HR needs to develop a deeper understanding of why people go to work and why they stay. And they need to move away from scarcity models that simply predicate that people work only for money, or only because they need a job. People, given a chance, are much more complex than that.
Author Archives: mappingmotivation
The Three Priority Decisions of Your Life
All decisions have consequences, so this blog is not minimising the importance of carefully considering any choice you have to make. But in the scheme of things the Pareto Principle applies: 80% of decisions are pretty low grade, and on 20% of our decisions big outcomes depend.
Why Leaders Need Personal Development
What is leadership? As Dr Johnson observed about light, it’s easy to see what light is, but not so easy to say what it is; so with leadership – we can easily see its positive presence – and the dire consequence of its absence – but to say what it is proves more tricky.
Thinking About Appraisal and Making it Work
Appraisal is such a good idea and it is founded on such solid psychological principles that it is a wonder it has such a bad reputation, and that it fails to deliver so frequently. It was WE Deming, the great quality guru, who said that it took the average American six months to recover fromContinue reading “Thinking About Appraisal and Making it Work”
Assessing Yourself
The world can be a bleak place. Of course, there are always those, in Ian McDonald’s wonderful phrase, who “live lives of sweet and seamless gold”; for whom privilege and a sense of entitlement irrespective of merit smooth the way. But for the rest of us there are problems. One core source of problems comesContinue reading “Assessing Yourself”
Lessons will be Learnt!
Recently I did a 20 minute talk at a University for the RSA Fellows in the area (of which I am one). This had been initiated by a friend who has the foresight to realise that with the imminent shut-down of quango-business services there may be an opportunity for organisations like the RSA to fillContinue reading “Lessons will be Learnt!”
Motivating our People
Aside from using my product, Motivational Maps, people ask me: how best do you motivate staff? Inshort, what tips can you offer? This is great because in a way it’s an acknowledgement that motivation is really critically important even when leaders don’t always want to pay attention to it, or invest in it. What, then,Continue reading “Motivating our People”
Motivation and Hercule Poirot
Laughter, they say, is the best medicine; and I find in the last few months my tastes have changed considerably in terms of the kind of films I want to watch: much less action and more gentle humour and thoughtfulness. I have discovered, to my surprise, the wonderful TV series of Hercule Poirot, starring DavidContinue reading “Motivation and Hercule Poirot”
Being a Champion
It’s strange to say this; it is counter-intuitive. But I often now get asked: how did you cope with your illness? The assumption is always, how did you cope because it must have been awful? And in one and very true sense, this is correct: having had two major operations for bowel cancer and justContinue reading “Being a Champion”
The Question of Humility
Humility is a much neglected virtue in the modern world; everyone wants to be a ‘winner’ and the implicit assumption is that nice people finish last, that understating yourself is a strategic mistake, and that humility, basically, is for wimps. Like the virtue of ‘meekness’ it is perceived as a negative virtue for those lackingContinue reading “The Question of Humility”
