Dr Randy Pausch’s Inspiring ‘Last Lecture’

Capello’s success lauded by management experts

23rd June

Following England’s victory against Slovenia this afternoon, Ruth Spellman, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) provides a post-match analysis of the manager the nation doubted:

“England’s all-important win today is testament to Capello’s proven track record as one of the world’s best football managers. His record at club level is exemplary and, when it comes to taking charge of our national team, we mustn’t forget that it was under Capello’s stewardship that England got through the qualifying stages in the first place. Despite recent speculation about his ability, and two disappointing draws, Capello has rallied his team and pulled England back from the brink of following France and South Africa into an early exit.

“A recent survey of UK workers revealed that, despite his fierce reputation, Capello is the manager one in five of us would most like to be managed by (second only to Sir Alex Ferguson). It is Capello’s ability to command respect that has undoubtedly enabled him to put criticism and media speculation aside and lead the England team to victory, averting a shameful early exit from World Cup 2010.

“Capello may have earned himself a reputation as disciplinarian, aloof and detached from his players but, in truth, it’s evident to us that his primary management strength is his ability to provide direction and communicate his vision to the team – he’s a born leader and it shows.

“The four foundation stones of good management are strong leadership, getting results, working with people and managing yourself, and the resources at your disposal, well. The last few days have proven that Capello is a master at all of these.

“But what can managers, leaders and employers across the country learn from his approach? Capello understands how to utilise the strengths of his particular management style in order to deliver the best results from his coaching. Whether you want to work for Capello, or just be a bit more like him, the key to improving your management technique and becoming a better all-round manager is knowing what you’re good at and how to develop any weaker areas. To learn more about your primary management strengths and whether you manage like Capello visit www.comparethemanager.com.”

Less Salary: Better Employee Motivation?

Hi everyone,

I’d like to draw your attention to this video released rather recently by the RSA that challenges our modern perceptions about what motivates employees.

Let’s hear your comments on this debate that could hold the key to improving employee engagement in our small or large companies.

5 Top Ways To Introduce The Culture of ‘Fun’ To The Workplace

“Fun” Workplaces are one of the biggest magnets for graduates looking for a bright place to launch their career. Early twenty-somethings, also known as Generation Y, aren’t just interested in a generous salary or promotion potential – they want to apply to companies that have a lively culture and accept that professionalism doesn’t necessarily mean boredom.

So how can you, as a manager, go about injecting a bit of fun into the daily working routine of your employees? Read on for our 6 favourite methods that have emerged in the past few years.

1. Pranks

Everyone enjoys a good laugh, and provided the victim gets to keep a fraction of their dignity – they will too. Having a atmosphere of quirky pranks will gel your team together as a more cohesive bunch. The more stories they can tell about each other, the more they’ll enjoy spending time together. Some suggested pranks:

• Computer Malfunction. This one is a classic prank, which is very annoying for the victim. First take a screen shot of the victim’s desktop. Now set this screen shot as the background and make it a point to hide all the icons and the task bar and lock them. Now if the victim tries to click anything nothing will work. They will think their computer is frozen and will try to reboot and do any and everything to get their computer to work.

• Post-it Prank. You will have to stay back late after your victim leaves the office or come to the office well in advance to play this prank. All you have to do is cover your co-workers desk and the entire cubicle with post-its. In case you want to make it seem more annoying, put funny messages on each of the post-it notes.

• Telephone Mania. You will need an accomplice for this one. All you need to do is get a co-workers phone, and your own phone and dial the phone numbers of two other co-workers you wish to harass. When the phones ring, switch on the speaker phones of both the phones and hold the phones together so that the two victims can hear each other. Once they start talking, just listen to the confused conversation and have the last laugh!

Find more fun prank ideas here. (External website)

2. Special Lunches/Trips

Once, every month – take your team out for a cinema trip and lunch combination. Being together outside of work will really help new teams to bond, and provide a fresh distraction for veteran employees. I have visited over 20 work places in the past 6 months, and when talking to the staff during their day to day business – they sound the proudest when discussing various perks or activities that management arrange on a weekly or monthly basis.

