Thursday, November 19, 2009

Random thoughts on self motivation

A chat with an acquaintance of mine regarding his plans brought up an interesting thought about motivation in employees. This blog is about two issues. One, motivation by the organisation and two, self-motivation.

The person was demoralised about the lack of incentives or other forms of motivation in the organisation. It would be pertinent to mention here that he has been with the organisation for over six years now. This was the time when the market was on the rise. It was a seller's market. The real estate industry was booming. The sales team did not have to pitch aggressively to sell. There was a queue of customers with the booking amount!!

Change to late 2008 and early 2009. We all know the state of the economy then and the real estate sector too. Walk-ins were very hard to come-by. The developers tried every incentive from modular kitchens to foreign junkets to lure the customers. Selling was a very difficult task.

How do you think a salesperson and team leader who has seen only good times throughout his working career of six odd years would respond to the changed conditions? He can either adapt himself to the change or withdraw into a shell. Become non-communicative. New initiatives by the other team members were stifled.The morale of the team suffered.

The management on its part was too busy monitoring the cash flow, to keep its projects going, to pay adequate attention to the aspect of team motivation. And now when the market is picking up, the team leader has reached the point of total disillusionment.

He blames the management for not motivating (read incentivising) people. The management is of the view that even in difficult times it did not relieve anybody. From their perspective they are right. It is the sign of a good organisation to stand by its employees when others in the industry were downsizing. So who is at fault? Is it the organisation for not overtly taking motivational steps. Or the team-member for not possessing enough drive to keep himself motivated.

The person has a very impressive knowledge of the real estate industry "Pranavji, I want to start my own concern but people will say that I am a broker".

I said "Look friend. You have to focus on what you want. If you give services like a broker, you will be called a broker. But if you project and approach the client as an advisor, you can position yourself in a totally different league. It is not the work which is good or bad, but what quality we bring to the work,which is good or bad." " You will need to improve your communication and presentation skills, choose your clients with great care and focus on building trust rather than business. Business follows behaviour".

It is my mission to help him overcome his inhibitions and his utter lack of belief in himself resulting in disillusionment.

The bottom line is, do what makes you happy. If you cannot do that, find happiness in what you are doing.

1 comment:

  1. Sir,

    You have brought up a very potent issue of motivation versus self motivation. The answer to the question of "who is at fault" is rather difficult to answer.

    In my Opinion, I would not blame the company for not motivating the employees in the downturn as having a job without the fear of being oink slipped was a incentive enough. On the other hand i would also not blame the manager for having the feeling of "left alone" by the company as i believe that he would have been doing his every bit to maintain the cash flows.

    I do believer that the following things could have improved the siltation drastically:

    (a) the company indicating to the employees in no uncertain terms that their jobs will not be taken away

    (b) The manger, having the awareness of the industry outside and understanding the intangible action by the company of not sacking its employees.

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