Motivation, Exploring the Drive Forces that Influence Our Behaviour: How Can Our Work Places Support Us?

By Dr Elizabeth Wallace

What makes a person 'tick?'

This book is a must for individuals wanting to know about all the drives that combine to produce behaviour. It is a must for all business if these organisations are going to harness the positive attributes of their employees to help them become both more productive and profitable.

Where does motivational drive come from? This book addresses this question and presents an overview of the many drives that can influence a person to behave in the way in which they do.

Motivation is looked at in terms of attaining life success and achievement. Factors such as the importance of a nurturing environment; the importance of positive reinforcement, encouragement and praise; and aiming for the best in life are discussed. The book focus is on individuals and organisations: exploring how individuals can evaluate their organizations when looking for jobs, before becoming employees. It is useful for individuals and enterprises that want to know how organisations can harness the motivational forces of employees to support overall improved productivity and profit making.

Two case studies are presented to analyze motivational forces and these can be helpful to students studying organisational and behavioural psychology. The book is illustrated throughout with humorous 'Ant & Tiger' simple line drawing cartoons characteristic of Elizabeth Wallace books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626753945

Book preview

Organization?

CHAPTER ONE

WHERE DOES DRIVE COME FROM?

Ever since I was small, I wanted to be somebody. Secretly inside me, I’ve always wanted a life that was not just ‘ordinary’ but extraordinary. I always imagined myself living in London, Sydney, or New York. Now I’ve lived on all of these places …(Not bad for an ordinary kid growing up in Yorkshire, (GB)…but then… I wanted to become someone people could respect, admire, that sort of thing. For that sort of a life, I knew that I would need a career.

A woman with her own career, would not be dependent on anyone for sustenance. She could make her own way in the world. I didn’t know with whom, or how I was going to get to where it was that I was going. I decided that fate, age with time, would give me a guiding hand, by giving me ‘a loop’, (an opportunity) for me to spy. Then if I could grab hold of that loop (opportunity) when it came along, knowing that if I hung on to that loop for dear life (with my plan), it would just whisk me along. I figured then I’d be caught up in a higher momentum. Every night I reviewed what had happened to me that day. I made ready for the approach of ‘my loop’ (my opportunity) and kept on the alert all the time. I knew that loop would come, like a thief in the night, arriving when I least expected it to. I knew that nothing in life ever stays static. Change evolves for that is its nature, and wisdom evolves through the acquisition of experience.

In my mind I imagined countless possibilities. I visualised all kinds of ‘loop’ opportunities. The alternative to not grab on to a loop, was just too unthinkable. I felt I’d only get one loop, (one chance/opportunity) but then I figured well one loop, was after all enough for anyone. (My good nature always says that it’s good to leave some of everything for other people to grab on to too.) I figured the universe was not mean. It would send me ‘a loop’ (an opportunity) as long as I was grateful, and I knew the importance of not passing up my loop when it came. I became convinced I had to be ready.

1.1 Finding a ‘loop’ (an opportunity)

And so, I began looking for my loop, (my opportunity) knowing (convinced in my mind) through visualisation, that it was coming, that it would appear. All I had to do was not miss it. It was like making sure I was already at the station so I could catch the train when it arrived. Being ready, I figured, surely I could easily slide aboard that train bound for somewhere. I could see that inaction, staying in the same position, or not doing anything, meant I would only end up the way others who passed my father’s house every day, had gone. This was nowhere! In fact it was worse than nowhere, because I had noticed that as others had worked dead end jobs, their smiles, confidence and health and the way they had walked upright slowly changed /deteriorated. By default, through inaction I did not want to be awarded a second class ‘bus pass’ to the middle of nowhere! Going nowhere would be the effect of not taking action at an appropriate time.

Illustration: Chapter 1: What train will you catch?