“Every Tuesday, they pop over the road and buy us all Fish & Chips!” they proudly exclaim. My jealousy only makes their smile widen.

Its amazing how buying a simple lunch can sometimes do more wonders for the motivation of employees when compared with an expensive leadership development programmes or other leadership training.

3. Sweets

Buy sweets spontaneously and leave them in the office or workplace. Never underestimate the power of sweets to lift up moods and turn the harshest boss back into a school child as their face lights up.

4.  Humourous Awards

Whether at the Christmas party – or better – every month or quarter, dish out humourous awards to your staff for various funny qualities or achievements. Here are some examples:

• “Change of Address” - For the staff member who never leaves.

• “The Lochness Award” – Staff member least likely to be found.

• “The Torvill and Dean Award” – For skating round the issues

• “The Selective Hearing Impairment Award” – For only hearing what you want to hear

• “The Clock Watcher” – For being out never later than a minute past 5!

• “The Professional Surfer” – For most time spent on the internet.

• “The Bermuda Triangle Award” – For the desk where things go in and never come out!

5. Allow fun!

The most important element of this list is that in order for your employees to have a good time – you have to really let them! Show leadership in playing pranks yourself and having fun everyday. Officially tweaking company policy to incoporate ‘fun’ into the culture will have as much effect as including it in the small print of their contract – unless you show them that you’re truely commited to them having a good time, and that you won’t frown upon workers for trying to do so.

I hope you enjoyed this guide on how to have a more fun office environment. Fun is the greater motivator, so go out and create some!

Author – Simon Oates – leadership-expert.co.uk

100+ Brilliant Ways To Motivate Staff In A Recession

As times are getting harder, managers have been re-evaluating how they motivate their workforce. At Leadership Expert, we’ve put together this comphrehensive collection of motivation tips & tricks to help managers increase their employee’s productivity in this tough economic climate. Most of the tips don’t involve spending a penny, and the ones that do will create far more value than you spent, meaning they’re perfect to use during a recession.

One final point to make before we embark on this list, is that you should consider this a ‘sweet shop’ of motivation tips, i.e. you should only pick a few and certainly not attempt to implement them all. There’s nothing worse than being sandblasted by motivational techniques.

Policy

1. One-on-One coaching - People appreciate learning directly from their senior on an individual basis. It helps them remember what they learn, and ask any questions they wish to help form a deep understanding of their work.

2. Training - In general, training is one of the most empowering tools a company can offer it’s employees. Subsquently all large companies invest heavily in training and enjoy the long term payoff.

3. Clear Career Path – Staff are better motivated when they can see where they should be in 3 years time if they work hard. The more barriers between them and promotion that cannot be solved by hard work will only demotivate.

4. Safe Work Environment – Maslow theorised that safety is one of the fundemental pillars of motivation, and that a safe work environment is necessary for all other motivating factors (such as self esteem) to start having a positive effect.

5. Executive Recognition - A congratulatory conference call from the CEO or visit from the finance director will do well to swell the chests of your workforce with pride and admiration for their work.

6. Time off - Motivated employees will not gladly take time off, however a generous time-off system needs to be in place to create motivated employees. Staff are likely to work harder and longer with the safety and knowledge that should they need time off due to stress, they could take it.

7. Encourage employees to praise good work of their fellow colleagues – Build a feedback procedure whereby collegues regularly pass comment on each others work, or team mates share their opinions after completing a major task. Feedback such as this helps reduce infighting and will give many people tips on how to improve their work.

8. Be sympathetic to personal problems – Offer generous time off for those who suffer bereavement. In most cases it won’t be taken, but the gesture will improve relations between managers and staff.

9. Keep your door open – An open office encourages the open share of ideas. You want to remove any barriers to communication, and a closed door certainly constitutes a barrier.

10. Allow flexible working hours - Allowing employees to manage their own time so they can participate in outside work-related activities won’t make their hours shorter. Employees who would take time off to see their child’s sports day will likely ‘pay back’ the favour by working longer hours afterwards.

11.  Have annual or quarterly reviews – These are where an employee goes through some targets and review points with another member of staff who is not directly above them, and is more of a guidance counsellor than a boss.This will allow them to discuss important long term career topics that will feed their desire to work.

