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My Motivation
Things that give me strength and energy to work
- Process
- Impressions
- Goal
- Feedback
When I take up a new assignment, I have no idea what the outcome will be like – it is almost always a challenge. Some people can spend years upon years managing the same projects – something that would get me bored senseless. Nothing does more to kill my capacity for work than invariable routine operations. They are on the other extreme of what's interesting. When you have an interest in a job, the process never fails to give you pleasure and you find yourself living the process. While still not creativity in its pure form, it is no longer an exercise in routine milling of work time into a spate of products and services.
Along with interest come impressions created by the results of work. This is a very powerful element of self-motivation. If you invest your energy, it will eventually come back to you. The greater your understanding and personal contribution to the process, the greater the payback.
The goal is constantly in motion, like the horizon that you are moving toward. I dislike static goals that get closer with each passing day. What I see as a goal at the outset becomes merely a stage when I am halfway through; once this stage has been completed, it reveals the next goal. This constant motion is very motivational; otherwise, if I stop I get bored.
Life is a constant flow and an evolutionary process that does not tolerate long stopovers. I find it extremely difficult to be self-sufficient in all respects; nor do I consider such all-encompassing self-sufficiency to be necessary. The herartfelt interest that I take in the results of my work never fails to earn feedback from people for whom I do this work. If a job evokes no interest in me, I prefer not to take it. There are too many interesting things in this life to sell oneself short by doing something that gives no pleasure. Having the possibility to choose is very important.
Corporate culture. Personal space
Personal space
Over the years I’ve visited the offices of dozens of clients, suppliers and competitors. It should be said that in ten years little has changed – people work as before in a right-angled space of straight lines and corners with a window to the middle. The back of the chair could also be part of these fixed contours, as well as the bends in the toilet bowl and the sink in the washroom... With the appearance of A-Class and higher business centres there is more light in these boxes and something resembling space, although I find it hard to imagine spending a happy 8-9 hours of one’s life a day in this enclosed space.
I have the impression that this a miraculous relic from some sort of terrible past which should after all suddenly pass away.
If you get tired at your place of work then it means it’s just not for you, and it makes sense to look for something new. No, I don’t necessarily mean another place of work, but somewhere you’ll be comfortable. I am convinced that the understanding of ‘comfort’ only appeared because people began to confine themselves for space. For example when I manage to work for a long time outside the office I don’t remember this as an issue. What’s even more important is that comfort should be reached beforehand inside a person, this is the inherent acquisition of interest, motivation and efficiency. Everyone has enormous latent potential, which they can’t even guess at, but can be extracted simply by creating a comfortable place to work. I really admire the attitude of some company leaders (who can be counted on one hand) who create ‘chill-out’ areas, play-rooms and work-zones in their offices and organise office space in such a way that employees can find a place where it’s pleasant to spend more than an hour at a time working on any project.
Why does this matter?
The world around us is a dynamic, changing structure that is evolving all the time. There are lots of simple and smooth things in nature. In order to develop a person needs dynamism, a change of scene, good impressions, which are expressed in the simplest of things beginning with what’s around them. Try and lock yourself in for a day in an empty square two by two metres room sitting on your office chair, and then try and do the same in the open air where you can sit, lie down, play football for an hour or go on a bike ride – you’ll notice the difference. The efficiency of your work and number of tasks completed will be different. I described two extremes. It’s completely unnecessary to drive people outside for them to work better. It’s enough to create a simple and comfortable work area where they can work, communicate and move. This is far more inspiring than any motivation and developmental training held in stuffy, square meeting rooms.
To-do list
A ‘to-do’ list is quite a useful thing. I acknowledge myself that I carry one when all tasks accumulate, but this is a lot. Аnd beside, it is one of the things that helps our brain complete planned tasks at the necessary time and in the right order.
Why does this happen?