Looking for an opportunity would be like looking for the tail of a comet. i.e. I knew it would appear out of nowhere, be picked up by astronomers with telescopes focused on the sky, and in a short time, the comet (like my opportunity) would appear, present its splendour, and then disappear (whether I caught it or not). [P.S. My parents had given me a pair of old World War 2 binoculars with terrific magnification. On clear ultra-black nights, you could just make out the craters on the moon, before man stepped up there in 1969? www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMINSD7MmT4 or was it 1962 in reality? (John Lear, www.educationforum.ipbhost.com>…>Political Conspiracies ) As I looked into the night sky with my binoculars each evening I knew (and felt) an opportunity was on its way.

My life’s plans were to be my secret and I wouldn’t tell anyone (I vowed) until my future had come to pass. I wouldn’t tell any members of my family - they were not to know. And friends…no, I wouldn’t tell them my plans either. If they knew they would be the first to laugh, jeer, make fun of, discourage before I even got off the ground! I decided it was best to be secretive. After all my plans were not going to affect anybody, only me. Is there any point being sent back to square one over and over again as in a game of MONOPOLY? No point being stuck in a loop like on the game board where you never pass GO either! Best to tell no one and proceed quietly with one’s own plan in life. I was determined to become someone productive in the future versus a person who just did nothing and just stood still, expecting things to happen to them. Same action could kill me trying but I was determined to give it a try!

So who was I to be? What had destiny in store for me, or was I to be the master of my own destiny? I envisaged it being like a game of football. You’d take the ball into your own hands, tuck it into your jacket, so no one could take the ball (your chance or opportunity) away. Then I’d visualise running for all I was worth, stopping for no one, driving through a heap of players that try to hurl themselves against you, in an effort to make you stop. Now that’s motivation. That’s drive! It’s very close to what happened to me in life, as I ran past all hurdles and players who tried to take my ball away from me. The joy of approaching my goals as they unfolded bit by bit reinforced the speed and momentum I experienced in accomplishing what was to become my many an achievement.

I didn’t know who or what I wanted to be, but I did know what I did NOT want to be. This by itself is a good motivator! I did not want to become a pick and shovel worker, a labourer. I did not want my paws (hands) to become soiled and dirty. I did not want my body to be affected physically the way I had seen so many that walked past my father’s gate, on their way to work…deteriorate. Imagine my horror when at fifteen, (the age I went to work) when I found out that the Main Roads Department was thinking of taking on a new team of women. Luckily for me they changed their policy in favour of men who were physically in most cases stronger, so I felt temporarily safe! (I met such a team when I was working in Canada in my late thirties. Looking at the beautiful girls sweating in manual roadside labour, all I could feel then was profound relief. I was glad that one of them was not me! (My father had been right all along! He had said that if you do nothing, you’d have to resort to roadside manual labour with a pick and a shovel. Being female would not protect you from that fate awaiting you if you weren’t that particularly stunningly beautiful and had no education.)

When I was growing up, my father always had a very interesting disposition. He used to say,

Look past the gate of our house, look to see what you can see. Take the time to notice the people that pass. Look at them, learn from what you see.

I used to think my father meant that they had been lazy in school work and therefore had ended up where they were.

You don’t have to learn he would wryly smile and say. You don’t have to do anything in this life if you don’t want to. Life will make you reap what you sow. You will make your own bed and lie in it.

Then he’d go on to say, I’m certainly not going to stand here with a rod or a stick and beat you into any kind of submission. What possible good would that do me? I’d only have a cripple to support. Best I do not beat you if you decide to never do anything. You will get to fifteen; you will do what you want to do. You will go to work. You will make your own way. It is of no importance to me what you do. It will make no difference to me or my life. You’ll be off my hands eventually, but what you do decide to do, it will make a lot of difference to you. If you do nothing, you will be just like all the rest of those people who pass by our house every day, on their way to work. If you are fortunate, then you may even get on to the train and go to a better job like your mother. If not, look at all those who pass every afternoon for you will soon see what is in store for you.

1.2 The Consequences of Inaction

I knew all too well from life examples, the consequences of not doing something about my lot in life, whatever that lot was, or was not to be. I knew before I was fifteen of the consequences of not finding some opportunity; some little niche to squeeze into, some little space, where a little insignificant dot (like me) could hide, grow, mature, change, become something better, become stronger than before it had hid.