12. Let your employees choose their own lunch break- Unless your company happens to be a food outlet, it really doesn’t matter whether your employee takes their lunch at 11:30 or 2pm, so don’t attempt to force them to stick to a routine.

13. Forward information to staff after management meetings - A quick debriefing will increase their sense of involvement.

14. Rotate job roles – More appropriate for manufaturing, the rotation of job roles has been proven many times to increase employee productivity, despite the decrease in specialisation. This technique can be applied to any low to medium skilled jobs with a powerful effect. Multi-skilled workers also make life easier for your HR department.

15. Provide quarterly updates on relevant business and customer issues – many members of staff aspire to be senior management in the future, and will thrive on being kept in the loop when it comes to high-level business infomation.

16. Give an incentive to get employees to work earlier in the morning - I’ve learnt from experience that if a salary-based employee gets to work an hour earlier, it is likely they will work until their usual finishing time.

17. Support charity work within the company – Donate 1 or 2 days of charity work per year to good causes. This will help your business get into the local media and make staff feel like they’re a part of a responsible company.

18. Address the environment issue – While we’re on the subject of responsibility, it’s worth noting that employees prefer working for a company with green credentials, so setting a carbon reduction/ energy efficiency/ recycling intiative will help enthuse the workforce.

19. Give your employees choice over their uniform – Often a business casual work dress code makes employees feel more independent than full suit and tie – which is often not necessary in an office environment.

20. Obey confidentiality – A manager who pretends to care about his employees but simply laughs and bitches about them behind their back will loose all respect and credibility extremely quickly.

Freebies

21. Offer stress management/counselling services – These services are easy to outsource and admitedly are very rarely used. But the availability of such a service increases moral without costing you a penny.

22. Use gimmicks -  Give out novetly ‘trophy’ style items for exceptional work. For example, give a LP record for an employee breaking a record.

23. Bring in sweets to share out on random days – This is a cheap technique that will improve the relationship between management and the workforce.

24. Give out tickets to cultured events such as theatres and music shows.

25. Send a company T-shirt or hat to the employee’s child(ren).

26. Walk around with free lunch coupons -  Hand out on the spot.

27. Give workers a surprise for their work area - A desk organizer, a picture or poster, a new mouse pad even. Any new gift will be an interesting novelty.

28. Give a subscription to a work-related periodical - This is an interesting gift that shows your commitment to their professional development.

29. Buy lottery tickets or scratch cards for people on an irregular basis.

30. Hand out classic self help literature and excellant leadership books – Hand these out to entire departments at a time, or they may feel that you’re indirectly critisising them. Success literature can really inspire employees to work harder – but be wary of the core message of the book. Many of these books encourage workers to quit their 9-5 jobs.

Behaviour

31. Give recognition – Every worker wishes wants to be ‘known’ by those above them, so talk about your workers to your managing collegues and ensure that none of your subordinates go un-noticed.

32. Give Attention – To be distinguished from recognition. Recognition is the long term awareness that boosts self esteem, whereas attention is a short term devotion of time that will keep employees on task and able to voice concerns as early as possible.

33. Applause - Because sometimes words just aren’t enough.

34. Always carry a smile – I once knew a senior manager who famously was never seen with a negative expression on his face. This sort of reputation really inspired subordinates such as myself, and completely stands again the cynicism and sarcasm that exist in workplaces across the country.

35. ‘Manage by wandering around’ – Rather than calling employees to your office, go and visit them yourself. This is a sign of respect and reduces the interuptive impact you have on your team.

36. Listening to employee efficiency suggestions – And more importantly you should be acting on as many as possible, even the petty suggestions. This way you build up credibility in the system, leading to more important, significant proposals to be put forward in the future.

37. Lead by example and follow through with what you say. Just as following through with suggestion box comments you build credibility in the system, if you follow through with your own promises, you build credibility in the system of management as a whole.

38. Ask! - Ask the employees what they want from you.

39. Listen! – Listen to what employees have to say about YOU and what you can personally improve upon.

40. Add a personal touch by going out of your way to inconvenience yourself to please a member of staff. Just the occasional gesture in a busy period can be enough to remove that employees doubt over whether you have their best interests at heart.

