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!”
Tag Archives: Motivation
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”
The Right People Need No Motivation
Jim Collins, the world famous management guru, has said that “if you have the right people on your bus, you don’t need to worry about motivating them”. As a friend of mine said, “Does this mean that employee motivation programs are useless?” It would seem so – if only we could get our recruitment right,Continue reading “The Right People Need No Motivation”
Pedagogy and Motivation
I was asked an interesting educational question recently about motivation and pedagogy: to wit, what pedagogy is used to create classroom strategies that each motivator prefers? Pedagogy is a word that one doesn’t encounter as frequently as one did, say, in the Seventies; what does it mean? Pedagogy is the science of teaching, of instruction,Continue reading “Pedagogy and Motivation”
Why motivation is NOT often in the work place
It is not an original observation to say that in most work places we look we find that most people are not highly motivated. In many cases they are not motivated at all. They need to work and their commitment to and engagement with their employer extends no further than the next pay cheque. ThisContinue reading “Why motivation is NOT often in the work place”
The Motivation of Art
Like most people I love art in all its forms, especially literature, music and painting. We take it for granted that art exists; after all, the papers are full of reviews of it. Only last Saturday the Telegraph was stuffed with interesting art reviews. But as I read some of them I thought: is thisContinue reading “The Motivation of Art”
Acorn to Oak
I was recently invited to address over 100 Sixth Formers about motivation and their careers. It’s a wonderful opportunity and it’s great to not talk to business people sometimes, and have an entirely fresh audience – at 17 years old, very fresh! As I scanned their ranks I could see the overwhelming problem: just howContinue reading “Acorn to Oak”
The nebulous, the subjective and the sub-conscious
I find when I talk about motivation I frequently have to admit three things: that motivation, as a topic, is nebulous, subjective and mostly ‘sub-conscious’. What do I mean by this? When Dr Johnson, of dictionary fame, was asked, What is poetry? He famously replied that this was like asking, What is light? We allContinue reading “The nebulous, the subjective and the sub-conscious”
Performance, Motivation and What Else?
We have long held at Motivational Maps that performance is down to three core components: direction, skills (including knowledge), and motivation. So far as the operational work goes at middle and technical levels, then we are really concerned with two aspects: skills and motivation, and this since the direction – strategy, plans, goals, objectivesContinue reading “Performance, Motivation and What Else?”
The Mapping Motivation Series 