Positive Words- Shots of Motivation!

                                              

It’s one of those days of the week when there is stagnancy, inertia in the air. We are caught up in a state of limbo and unfortunately these days are repetitive; the mundane routine is bogging us down. We’re constantly waiting for something to happen, something to transform, something to shift us forward in our lives or relationships. Life seems to be happening around us, but we can’t seem to get on the track we’d like to be on. What keeps us motivated, inclined to carry on the daily monotonous repetition? It’s having things to look forward to like vacations, holidays, days off from work, weekends, promotions, a big event coming up, and lot more.

There is an additional aspect which keeps us motivated too in a very subtle way, it’s the words we hear and announce out loud. Words are potent! When ideas fail, words come in handy. They really have the ability to inspire, motivate, and persuade but at the same time they are entirely responsible to discourage, dismiss and dissuade. Whether it’s building a team, mending a relationship or launching a product the right words spoken at the right time can transform the absolute scenario. There are few sentences which motivate us at any point of time whether its nike saying  “Just do it” or loreal telling you “ you are worth it”, for a moment they give you that zing and sway you to get going.

“I trust you!”stands number one in my list, when you listen to your boss, your spouse, your friends, people around you say that, swiftly there is a sense of confidence in the self, there is a need to fulfill the expectation of all the people who trust you, It instantly creates a self belief and an urge to be trusted all the time.

“Never give up” you fail, you stumble, you make blunders in life, at that stage if there is someone to back you up with these words, what do you do, you instantaneously react to the situation. It works vice – versa, just tell this to someone with utmost conviction and they will thank you all their lives to be by their side.

You are stuck, you are anticipating, you are procrastinating, “Make it happen” “Just start” “you can do it” these are the words you want to hear to help you rise and take that leap. In the midst of striving to reach your goals, to achieve those difficult targets, time when you are telling your strained muscles to stop, it is lines like these which leave an impact.

Praises, acknowledgement, and appreciation of all manner forever makes a person feel superior. But there are definite sentences which create an aura of motivation around us; something as effortless as “you deserve it” “Keep it up” “you rock” just builds a sense of achievement and a willingness to work towards maintaining that achievement comes automatically. Incentive theory of motivation works for most of the people, people are motivated to work because of the pay cheque that they receive every month, but the idea is if words akin to that pay cheque are used to encourage the employees the drive to work harder increases drastically.

In every course of life, we got to find our own motivation, be it positive self talk, plain conversation of encouragement, music that races with your heartbeats, movie that makes you get on the track and run, a superman or batman that inspires you to be your own superhero. Ultimately, we got to be our own cheerleader, accept ourselves and expect more from ourselves. 

So, Stay motivated, Stay inspired and make a difference in the lives of people around you with your words and actions.  

Cheers!

Are you ignoring high performer?

 

'Low performers are more engaged than the high performers?'

Read one of the tweets recently…trust me I was more shocked than you though reading it further, only made me wonder about the gap in expectation and performance . Even more, the entire HR metrics around it.

However if I myself look back during peak attrition times, the entire bell curve goes for a toss when high performers leave voluntarily saving low performers as an option to be retained back. This is called need of hour or some are born lucky!!

Exit Interviews does give a feedback where high performers leave due to work load, managing high employer expectation, work life balance and above all working with a team members who without much efforts are paid at par with them. We can’t blame the system, for it’s human nature to look for the best resource while assigning any task and in most circumstances this become a repetition.Initally such delegations are appreciated but we tend to forget that an individual has a capability which would not withstand pressure beyond a certain elasticity .Once we cross the said threshold, frustration is inevitable. ? High performers are not easy to recruit but retaining and engaging them with the organization is a challenge for all. What fun would be to lose cash cows over a problem child?

It’s true every employee has different expectation but we should try to understand that such situations might solve problems in short run but going further will complicate issues. Many times high performers are unable to cope up with additional pressures and work load and overnight the category changes. What is expected other than an exit!!Timely cognizance will not just make the employee feel cared but also re affirm his/her trust in the HR processes and also help him/her stay engaged.

We would only flaunt those engagement rings when we are happily married!!

Do you Bake Cookies @ Work?

I am a “Workflex” mom and typically am running short on patience with kids getting extra enthusiastic about working around the house during my “working” hours.

Today was one such day. Early on in the day, my 10 year old decided that he needed to hone his baking skills, and TODAY was THE day he wanted to do it, and of course, now was the only time!

So we got into this argument about how it’s not such a great idea to do it at 9:30 in the morning on a working day and how it was wiser to wait until the maid got in and was around to assist, trouble shoot, clean up, etc.

Arnie (the aforementioned 10 year old), was of course having none of that and he resolved that he would brave on and do it all on his own…… So far so good! Promptly, out came the recipe book, pans, ingredients, weighing scale, spatulas, gloves, blender et al. I could feel my blood-pressure rise but decided, for the sake of my peace of mind, to allow this transgression!

And so it was that Arnie, who knew nothing about baking, had never baked alone ever in his 10 year life, had only rudimentary knowledge of kitchen implements, but who was never short on purpose, enthusiasm and chutzpah, baked the most delicious, gorgeous cookies I had ever eaten. And here I was, berating him for the mess he had made, the countless interruptions he had added to my work, the general chaos in the house with the dog getting frisky on all the food smells and a kitchen that was getting increasingly buttery and floury!

When I look back at this, what exactly did he learn?? Hopefully, he learnt that when you want to do something badly, just go ahead and do it, doesn’t matter if mom thinks of it as a good idea; And not – “Mom never appreciates that I am doing something Awesome!”