41. Understand employee behaviour - Often a negative attitiude or behaviour is a direct response to bad controls/procedures that you can correct or change.

42. Write thankyou notes fairly regularly – These notes only take a second, and will float around for a long time, making the employee feel proud.

43. Actively make a point to speak to every member of staff each day. This doesn’t need to be a major catch up, but just enough so that you’re maintaining a good working relationship, and they would feel comfortable in coming to you when they’re struggling.

44. Ask employees “What can I do to help you with your job?”. You may surprised at the responses and ideas you get in return. A little help like this can sometimes be more effect than formal leadership coaching or leadership training.

45. Get your hands dirty with your staff -  Learn about the good and bad aspects of their day to day work. Only through understanding what their day actually entails will you be able to see what would motivate and enthuse this person to work more effectively.

46. Show the courage to let your employees learn from their mistakes - Don’t jump on their error and shout at them, as they will already feel embarassed enough. Managers often destroy many hours of work building up trust and enthusiasm by loosing control and shouting at workers when things go badly. Nothing destroys intrinsic motivation quite as quickly as raving tyrant.

47. Show great confidence in relying on subordinates expertise in areas that you have none – Trusting in the skills of others is a sign of a great leader. It will improve the confidence of others as well as take some weight and responsibility off your shoulders.

48. Stand behind your employees and back their decisions -  Similar to relying on a subordinates’ expertise, this will improve their view of their own skills, and benefit you in the long run.

49. If you have many employees with the same job title, give them a list of the tasks that need doing and let them divide the work up among themselves. It reduces the feeling of ‘meddling manegement’ and allows for more efficient work allocation - as people are more likely to take on jobs that they’re personally good at.

50. Don’t be a pushover -  While nearly every employee would love to have a soft manager, they would also admit that it is because they would do less work. Be clear with orders and don’t allow yourself to be fobbed off with excuses.

Financial Incentives

51. Arrange discounts for them at local stores to increase loyalty

52. Offer rewards for great ideas. If it saves money or brings in business, give the employee a percentage of the savings or profit. – entreprenial atttiude.

53. Send $10, $25 or more to a spouse with a thank-you note for his or her support during the employee’s overtime.

54. Pay an employees rent for a month - This will take the weight of their shoulders more than a simple cheque would. Give your employee piece of mind.

55. Pay for the tutoring of an employee’s child - This is a generous ‘donation’ that will really help establish true loyalty and admiration for the company.

56. Give employees who recruit new workers a cash bonus.

57. Sponsor membership in a professional group for your employee.

58. Surprise your staff with a new challenege out of the blue – Give your employees 2 weeks to increase their sales by 15% for a 5% salary bonus reward and watch how they suddenly start looking at their work in a whole different way.

59. Move your staff onto more heavy commission based salaries – This brings employees personal goals in line with those of a sales department. A word of warning – make sure the variable upon which the commission is based is what you truely want. Because staff will often chase that commission at the expense of others goals such as customer satisfaction and quality of service.

60. Give out gift vouchers as a way of rewarding individuals for a good job on a specific task – Amounts of £50 are respectable but won’t break the bank. You can reserve these for when staff members have demonstrated working by company’s values, or have shown hard work.

61. Give generous staff discounts on products - This is a rather standard perk in the modern day, but its effect on employee morale must not be forgotten.

Activities

62. Pizza/Popcorn/Cookie Days - These really put a smile on alot of employees faces. Just hope that few people are on strict diets at the time!

63. External Seminars - These can be attended by individuals, teams or whole departments if they’r relevant. Trips to seminars, events and conferences can be a welcome break from work for staff, while actually still building their skills and adding value to the company.

64. Dress-down Days – Again, another motivational tool that has become a standard in all companies large and small. And why are they popular? Because it really does improve morale!

65. Leadership Teasers - Give employees a glimpse at what it is like to run a team, lead a division or speak in public. These positive ‘taster’ leadership sessions will really get them hooked onto their career track and really kick start leadership development.