Practically any idea that appears in my head begins from a thought which gradually, if I retain in my memory, becomes overgrown with new similar thoughts like a snowball into an idea, complemented by different shapes and pictures from reality. But all this is still sitting in my head, i.e. it is guarded by an internal keeper of information – my memory. This same memory is constantly bombarded with new information from within, by our new thoughts, but more often than not from outside – by other thoughts, impressions, as well as by other ‘rubbish’ that we imbibe with our eyes and ears everyday on the way to work, watching TV, listening to the radio and so on. Therefore, if your don’t focus your attention on certain important thoughts or ideas they risk being submerged under a heap of ‘rubbish’ or sent to a hidden compartment because of its purported lack of importance.
However it is worth not forgetting that the brain also receives information from external sources. So, things that you have seen or heard can serve as confirmation or supplementation to the information stored in our memory in the form of an idea. If I can’t find a supporting confirmation of one idea or other right away I can at least write about what I have thought. As a rule, this is a simple selection of theses, this same ‘to-do list,’ but it is sufficient for different, deeper levels of memory to act.
The next stage is going through the list and replenishing it with new information. Once I have done something I start getting impressions from the actions (or emotional experiences). That is how I complete and renew my to-do list.
In the final analysis the composite of impressions, intellectual knowledge and physical sensations form practical experience for which under certain circumstances it doubtless counts as “knowledge.”
Principal of Development
Each and every one of us who undertakes any activity in life, when beginning a process gives it a start at a certain point in time and gradually reaches its conclusion. The simplest example in management could be job presentation as the beginning of the process and the Result as its completion phase.
There are also some even more long-term processes, like, for example, the strategic development of a company or state over a long period of time.
Simple and complicated, short and long processes have something in common and that is the people who are engaged in them. And if you want to be even more precise then any process development depends on the personal participation of each person in it.
The nature of most processes is dying away. Development presupposes an investment of effort (energy) in any human activity without which it is doomed to fail. The only thing that we can acquire as a replacement is experience in the field of expertise (intellect), impression (emotion) and the aggregate of functional skills (body). The observation of periodically repeated processes, arising from people, myself included, forced me to start thinking about the efficiency of getting this worthless experience. The experience has most value is one that includes the three components – intellect, emotion and the body.
When a selection of mistakes are examined in some project or other attention is usually paid to the external, intellectual component process. The emotional and functional part is left untouched but an awful lot of useful information is hidden inside.
So, when we receive some sort of intellectual instruction “from now on, do it like this” we set off to carry it out. This in turn determines the level of service we carry out as a result as well as those impressions left with our colleague, client, or interlocutor about working with you.
The human’s brain is highly adaptable. It enables us to store and apply information not just on an intellectual level, therefore it’s a completely different thing is we can feel the experience emotionally.
The most wide-spread advice in this regard, which you will hear quire frequently is “put yourself in the client’s place,” but this is an intellectual approach. It can be useful, but the most valuable experience is when you actually put yourself in the client’s shoes, for example, when talking to your supplier. At this moment the important thing is not to lose the opportunity and to observe how you feel (I don’t just mean physically, but rather your perception) react to the situation – it is only in this instance that you can really understand your client by putting yourself in their shoes.
In some instances this enables us to change our perceptions, opening up other, previously hidden, limits to what is going on. This is very important, in my opinion, Principal of Development, which consists of the fact that in any process someone must strive to extract experience as much as possible, not restricting it to one or other of its components.
Experience broadens our opportunities significantly. In particular, emotional experience allows us to relate to the client’s problems differently if we approach the situation sincerely and understand our responsibilities.
Good impressions
In particular this means justifying or exceeding expectations that have been vested in you. And if you dig deeper, I must myself be the source of positive emotions and intentions for this to work. In equal measure this can be related to my relations with suppliers. Every person in their own way is a receiver and transmitter of different emotions, and any management is a constant form of communication. It is important to remember about one’s responsibility, what emotion you transmitted and what impression your colleague, client or interlocutor received. Therefore it doesn’t matter whether it’s a chat or business correspondence. Our emotions depend on our mood, intentions, interests, responsibilities, that we apply to a concrete thing and anyone, even if they can’t see it in your eyes or in the letter, has to consciously feel it.
Genuine understanding of this fact inside yourself is very important.
