’t even realize.

Research has typically portrayed downward performance spirals as inevitable following initial failure experiences. On the basis of social identity the…

The Fun Theory - an initiative of Volkswagen. This is one of a series of experiments for a new brand campaign of VW. Have a look - the piano stairs are really funny. Fun can obviously change behaviour for the better. To see all the latest videos, subscribe to the Volkswagen YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/myvolkswagen Follow Volkswagen on Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/volkswagen/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Volkswagen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/volkswagen/

If you're struggling to get hired, lose weight, or earn a promotion, asking for advice may be unhelpful. Giving it, on the other hand, can be game-changing.

Watch New York Times bestselling author and co-founder of Vega Factor Lindsay McGregor talk about the science of total motivation at Culture Amp's 2018 Culture First conference. In this keynote, she shares how to build truly high performing teams and company cultures.

The most powerful idea behind ToMo is that putting people first is a way to win. In a very specific and scientific way Lindsay McGregor and Neel Doshi explain how culture is the way you win.