1.3 Examples, models in every day life

When I looked past the gates of my father’s house in Yorkshire, life to me was full of examples. Labourers were all around me. Some worked at the local rock, others at the cement factory. Still others worked with fibres in textiles. Workers would walk the same route, to and from work every day. Every afternoon I would wait for my mother to come home from work. I was a latchkey child. Every afternoon I would look and see young boys I knew walk by. At sixteen, seventeen, they had taken work involving manual labour and were bringing home money to their parents. Parents charged them board. At first I watched those boys. One particular one had beautiful blonde hair and dancing smiling eyes. I liked him and he (unbeknown to me) had eyes on me. My parents told me later, that his parents had approached them, for consent, to marry me. That is why I remember him. We had danced together at the local dance and had ended up dancing together all night until the orchestra packed up to go home.

Most of the young workers I saw that passed my father’s gate, at first were clean and jovial. They would wolf whistle when they spied me crouched behind a bush close to the gate, hoping I would not be seen. As the months passed, I noticed that they became dishevelled. They’d walk along with their hands tucked into their trouser pockets. Their clothes and hands became dirty. Nails became black. Cracks in the skin of their hands began opening up. Calluses appeared that yellowed, becoming crusty. Even at a young age, I felt that dirt had a way of eating up a person. The dirt seemed to get into the very fabric of their skin. Wrinkles would appear on very young faces that had no right being there. Dirt would edge its way into the furrows of skin. The summer sun would scorch their faces and lines were etched where no lines previously had been. Such deep grooves! I was flabbergasted! Some of the youngsters I had known had become almost unrecognizable! These were not the boys I had known. No, I guess they were now young working men!

Older workers passed my father’s house. They were humped over. Scrawny skeletons replaced the fine thin boys I had known. Now they shuffled along. There was no more of a hop, skip or a jump in their stride. No more smiles or gleams danced in their eyes. They raised their heads up from a bent over posture as they passed and I could see pain in their faces that no one else, I felt, could see. Hello they said quickly as they passed by and looked up, often to my stunned silence.

On Saturday nights, some of those faces would scrub up and put on a Sunday suit. Everyone would turn up at the village hall for the Saturday night dance. I used to like dancing with these boys. Now I could scarcely recognize them. I could see where their actions and work were taking them. I knew that come Monday, they’d be once more passing my father’s house, dishevelled, and shuffling along. What was it that I saw? Was it my own future, if I did nothing and followed in their path?

I could plainly see the consequences of inaction. No matter how small, steps had to be taken to make that train, even if I had to run along the platform and swing into the last compartment of it. To get left behind on the platform was not an option, for me. It’s kind of like catching one of those old fashioned London double deck buses where you have to swing on to the back of the bus by grabbing on to the pole on the moving platform….the old number 12. The consequence of not swinging on, would mean being left behind to wait. What would happen if another opportunity ‘a loop’ never come along ? I didn’t even want to contemplate the consequences of same inaction. Were my friends running for the train bound for somewhere? Mostly, no. Life models of the consequences of inaction, as I have said, always walked up and down our street.

For example, my friend Patsy had dropped out of school at the end of eighth grade. She was a plain, but extremely kind-hearted girl. She was now working in a millinery factory somewhere at the other end of the train line in Leeds or Bradford. Yes, unlike others that laboured in the factories close by, Patsy actually caught the train to work. I imagined all kinds of chic wonderful hats at the other end of her train. I imagined hats with exotic feathers in them; hats woven in straw; hats with lace draping all over the front giving the wearer a silhouetted look. I imagined all the dresses that would go with those hats too and saw Patsy in my mind’s eye dressed in some of them. I wanted to be a lady, and Lady Penelope with her chauffeur Parker, of the Thunderbirds series on BBC television en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady-Penelope_Creighton-Ward was the model of the day, as was also Alexandra Bastedo (ever so beautiful and graceful, a multi-degreed doctor, clever too) in the series ‘The Champions.’ www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3cPxVsk_ko Yes, I thought Patsy had gone on to design and make absolutely fabulous hats!