66. Share letters of praise from customers with the member(s) of staff involved - A kind word from a customer not only gives effective feedback on the service at your organisation, but it also warms the hearts and motivates the staff who read the mark of appreciation. These are so effective that I would suggest you contact customers to ask for feedback.

67.  Have a family day - Perhaps on the last day before a public holiday, you could arrange for staff to bring their children to work. As well as lightening the atmosphere of the workplace, it also helps create harmony and understanding between workers, as they come to understand more about each other and what they’re like as a family person.

68. Go to lunch with each one of your employees on a quarterly basis – Ask the question, “What do we need to do to keep you with us?”

69. Invite employees to your home for a special event - This gives you the opportunity to recognise them in front of their spouses and co-workers. Obviously only suitable for small businesses or departments, this activity is a rare but powerful one.

70. Let them attend a meeting in your place – As well as giving temporary empowerment to your staff, letting them sit in or replace you in a meeting also will increase their understanding of what pressures you are under and what you need from them.

71. Let them “sit-in” with an upper level person for part of a day – Similar to the leadership taster, this shadowing of senior management is more appropriate for junior members of staff. Middle management may feel uneasy about taking a perceived  ‘step back’ into the activity of shadowing.

72. Involve them in a special project that allows for company exposure and visibility. Such as being written about in the news. All too often – these sorts of tasks are handled by only a couple of individuals who become desensitised to the novelty of being publically recognised. By rotating these sort of tasks round a larger number of employees, you are efficiently maximising the motivation gained from such a job position.

73. Let your employees craft the mission statement – More and more managers are discovering how effective this is as a motivational tool. It’s most powerful when absolutely every employee contributes torwards it’s creation. Without proper employee involvement – mission statements are simply empty rhetorical ‘wish lists’ of values and objectives put forward by the CEO.

74. Minature golf and other fun indoor activities - Fun golf courses, bowling alleys, Scalextric tacks and casino tables can be affordably hired in a recession as businesses cut back on novelty client entertainment and expenses. You can use this to your advantage by hiring such fun equipment to become the centrepiece of a project-end event. Having something fun to look forward to at the end of each major project will have a motivational effect.

75. Team building days out – In a similar fashion, outdoor activity courses and events can also be used to keep your staff happy and promote good team leadership.

76. Hand out awards - Prizes for awards such as ‘best team player’, ‘best attitude’ etc should be also accompanied by humourous ‘caffeine addict’, ‘chief photocopier person’ and other quirky awards.

77. Run short term target-based competitions between staff for freebies or bonuses. But ensure a level playing field or you’ll only create frustration and conflict!

78. Take your employees to the cinema. Cinemas offer cheap corporate deals and will cater well for your employees. Picking the right film is tricky though!

79. Promote the creation of company sports teams – These will help build ties across departments. Encourage recruitment from all areas, rather than simply being teams of  cliques.

Other

80. Develop a Wall of Fame to share letters of praise and similar with everyone in the office – Put it near the photocopier for maximum exposure.

81.  Create personalised rewards – everyone values different types of rewards more than others. Some workers prefer time off, others prefer cash, so ask people which they’d prefer before setting up any bonus or reward scheme.

82. Additional Responsibility – While you may grimace at the idea of being given ‘another’ batch of responsibility, a more junior member of staff may actually jump at the thought. Start leadership programmes that give subordinates that opportunity at stepping up.

83. When pay cheques are sent out, always write a note on the envelope recognizing an employee’s accomplishment(s).

84. Try to remove all the cynical and sarcastic posters & slogans from around the office. They provide a cheap giggle but demoralise staff. A quick example of short term benefit, long term pain.

85. Remember birthdays with a simple birthday card, mini cake or gift.

86. Take out an advertisement in a local paper and include your star employees’ names and pictures in the feature.

87. Speak truthfully and transparently – All employees have a good skill at knowing when they’re being lied to, so don’t even attempt to pull the wool over their eyes. Learn from Obama – he didn’t try to tell America that the economic was just a ‘little’ bit under-the-weather; he told it how it was. Rather than trying to cover up the failings in a company, instead emphasise how you are going to solve it, and employees will reward you with hard work.

88. Increase your employees span of control – this decreases costs and motivates them if they’re the type that crave control and authority.