What did I learn? Well, there is short-term pain when there’s an enthusiastic hand around. But with some nurturing, how that hand can create AWESOMENESS!

Ok, now let’s extrapolate this to your organization… Do you have Arnies around? What do you do with them? Do you allow the overwhelming urge of playing it safe and keeping everything clean and perfect to dominate? OR Do you allow them to bake their cookies despite the mess they will surely make? In short, are you experiencing AWESOMENESS?

Would be keen to know!

Keep it simple honey!!

Keep it simple honey…

My days are generally busy and though I start quite early still squeezing out time for my favorite section of News Daily becomes next to impossible, courtesy my adorable son. Today was no different just that I managed to catch a glimpse of Times Ascent and came across this great article on performance management system based on an interview of Mr. Thomas J DeLong, professor at Harvard Business School.

As per the Professor an organization has three types of workers. A, those who exceed expectations, B who meet expectations and C are ones who are below expectations. Now I wish most of the organizations could keep it that crisp rather than further dividing it into some five to six categories, all because the managers are either not equipped or are not aware how to measure the expectation. This does nothing but in turn complicates the entire appraisal system and leads to confused employees with respect to their performance and even more stressed supervisors who spend months convincing them regarding the ratings they themselves never understood.

All this reminds me of BCG Matrix where Business units are categorized into Stars, Cash Cows, Dogs and Question Marks. Though it refers to a marketing lesson but same can be applied on Human assets where Stars are ‘A’ performer, ones who are future leaders and viewed as critical mass in an organization. Cash Cows are however the ‘B’ performers ones who are not just competent but most steady and reliable ones, infact just like cash cows they are ones who run the show and Dog are definitely the ‘C’ performers who are below expectation and should be either pushed toward being more productive or asked to exit from the system. Any organization should not hire question marks at all!!

We all know this but what lacks here is that mostly the focus is on A performers who are self driven and high on aspirations which if not satisfied internally would move out of system voluntarily, no matter what. After which, mostly we are concerned about C category and how can they be pumped to perform better. Now what we mostly ignore is the B category that works the best, balances work life with personal fronts and is extremely engaged to the organization. But ignoring this category raises unnecessary concerns which if not handled maturely and timely leads to exits from the block and ultimately affecting the profitability of the system.

Cutting the long story short, lesser categories will make life easier for all and not to mention will have more happy faces around.

 

 

 

 

HR Lessons from Life!!

Why have you chosen HR as your field??

Mostly asked question during my jobs interviews. No matter how I answered the question but had never given the real reason. The reason was that I have learned it at various stages of my life though the realization only came when formally studied it during my MBA…

 

Born as a first child in the family was welcomed with open arms however my overwhelmed parents were not sure how to handle the crying bundle of joy. And then my grandmother with her age old experience pacified me by feeding and singing a soothing lullaby. My first lesson - analyzing the situation and problem solving and second lesson came hand in hand – nothing can beat the experienced .No wonder why I always loved her so much. Then gradually with time as I grew so did my lessons. Every time I was scolded or praised I understood the theory of negative and positive reinforcements. When my wishes were categorized as acceptable or not acceptable in a way my parents were teaching my Maslow’s need hierarchy.

Every time good merits were awarded both in school and back at home ,theory of motivation made place in my mind. Further boarding schools and college taught me team work &conflict management .Moreover  limited pocket money was probably a lesson on budgeting and resource management .Working and handling student associations and strict wardens not just helped me better my people management  and leadership skills but also handling difficult people ;)

Now comes the most interesting and exciting lesson which indeed has been very close to my heart. As time flew and my parents started to look for a prospective groom. Not to mention I am happily married person but husband hunting is unbeatable. Three years and after dozen of meetings I finally got the right fit .The whole things sounds so much like recruitment where the focus should always be to get the right candidate and not compromise on quality for that leads to smooth functioning of the system.

Life always has been an amazing teacher, whose age is as much as you but infinite experience. Every day is a new lesson and maybe I chose to imbibe the HR ones….how about you??

 

 

Running in Loops is Easier

In context of Mind-Body-Spirit, running is a contest between you and fatigue. Commonly fatigue is perceived as a physical problem you envision like rise in blood acidity or a lot of muscle tension, no doubt these are the causes of the tiredness but functioning of the brain plays a significant role in feeling drained out or energetic.

If your brain believes that your body is struggling it starts taking measures and defensive approaches that hampers your performance.  So actually, it is not that always your potassium levels are high but most of the times it is all in your head.

External factors affect running on a huge scale like running in a straight line or a loop. It is by far easier to run in loops as it provides the change factor that in turn motivates the runner. Looking at the same path, running the same course stagnates your performance and makes it highly monotonous. The monotony of running in the long straight line without being able to see the destination will eventually affect the person psychologically.

When a person begins to run in a loop, he is aware that he has to arrive at at the same point where he has started from. This creates a sense of known and awareness that are direct confidence boosters so he can judge accordingly the distance he has to cover and control the fluctuation in energy levels, while straight lines give a sense of unknown. You cannot see the finishing point that essentially drives and motivates you to reach at that point. 

Meeting our targets is the most motivating factor to get out and run. Loops create a mirage and make the distance look lesser to cover. Mind perceives the distance as an achievable short-term goal.

Ultimately, one needs to find out what works best for that little chamber of neurons to stay activated and send the signals to the body to run better. Whether it is focusing on a destination or enjoying Eminem on highest decibels.