Can you imagine how horrified I was when I found out that the only hats that Patsy made, each and every day in that factory were baseball caps! They turned out to all be the same, the material not even being of a different colour. Patsy was facing machining drudgery day in, day out. She was collapsing over a hot industrial sewing machine, after machining several hundred weekly caps. Her eyes were always sore and eventually, still so young, she had to wear glasses.

My other friend Joy, stood at her counter in a store as a shop assistant until her feet became varicose veined, swollen and sore. She was always so happy to lie down and soak her feet in a bucket. I knew if I caught Joy’s train, my legs would end up looking like hers. They’d be full of blue thrombosis. My life would certainly be without joy!

My other friend Tera, whom I loved a lot, stayed longer at school. She finished the ninth grade. She was reasonably clever. However Tera’s mind each day was focused on her glory box that she kept under her bed. It was a huge trunk that her grandmother had given her! Every time I went over to Tera’s house to play, out would come her glory box. In it were blankets, and bedding, and towels and robes for the bride and groom. Everything so beautiful and new! She had vases, and jewellery. She had all kinds of household treasures in there. Tera was looking forward to the day that she would be married. That was her aim and you got the feeling, she was really looking forward to same and as soon as possible too. I would tell my mother about Tera’s glory box when she’d ask where I had been.

That’s silly! was all I could get out of my mother. You can buy that stuff, and as much of it as you want when you are grown up and can work for yourself, she’d say. You will buy fine things when you are grown and you don’t need a glory box full of junk taking up space all around your bed!

My mother would accompany this speech with a look of disdain.

Well I never had a glory box, nor was I attracted by such a thing after that. I did however like seeing how much Tera enjoyed hers. Through her joy, she enjoyed it for the both of us. In her glory box she had the kind of make-up kit that all sixteen year olds would have gladly died for!

Do you know what train Tera caught? Actually it was more of a boat. Tera married by the time she turned seventeen and had a beautiful traditional wedding, with a fairytale dress, and a dream reception just like she’d always imagined, with the help of her mother, her new step-father and her granny. Her step-father and mother were proud and told me that she had married some sailor, who was now aboard his assigned ship. Tera now had a married name and was living with her mother and step-father, waiting for her sailor husband to come home. Three years later, after I had caught my own train, and let it carry me along, I came home to see my parents. I accidentally bumped into Tera. Tera now had three little children clinging to her. One hid behind her skirt. They all looked like pretty round little pumpkins, all terribly obese! They could barely waddle along. They looked like they could hardly breathe. They looked like swollen blueberries and appeared to have no neck. Their heads just popped out of their chest. [Tera had always been grossly overweight from childhood.]

They eat too much of the wrong food was all my mother ever said. They’re killing the children, just like they did when they fed and raised Tera.

So what was it in all our lives that had produced varied life results? We were all at primary school together. We all ate the same – no, perhaps in Tera’s case we didn’t. I didn’t like eating at Tera’s table when her parents invited me. I liked ordinary boiled and mashed potatoes, green beans, tomatoes and mushrooms best. At Tera’s they ate the fat of pig. It was cut into little pieces and same fat was then fried in more oil until same was crisp. Tera’s Russian grandma called it ‘salo’ and apparently in Russia it was all the rage in the winter weather. At Tera’s house, they ate same at least three to four times a week. They mopped up the oil and fat on their plates with freshly baked cut bread.

Tera’s family ate a lot of butter. It was piled up on top of their bread. Sugar laden desserts at Tera’s were magnificent. Trouble was, I never got any. Tera’s mother would say that those who did not eat their dinner were not entitled to dessert. I couldn’t bring myself to eat ‘salo’ with buttered bread, so I was made to sit and watch the others eat dessert as a kind of punishment for not having eaten my main meal there. In the end I was told to go home where my mother could feed me, since I hadn’t touched my dinner at Tera’s. All I had eaten were the pickled dill cucumbers. Chocolate Pavlova with strawberries, cream and ice-cream, and then more chocolate, was so nice to even look at. Terra’s grandmother said that it was one of Anna Pavlova’s unique Russian recipes.