89. Remind people of what drives them to do what they do. Allow pictures of family and other such drivers to be strewn around the office, and talk to them about their family, their dreams for the future and desires. You can use their dreams to motivate them easily.

90. Pin up genuine motivational posters etc around the office. These motivational quotes really do inspire some people.

91. Get your employees to replace their default screen saver with a playful ‘Get off your butt and back to work’ message that they’ve typed themselves.

92. Let employees give new recruits on-the-job training - It’ll show them how much they’ve grown as an employee in your company and leave them feeling senior and skilled.

93. Make sure you know everyones name in the office - whether they’re in your span of control or not.

94. Ensure free coffee is available. Caffeine or hot chocolate will always help!

95. Have a bowl of fresh fruit for employees to snack on – The women especially will appreciate this nice gesture, yet it only costs a tiny amount per day.

96. Make sure the service staff (cleaners, janitor, receptionist) greet staff throughout the day, rather than simply trying to be invisible.

97. Play the occasional tasteful practical joke

98. Invite in a motivational speaker to talk to your staff - These speakers often charge high fees however, so ensure that their key messages concern long lasting motivation rather than a ‘fad-like’ short term buzz that will fade as the speaker slips from memory.

99. Give your team a cool team name - Admittedly easier said than done.

100. Ensure that all members of staff feel that they are the best at at least one task - This will give them a ‘place’ in the organisation and make them feel important.

101. Finally -  Share this blog post with other managers in your organisation!

Phew! We’re done! If you found this article as helpful as I enjoyed making it, then please use some of the neat buttons below to help share this motivational advice across the world!

Daily Motivation – What Motivates You Everyday?

Every experience that a person has impacts him or her positively or negatively. All of the positive moments most likely enhance our daily motivation. Daily motivation is what enables us to strive to be better people, to work towards goals, and to lead fulfilling lives.

Setting goals:
Many of us set goals for ourselves. In turn, these goals motivate us to work hard to achieve success. Goals drive an individual’s daily motivation. Goals such as getting a Master’s degree, having a high-paying job, getting married, purchasing an expensive car, or mortgaging a home drive a person to succeed. When setting a goal, a person must remember that taking small steps to achieve it helps keep up a positive attitude. It is best not to get overwhelmed with attaining a huge goal quickly; but rather one should take small steps to get it done. The desire to accomplish a goal is what keeps people going, even on bad days.

Self Investment
Daily Motivation is completely intertwined with the idea of self-investment. The most productive and driven people are never afraid to invest in themselves. Leaders have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. These days, many e-courses tend to be rather disappointing, but I’m pleased to recommend one e-courses from time to time that are still respected by leadership professionals such as myself.

Attitude:
A positive attitude is a source of daily motivation. Believing that one of your goals is too difficult to achieve will eventually prevent you from achieving it. Having a negative attitude will cause you both internal and external stress. A negative attitude will de-motivate you, and put you on the road to failure. To achieve your goals, you must be able to tell yourself that every goal can be attained with hard work. If you tell yourself that you can do it, chances are that you will. Never underestimate the power of the mind. Daily motivation is all about attitude and outlook.

Religion:
While not all of us are religious, many people who are will agree that religion helps improve daily motivation. Religion can be used as a great motivational tool for people from all walks of life. Religion – no matter what kind – encourages mindfulness and internal motivation. The religious depend on their beliefs to strengthen them mentally.

People often depend on their religion when things are going downhill. Prayer and meditation inspire those who might otherwise turn to drinking, food, or drugs to nurture their spirits. Religion may help some people to be more mentally and physically healthy. Therefore, religion is a positive source of daily motivation.

The Desire To Live:
Daily motivation also comes in the simple desire to live. Whether children, a job, or money inspires someone to get out of bed in the morning, that person is motivated by something in life.

Even things as simple as nature can motivate someone to maintain a positive attitude about life even when times get hard. A person can take pleasure in nature’s beauty by taking time to smell the roses or listen to the birds sing. Studies show that people who live in warmer climates have a more positive attitude about life in general. These same people also have the tendency to go outside and exercise more often. This exercise brings about a sense of inner peace and positive feelings, thus becoming a daily motivation for many people.

