The Merry Month : Good and bad
Robert Merry, an independent Stone Consultant and Project Manager who ran his own company for 17 years and now also runs training courses on project management, gives his personal slant on the stone industry.
This month:
One of my best client’s went to the wall, I started work on site at the most expensive apartment in London (One Hyde Park Penthouse), was threatened with extinction by a client if the company I worked for didn’t produce perfection, sat six hours of exams towards CIOB chartered status, had a friend fired as part of his (now ex) company’s cut backs, went to the theatre, lost my glasses, half built a barbeque, ran the under-11s cricket team for the local club (won every game except semi final of the cup) and wrote this article.
I didn’t :
Win the lottery, earn a fortune, mow the lawn, win any new work, keep in contact with close friends that I should have, drive a sports car up a mountain, read anything new (other than exam notes), cook a great meal or make anything with my hands besides half a barbeque – and if you could see the barbeque you might challenge the use of the word ‘make’.
Life is fast, relentless and fulfilling. I am exhausted at the end of every day, sleep solidly, collapse on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and fall into a fitful sleep to wake grumpy and in need of a nice cup of tea – it’s that time of life.
There is a balance in life, I guess, where we reach optimum levels of effectiveness and efficiency, learn something about ourselves along the way and believe we are making a contribution. We feel motivated.
Despite the sad news about my client and my friend and the lack of a sports car, mountain or completed barbeque, not to mention lottery win, I still feel motivated.
Bruner wrote that a person’s motivation to succeed in any given task comes from within. He calls it the “Intrinsic Motivation Theory”.
Another management theorist, John Adair, believes that motivation comes from without as well as within, on a 50:50 ratio. Personally, I’m up there with Adair. I need the external motivation from other sources – a gentle push, a nudge, an occasional reminder of the bigger picture. Internal motivation can be as simple as plain old guilt… and I’m not even a Catholic!
I am convinced that anyone who threatens to ‘bury’ your company if it doesn’t produce perfection has definitely got life out of balance and hasn’t a hope in hell of motivating me.
It was said in a semi-serious manner, as a veiled threat. It made me angry and defensive.
A couple of other theorists, Male and Stock, explain that the more empowerment an organisation gives an individual the more the individual is motivated to perform, irrespective of rewards.
If you want to motivate and empower someone to succeed for you and try and produce perfection (which doesn’t exist by the way – but that’s another column’s worth) they have to feel they are making a contribution, taking some responsibility and being part of the team.
Even if you own a sports car, a mountain, have a barbeque and a lottery size fortune, be nice to me, motivate me… and I’ll try to fit you in next month.