1.4 The influence of home life

When I told my mother what had transpired at Tera’s in relation to the Pavlova, she’d produce a recipe book. We’d try and reproduce this miracle as a one-off for Sunday lunch. We normally had beaten egg white custard with white or brown rice and peaches. Alas no matter how hard we tried we could not get the ice-cream part of it right. My brother was in charge of the ice-cream. He beat up the milk, added the vanilla and strawberries, castor sugar and so forth. Then he froze it but the ice-crystals in the ice cream before the invention of the nifty home ice-cream machine, were very large. The texture of the ice-cream was never smooth. It didn’t particularly matter. In those days, my brother and I ate all our culinary mistakes anyway. Large ice crystals or not, food was always too precious to throw away and start again. We just always tried to improve upon the recipe and ate our mistakes till we got it right.

In growing up my brother and I were always hungry. We swallowed milk as though we owned a Billy goat and as in most households with growing children, kept our parents poor with the food bill. I was allergic to cow’s milk so my father went about obtaining goat milk for me. His friend had six goats on his multi-acre farm and was only too happy to teach me how to squeeze goat teats to obtain the milk I needed. My parents already owned a dozen or so chickens. They were great layers and we would let them run around. Our chickens were happy peckers that ran about on the grass. It would be my job to put them back in their pen at the end of each day and let them out again every morning. My brother had to look after the geese we had that gave double and triple yolkers. With the geese being in the yard during the day, believe me nobody wanted to came over! The geese would go for them and they’d let out yells as they headed for the gate whilst being pecked if not fast enough. My brother was in charge of the goose eggs. We both learnt how to use up all the eggs in recipes and my brother became a cake expert in using up all the eggs.

My father wanted to bring me a little pig, (from the goat farm) for a pet. I had continually asked for a dog. When I found out my little friend was to become Christmas lunch, I sure changed my mind quickly. My father was quite happy to spend money in feeding a pig, but not a dog. All of our chickens and geese would constantly devour our meal leftovers. All our food was re-cycled constantly, and became new eggs or occasional fowls for Sunday dinner. Nothing was wasted! My father also bred long distance pure white racing pigeons. When they failed to fly the distances required, he’d breed out the hopeless flyers, keeping only the strong and the best, and the poor flyers would end up in the family pot as part of the pigeon soup and noodles. Mushrooms would always be plentiful in the woods and we’d gather basketfuls for free. They made a great gravy! Tomatoes would be grown in the family greenhouse, and food crops were always planted in every bit of available space in the garden.

My brother was into making home made lemonade with a tang. He set up his own still in the garage. He experimented with many formulas and recruited me for the job of being a taste tester. He made home lemonade that would make your eyes water! (Literally!) My brother wanted to go into making commercial squash. It was labelled squash, not lemonade, because you just never quite knew what ingredients he had squashed into it. Finally when he blew a hole in the roof of the shed through experimentation, his experimental alcohol still was disassembled, and just in time too, for along came some sort of harassing inspector as a result of neighbour gossip. Instead of fixing the hole, my father used the disaster and hole in the shed to put in a wood burning slow combustion stove so that was what the inspectors saw. It was fun using the baking part of that stove to create gastronomical egg wonders!

So - Where was my inner drive coming from?

By the time I was twenty-two, I had bought my first house. An elderly friend of mine, a distinguished medical hospital director came to my house-warming party. He was staggered and asked me where all my drive for doing things was coming from? In this equation he included my charisma. Why are you so hell driven? he’d say. I’ve never seen anyone with such drive, energy, vitality, determination as you in all the years I’ve been practicing! Slow down he advised. There’s lots of time to do everything. Do you realize you’re moving at a diabolical pace?

John was bewildered by the forces that were driving me at such a fast pace, to accomplish, what he regarded as accomplishment after accomplishment. I had won or gained a placing in several national beauty pageants. I was studying my second degree. I was performing on stage (singing) in National televised staged concerts. I was given one of the first female singles bank loans to purchase my house. I had bought a new car. I had a great job and was working full-time! That was the power that emanated from catching a loop! Was I enjoying it? You bet! Would I trade my life for that of someone else? Never! What about now? No - never! I like being me!