Guest Author: Matthew Hick – http://Motivation-Today.com

Motivational Quotes

Motivational quotes work really well to inspire an individual and help him or her overcome the toughest phase of life. Now, the challenge can be to come out of the smoking phase, recovering from low self esteem, health issues, weight loss or to enhance their qualities.

Quotes for motivation also posses the power to rewrite negative thoughts that may have extend your mind. This is a great way to achieve success.

There is a need to surround you with positive motivational quotes. This is a fantastic way to overcome a temporary set back that has entered your life. These quotes are capable of instilling you with positive energy and zest. You will definitely feel changed up once you read them.

For instance, if you have been given a project, that you want to accomplish and you think that the task is really difficult. This situation is enough to make you feel bad and discouraged.

However, how would you feel if you suddenly happen to read something like the following?

- “Success comes to those who dare and act.”

- “Nothing is impossible in life as the word impossible itself says ‘I’m possible.”

- “Dream, plan, believe and act. The success is just a step ahead.”

- “Believe you can and you will.”

In short, quotes for motivation around you can add up to the zest in your life.

Motivation is also completely intertwined with the idea of self-investment.

As an alternative method, many motivated leaders I have come across regularly invest in themselves. Leaders have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and motivation. These days, many e-courses tend to be rather disappointing, but there are a few e-courses that are still respected by leadership professionals such as myself such as The 11 Forgotten Laws. It’s generally seen as an essential and core ‘crash course’ in the laws and secrets you need to know to further your leadership & career and even help find happiness in other areas of your life. It’s an excellent base upon which you can build your personal development.

Benefit of using quotes for motivation:

a) Strength and Commitment

Quotes for motivation help in making you strong and committed. There are excellent sources to inspire you to excel in your field and out beat others. Most successful personalities across the globe have got inspiration from motivation quotes and instances. For example the great Napoleon Bonaparte got his inspiration to succeed from an ant who tried to take in food towards the wall and had fallen many times prior to getting to the final destination.

b) Encouragement in the time of despair

There are times when things go wrong and don’t work out. You need a strong source of encouragement during this period. There is a lot in these quotes that will help you to take good action and also strengthen your mind processes and thoughts. If you read these quotes and apply them in your life, you would definitely succeed in your mission.

How to use quotes for motivation effectively:

Once you have chosen a motivational quote related to your goal, you need to print it. Get it printed on a nice paper in an attractive font. You can even write it down in your best handwriting. Make sure that the quote you have chosen for yourself really provides you a kick.

Now, it’s time to display it at places where they are most effective. Stick these notes on a bathroom mirror, dashboard, screensaver, Billboard around your desk or in a picture frame above your bed.

Once you have placed these quotes for motivation at their best locations, read them frequently, several times in a day. Try to say these aloud. Feel them and most importantly believe them. You will see a major difference in your motivation.

Ultimate Guide To Leadership Motivation

You may be looking for the Ultimate Leadership Guide.

Intrinsic motivation is when an individual is motivated by internal factors, as opposed to external factors.

Examples of intrinsic motivation would be doing something because you feel it is the moral and ethical thing to do; doing something because you know it will benefit others or doing something because it brings you pleasure and joy.

The latter is common in regards to an enjoyable pastime or a hobby.

It is believed that intrinsic motivation is far stronger than extrinsic motivation however there are times when extrinsic motivation can become stronger because it displaces intrinsic motivation.

This is known as the overjustification effect. For example this occurs when you begin doing something for intrinsic reasons and then are offered monies or another type of reward for doing it that overrides the reason you started doing it in the first place.

In many cases when this happens, a person loses interest in the activity once the reward is taken away. The key is to not offer large extrinsic rewards for something that is meant to be motivated intrinsically (in other words, from within).

Motivation is also completely intertwined with the idea of self-investment.

As an alternative method, many motivated leaders I have come across regularly invest in themselves. Leaders have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and motivation. These days, many e-courses tend to be rather disappointing, but there are a few e-courses that are still respected by leadership professionals such as myself such as The 11 Forgotten Laws. It’s generally seen as an essential and core ‘crash course’ in the laws and secrets you need to know to further your leadership & career and even help find happiness in other areas of your life. It’s an excellent base upon which you can build your personal development.

