Month: April 2018

Motivation (the most misunderstood emotion)

I work as a corporate professional. And I also participate in a lot of public speaking.

In both arenas, the word motivation comes into a lot of conversations. It seems like an important concept for people in both these circles but often I’ve noticed people having a very loose understanding of what motivation is.

In the corporate world, I’ve seen that people believe motivation is something you can manage by rewards & recognition and punishments & consequences. It’s a basic ‘carrot & stick’ model. But it’s too bad for old school bosses that men have evolved from being mere donkeys and the carrots & sticks are not working so well as they used to. I argue that in this carrot & stick model, the people who’re trying to motivate someone are missing a very important characteristic of motivation. That motivation is not just generated by extrinsic factors, but also by intrinsic factors. That maybe last century’s factory workers would have rejoiced at the prospect of an overtime pay but today’s knowledge workers need things like alignment of values & purpose to feel motivated & take consistent action.

Now if we take a look at the world of public speaking, the moment someone says motivation, 99% people would confuse it with positivity. When I say ‘motivational speaker’ don’t you automatically think of a charismatic man up on the stage, giving you a string of positive life affirming messages through an up-beat speech? That is ofcourse the stereotype. But here also, I argue that people who think motivation is synonymous with positivity are ignoring a whole aspect of motivation, which is called negative motivation. It’s been scientifically proven that people are more likely to avoid loss than going for gains, when given a chance. Loss aversion is a powerful drive in human behaviour, and some of the most powerful motivational speakers I know, utilize this drive to the very best.

All you need to know is that motivation is ultimately an emotion. It is an internal drive that makes you want to take (or not take) an action. And it’s a subject worth reading & understanding. Because over a long period, your ability to motivate yourself & others around you to take favourable actions, will be the single most determining factor in your success. {However you wish to define success for yourself}

PS: Watch this fabulous talk on motivation by Daniel Pink (time 18:36 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y

How to set yourself up for failure (Intelligently)

It’s very simple. You will fail. A lot. No matter who or where you are, what your qualities & capabilities may be. It’s a universal law of nature that no man or woman can glide through life without failing at things they try or falling short of their expectations.

Of all the new projects you start, whether personal or professional, you end up failing at significantly more than half of them, if you’re normal. And that’s alright. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just the way it is.

But what if I told you there’s a way to hack this. Failure is inevitable, but there is a particular approach through which you can derive benefits from your failures.

I learnt about this approach for the first time in one of Scott Adams’ book (he’s the guy who created famous comic strip ‘Dilbert’).

This approach conceptualizes: more skills equals more chances of overall success in life. Basically learning new skills is a good thing. It’s beneficial in every respect.

So how does this relate to failure? Scott tells his readers to always be on the lookout for projects/jobs/experiences that will leave them with one or more new skills, even if they failed at those projects/jobs/experiences. The trick is to choose your failures wisely.

For example, you might be contemplating whether or not to take an internship in a start-up. There could be high chances that you fail big time, but if the experience has potential to teach you skills like managing multiple projects, taking radical responsibility, fast paced decision making & execution, then the net gain from this experience is bound to be positive.

{this was an entirely cooked up example. Insert your own predicament here}

 

This kind of thinking can also help with getting more value for your time invested. Before entering into any project, you can ask yourself “what skills, habits or relationships can this experience help me build, even if I fail?”

Hence by focusing on the answer to the above question throughout the project, you will be diversifying your time/energy investment & would save yourself from putting all your eggs in one basket.

 

If you want to take a look at all the books I’ve read, click here: The list

Happy learning!

 

To ‘Ship’

Here’s an idea.

Is it better to continually improve upon the quality of your production, and ship the product when & only when it’s become the best work of yours?

Or is it better to have stringent timelines & ship the product when the due date has arrived, whether or not “you think” it’s ready to be shipped or not?

In this world of information & choice overload, who wins? The one who has the best offering? Or the one who has a huge string of good enough offerings out there in the market?

Elizabeth Gilbert, best selling author of Eat Pray Love says “Done is better than Good”.

*In a product related company’s context, ‘to ship’ means to introduce/launch your product in the market.

*In a creative context, it means to share your ideas with an audience. It may mean posting your blog/article, whether or not you think it’s a perfect encapsulation of your ideas or not.

 

Is it not that having a ‘shipping’ mentality is a matter of discipline?

For some reason, people tend to think that if they commit to a set timeline they’d end up compromising on quality. But is it not a common aspect of human behaviour to delay taking action using whatever justification is available? Can this weird obsession of bringing quality be just another action-delaying-mechanism?

As I write this, I’m struggling myself to find the answer to the above questions. I invite the reader to take a minute and ponder on this thought herself, to put it in context of her own situation, and come up with her own answer.

Is done really better than good?