Could I see that my life was being driven by my own internal combustion engine? No. I was young and was being driven by my own mind. The mind is a powerful thing. It knows what it wants to achieve in its lifetime. You often don’t. It’s often subliminal. Your mind though with its eternal soul, though, does. I believe it knows why it is here on the planet earth; what it has come to achieve and experience; and I believe it also knows its own time frame for the accomplishment of same. I have seen that in many of my friends who died young. From an early age they would tell me, that they did not have much time, that their time on Earth was to be limited.

My drive, ambition, determination was there and highly visible to other people, even though I was oblivious to it. I regarded same, as just normal. It was also visible to individuals and organisations that were looking to suck up new talent, especially talent with drive and energy for their own exploitation. I say exploitation because in reflection I know that the amount of money I received for service in no way compensated me for the hours, the work or the effect of the ideas I implemented for respective organisations. My youth, energy, drive was basically exploited by others who benefited and grew rich, whilst I was left paying a mortgage and taxes. The little that was left over, was just enough to get by on…but what was the alternative? At that time, I considered same to be the best option available.

1.5 ‘Loop’ Power

The power of grabbing hold of a loop (an opportunity) is that it lets you catch the next one, and the next one, until you arrive in stages (from milestone train platforms) to where you once wanted to be. You don’t notice the change, it’s subtle, until one day, the train comes to a grinding halt. I was fifty at that time. I was where I wanted to be career wise, but unexpected life catastrophe ground my train to a halt! I had to stop, reassess my life and its direction. Is that all there is, I remember saying to myself. Is this as far as one can go? I felt doom creep into my life at that point, until I realised that by looking sideward (into other fields of interest) I could hop aboard other Express trains that could sweep me along by momentum to other undiscovered /unexplored fields and heights. What incentive, to be able to experience, explore, discover new things and get back original zest for life and living!

Illustration: Chapter 1: What are you motivated by?

So where did all my drive come from? Was it:

Through knowing the consequences of NOT taking action (catching a suitable ‘loop’….taking an opportunity?

Acquired through watching what happened to other models in my life? Examples: Patsy, Tera; my brother (always inventing things and attempting to perfect them); the factory workers that passed my parental home every day in my teenage years.

My father’s attitude to my upbringing; my mother’s attitude towards glory boxes; as subliminal determining factors?

A result of uncertainty; of knowing the importance of an opportunity; and being ready to grab same when it came along.

From knowing what I did NOT want to be?

Or was it a combination of all of these things, and more?

CHAPTER 2

ORGANIZATIONS

Advertised jobs appear in newspapers and in professional magazines, in every country of the world. These days, computer technology connects us with suitable recruitment websites, job vacancies and employers. We can peruse job criteria and job descriptions, from the comfort of our homes. We can download our curriculum vitae on to websites where prospective employers can themselves search for suitable employees. Public Libraries in a lot of countries provide the internet service for those that do not have laptops at home. Labour exchanges in each and every country have their own internal databases on which their own vacancies are recorded. Job seekers can access job vacancies through computer touch screens at the labour exchange. Placing the right person in the right job today is big business. Paying a fee to an agency to screen and recruit the right person for a vacancy can save an organisation or business today, a lot of time and money.

Large companies often have their own personnel recruiting and training teams. Much time is often spent preparing company job profiles and in describing the skills of the individuals that are sought. More modern organisations (along the American model) now take an individual, identify their skills, and build a job around them. It is a much better approach than the old approach of trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. Organisations generally want people with enthusiasm, vitality. They like to train people into their own way of doing things, and therefore prefer young minds which are more susceptible to company ways of doing things. They are after the people who possess, the drive, the motivation, to get the job done. Advertisements always want people who are able to act and deliver under pressure what is demanded to set deadlines. In general we do not see too many advertisements for people over the age of fifty unless specialist skills are required, where age is an advantage. Examples are: a chauffeur (where driving experience, reliability, punctuality is deemed important); a professor (where a lifetime of experience is needed for long-term policy planning,) and so forth. Experienced gardeners, green-keepers; Mr-can-fix-anything, can also be valued in part-time or contract capacities.