Intrinsic motivation has been widely studied by researchers in the realm of education since the start of the 1970s and their findings have been that when students are intrinsically motivated to do well in school, they tend to perform better, make higher marks and they also tend to enjoy the material they are learning a great deal more.

A man named Bernard Weiner created a theory known as the “Attribution Theory” and he looked at such things as the orientation of goals and the locus of control (internal and external).

As an aside, an internal locus of control is when a person believes that they have control over what happens to them whereas an external locus of control means that a person believes that control is outside of themselves and has more to do with extraneous factors as opposed to their own actions.

According to Bernard Weiner, students are much more likely to possess intrinsic motivation in their studies if they feel that their educational achievements have more to do with their own efforts as opposed to anything else.

As well students will experience intrinsic motivation if they feel that they play a paramount role in attaining their own personal educational goals as opposed to feeling as those it has more to do with luck or simply a “roll of the dice.” Finally when students have motivation that comes from within they will work harder to completely understand and master a given subject as opposed to simply learning the work at hand so they can pass a test or exam and then forgetting it afterwards.

Keep in mind that intrinsic motivation holds no promise of rewards for students as opposed to extrinsic motivation, which is all about rewards.

Many decades of research has given rise to a theory known as “Goal Theory” which has shown that intrinsic motivation in some communities and groups is altruistic in nature as the desire to help others and contribute to the greater whole is the number one motivator.

When a person appeals to the common good or does something based on a moral obligation or commitment to others this is when intrinsic motivation is shown to be alive and well in the world.

Guest Author:

Charles Williams is a writer for http://www.lsft.org which is an excellent place to find Motivation and Self Improvment links, For more information go to:www.lsft.org

Are You Getting The Most Out Of Corporate Awards?

When you think about all of the different resources that your company has, which do you get the most value from? Is it from the machinery or is it from the people who work for you? In the end, the people are the ones who are most valuable and create the greatest value. This article will look at why corporate awards are so important to taking your business to the next level.

When you first start thinking about where your business is and where you want your business to grow, where do your employees fit within the picture? Your employees’ productivity and contributions to the business will be what can take you to that next level. To increase the contributions your employees make to the business, it is important to create an environment which fosters happiness and where people want to come to work. This will boost employee motivation and consequently your productivity as well.

Creating that environment can start with making sure people are happy. Part of what makes people happy is recognition for a job well done. This is where corporate awards can come into play. It gives you a chance to recognize employees for a job well-done. In the end, employee longevity and your rate of turnover often have less to do with the pay scale than employee perceptions of the workplace and whether they want to come to work in the morning.

You can use corporate awards in a variety of different situations to recognize your employees. You may decide to do an employee of the month and the winner receives a corporate award. This could be something that employees vote on so that more people are engaged and paying attention to the efforts that others make. Many people will become conscious of others’ efforts and this may raise their level of performance as well. You could have an award for the “Contributor of the Year” for that person who has done the most to build your business for a particular year. You could have specific corporate awards for each particular department. These awards can be used because different departments may have different requirements for what a good job is. The same behaviors and actions that make a good accountant do not equal what it takes to be a good salesperson. You may want to recognize someone in each department consequently with a corporate award.

Corporate awards can be a single piece of your employee recognition and motivation plan. It comes down to developing your talent to a greater level and one of the best ways to do this is through motivating and developing your employees. In these times of financial struggle for both corporations and individuals, it is essential to find ways to keep and build that talent on your team. If you were able to make your employees happier and more productive simply by investing in corporate awards, would you not? This is much less expensive than having to hire new workers to do more work when your existing team can do it if they are happy and satisfied people. So for efficient leadership management, and a cost effective technique that is cheaper than leadership training, leadership coaching or even investing in a batch of leadership books, try corporate awards.

Guest Author:

Mary writes articles for helping executive shoppers find gifts and how to benefit from personalized executive gifts, promotional products, and corporate awards. Her work is sponsored by Wealthwood http://www.wealthwood.com/corporate_awards/ http://blogwealthwood.com/awards-trophies-plaques/.