GEMBA7-OBSession3 Vinodh Sankaran Learning Journal

Am I paid enough? Is my job interesting? Am I happy with my Job? These are common questions which arises in everyone's day to day life. Today my post is about "Motivation". How often are you motivated in your work place or in life? Motivation is the key factor through which employees and organization achieve their goals. In my case recognition, job satisfaction, promotions, awards, family, job interest, needs, feedback and money are the key factors which motivates me to work. Motivating factors depends up on individual's interest and needs. Even a strong motivational speech can make a huge difference locker room speech given by the football coaches before the national championship game or take the famous Steve jobs motivational speech on graduation ceremony at Stanford University in 2005(Thanks to Stanford.edu). I always motivate my team members so that they can foster the productivity.

Each organization follows their own style of motivating factors to motivate their employees. A competitive salary package, bonuses, health benefits, employee discounts, tuition aid, job rotation and awards are some of the key motivational factors which AT&T uses to motivate their employees. We also use Goal setting theory in our organization. A common smart goal is developed and it is converted in to individuals' goal based on their organization needs and interest. All our quarterly incentives are tied up with the goals and market performance. So we get bonuses every quarter, which psychologically boost the moral of employees.

In my organization to avoid the monotonous and job boredom we introduced job rotation program among the organization where an employee will be rotated every 18 months to different jobs to different teams. This had not only avoided the boredom it also educated the employee in all aspects and made them more powerful. I always motivate my team members regularly by giving thank you card, honest feedback, taking lunch often, birthday cakes, hosting super bowl potluck, gift coupons etc. In case of any family emergencies or severe weather I allow my employees to telecommute or be flexible with work hours, which will encourage to work with positive mind. I also allow my employees to take decision during key time, which will morally motivate them at work I learned this art from my manager Marcus. Motivation is one of the sensitive and key factor in an organization I hope you all enjoyed my view of motivation.

Both my teams Georgia Tech and Clemson University are 4-0 as of now I hope they will be unbeaten until they meet on october 29th at GA tech. Please be free to give me feedback about my blog. See you all soon with my next post.

Thanks

Vino

GEMBA7-OBSession2 Vinodh Sankaran Learning Journal

A person to succeed in his job he should be first satisfied with what he is doing. He should give heart and soul to his work. In simple words he should be satisfied with his job then only it will be win-win case for individual and also for the organization. I will make sure my team members are always happy with their projects assigned and also highly satisfied with what they are doing. As a manager I always knew my team members interest and needs and I will assign jobs based on that.If an employee is not satisfied with the job he is involved that will spoil the team environment because the particular employee may not be loyal and honest to his team members.

To be frank even if I am not satisfied with my job it will create a negative mood and emotions permanently. I always prefer to do "Sport or Casual Chat" on every monday morning and make my people happy with little humor so that a positive mood will be created before they get in to their job. Sometimes I personally sacrifice my emotions and mood for my team. If my mood is not good because of personal or health issues I will sacrifice it and will prepare myself to be in good mood because it makes huge difference. I personally like people who thinks positive, open minded, open to innovative thinking because it not only improve their performance at work it will also increase the team members mood and confidence.

How to find the positive people? A personality test will try to help manager to identify the character and attitude of his team members. Few weeks before I got an opportunity to take personality tests IPIP-NEO and Myers-Briggs type inventory (MTBI) background. I am so impressed with the end product because both the results resembles the mirror image of my character and attitude. This helped me to understand more about myself. I would like to introduce these tests to my team members so that I can get a chance to know more about my team members that would help me to create a positive vibration among my team. These two test are also depends on people mood and emotion if they are in negative mood and emotions the result will vary so it is highly recommended to take these tests in good mood.

Based on the MTBI test result I am a ENFJ(Extraversion, Intuition, feeling and judging)personality person. In order to have diverse team I would prefer to have different personality person with positive mind in my team and these two tests will help me to achieve that goal. But judging people is also one of the challenging job for manager. A manager may have his own style of judging people but I prefer to judge people based on the situation with my honest heart and take decision after a thorough research. Decision making plays a major role for human in all aspect of life. For example if you wanna buy a used or new you have to do thorough research and make a decision. Managers will be having their own style of judging and decision making model to find and hire the positive people.

Even though you have positive people in your team it all depends up on "Motivational Factors" you follow in the team which will produce a fantastic result. So my next blog will be on "Motivation" catch you all soon. Be free to give a feedback.

Thanks

Vino