Few organisations however, when analysed, know how to create a work environment that is characterised by high levels of motivation. Few businesses, organisations know how to empower workers with a great degree of energy and enthusiasm to enable them to perform their job well, thus increasing company profits by attaining projected targets.

The power of this book lies in looking at what motivates people, and how all kinds of organisations, small and large businesses can succeed in utilizing the personal power inherent in their workers. Harnessing such working power to advantage can equal cost savings through otherwise expenditure on continual recruitment. Utilizing workers to advantage adds up to time savings; greater profits, smarter ways of working. To succeed in motivating workers, reflects in workers delivering work scheduled on time. This translates into workers maintaining the high degree of quality and excellence that is part and parcel of the reputation of a company. Understanding what motivation is and how it can be used in different ways with differing individuals is a difficult and time consuming task. It requires genuine interest in people. If an enterprise / organisation is prepared to take the time to know its employees personally, then it has a chance to create and retain contented working teams who wouldn’t dream of working elsewhere. For this reason, this book is an important valuable aid.

All businesses and corporations can improve productivity by getting to know their staff and how they individually feel about their work. Same can be harnessed. So many companies have lost the human touch. Humans are generally not as productive in settings where they are recognized only as a cog in the great wheel of things. Humans are not robots but organizations continue to regiment them as such. In this day and age, I would like to ask you a question. Do organisations, businesses really care about their workers, or do they treat them as dispensable? All too often I hear from workers that they will not be missed if they leave. In some organizations, those at the top have grown to such a status of grandeur and remuneration that they don’t care about those that are at the bottom. Who’s next? management asks, as personnel teams go through the motion of firing someone.

It’s like putting your hand in a bucket of water, one lady recently said to me after she had left. When you pull your arm out, the water is still there, even though your arm is slightly wet. It’s wet so you know yourself you’ve been there and worked for that specific employer. But in terms of the bucket, you’re not missed. The next person is engaged and so on and so on until so many staff have been used up, spent and exhausted. Ripples have been created in the bucket, but in the end, who’s missed the ripples? The organisation thrives on replacing, constantly replacing, even the water! You can never have happy contented people under those circumstances! [Note: This continual replacement strategy may work to some degree when there is a surplus of labour, but the strategy is seriously flawed when the market is characterised by a scarcity of suitably trained workers, to fill available jobs everywhere. These are usually times of economic boom.]

What about worker morale? The morale of the workers in the situation described above is subsequently low. Nobody smiles; people do not kid around; they’re serious; nobody sings; everyone just makes themselves scarce. Heads go down when management staff approach. They all try and look busy. (Yet there’s no increased productivity.) I’m all right, each individual says to him/herself as each inwardly attempts to do what is necessary to look after him/herself, without drawing attention to themselves, avoiding being singled out. Isn’t that what really happens? These work environments are not as productive as they can be.

Too many organisations have high staffing turnovers. That is a sure indication that something is wrong. Some managers just choose to ignore same. By hiring the next person they just expect their organisation to keep on rolling. Trouble is, it doesn’t. I look at statistics in organisations and find out how many working days are being lost through sickness. I talk to front line workers about who makes their decisions; whether they themselves have the responsibility of determining their own policies and decisions or whether these decisions that would empower them are made for them elsewhere. I find out soon enough whether workers feel that their contribution is valued. I ask workers about bonuses and rewards systems. This also tells me something about the organisation for which they work, whether there are any incentives to strive for, beyond the normal. I can sense when I speak to people, whether they know that their days in that job are numbered. You have only to ask them about their future and you find out all kinds of things. In ‘sick’ organisations workers know themselves that they must find another position soon to continue to survive. They may look to transfer into other sections, or into other related organisation. They often decide to leave of their own accord rather than having to reconcile a resultant health complication which no employer wants to know about, or fund. I look at resignation statistics and high staff turnovers as well, when working with companies.

In happy organisations, the morale of the workers is high. People just love working for the company. All workers feel they are valued individuals, instrumental and vital to the accomplishments of organisational goals. They know that the job they do is appreciated. The company listens to them;