44Conducting Meetings - Taking Views
Mahabharata - Battle of Kurukshetra - Appointment of Chief of Generals
The Kauravas had 11 divisions and the Pandavas had 7.
The Seven divisions of Pandavas were headead by
Drupada,Virata,Dhrishtadyumna,Sikhandin,Satyaki,Ch ekitana and Bhimasena.
Yudhistra assembled his brothers and Krishna to Select the Supreme Commander from these seven people.
So Yudishtra first asked Sahadeva - Who can be selected:
Sahadeva -Virata who supported us when we were in disguise and with whom we formed the army to fight.
Nahula-Drupada because of age,Wisdom, Courage,birth and Strength.
Arjuna -Dhrishtadyumna , who has senses under control and who is born to bring Drona to end.
Bhima- Sikhandin , as he ahs come to kill Bhishma,as he alone can defeat Bhishma.
Kesava- Supported Arjunas Choice of Dhrishtadyumna.
The Younger Folks were considered for opinion first, to give more self confidence, else they will not speak freely;as honest differences can be viewed as disrespect.
CRK
From India, Vijayawada
by Peter Grazier
Originally appeared in EI Network January, 1998
Originally appeared in EI Network January, 1998
Motivation........
We hear the term often. Generally we associate the word with human behavior, meaning, a state of mind that moves us to action. And even though few of us have had formal training in it, it’s one of those characteristics of life that seems to fit the old adage, “I know it when I see it.”
For most of my years working in the field of workplace collaboration, this word has held a place of stature and importance, because it has been, perhaps, the most significant outcome of worker involvement. As the collaboration trend, and more specifically, the use of employee teams continues to grow, one question that is taking on greater importance is how to keep the team motivated over the long haul.
What are the ingredients or characteristics of teams that seem to sustain high levels of motivation?
I posed this question to a group of people recently and found that it tapped into some deeply held beliefs about what makes us do what we do. So for those of you working with teams, here are some thoughts that might help:
What Makes Us Do Anything?
Probably the first question to be answered in a discussion of motivation is “What makes us do anything?” Why am I writing this article? Why are you reading it? Why did you get out of bed today and go to work? Why did you join that volunteer organization last month? Why did you drop out of the other one?
Each day brings with it an endless list of decisions to be made. The process of making those decisions is driven, in large part, by the hope of a benefit or the fear of a consequence.
For example, I truly enjoy coffee and donuts from Dunkin’ Donuts. I pay them money for the benefit of enjoying the taste and filling a void in my stomach. However, I limit my intake of these donuts for fear of the consequences of too much sugar and fat in my diet.
Literally, every decision we make is filtered through this process. The industrial psychologists have taken this further by defining these consequences as needs. Our needs for sustenance, safety, security, belonging, recognition, and a sense of growth and achievement become strong drivers (motivators) of behavior.
The subject of motivation is, at once, simple and complex. Simple, in that it explains much of what we see happening in human behavior, yet complex when it poses contradictions.
For example, the need to nourish ourselves is strong, and hunger will drive us to extreme actions, particularly in the case of extreme hunger. However, how does one explain a hunger strike? How can you explain the actions of someone who has died because they chose not to eat? The psychologists will say that a higher level need took over....perhaps the need to make a point about an issue that, to the person, was larger than life itself.
So as we attempt to understand motivation, we need to appreciate the subtleties that exist in human behavior, and focus our attention on general principles of motivation that have wider application. At least if we can understand some of these principles, we might be better prepared to lead or facilitate a long-term, highly motivating team experience.
Why Be Part Of A Team?
You’ve been asked to participate on a team to accomplish some task. Immediately your decision-making process begins.
What is the purpose of the team?
Is it a topic that interests me?
Who will be on the team with me?
What kind of authority will we have?
Is it important to management?
What is the reward for participating?
What is the risk (perceived as punishment) for not participating?
How long will it run?
Will I be better off as a result of my participation?
These are some of the questions we ask ourselves when faced with an invitation to participate in some kind of team. Are they typical questions?...of course. Do they relate to our motivation to participate?... certainly.
Sometimes, however, we are not given the opportunity to refuse participation on a team: for example, a work group or an organization that has restructured itself into self-directed work teams. In these cases, by default, we are part of the group or team.
Nevertheless, in either case, motivation can rise or fall depending on a myriad of factors. Let’s look at some of them.
Factors That Influence Team Motivation
I. Purpose
I have asked people for years to describe the characteristics of their most successful and rewarding team experiences. At the top of almost everyone’s list is a clear purpose, focus, or mission. But further, for long-term motivation, it must be a purpose or mission that they find aligns with their personal wants and needs.
One can be asked to participate on a temporary task force. If the mission is clear, he might be able to sustain motivation for the duration if he feels it is important. However, if it is a topic that is not in line with his wants and needs, his motivation to continue may diminish.
Many years ago on a construction project, I had assembled a group of electricians to streamline the process of making cable terminations. Since they were all electricians, I thought there would be great interest in working on a process that was frustrating people the way it was designed.
About a month into the group’s work, they were having great difficulty maintaining momentum and focus. When I asked them why, they said that some of the electricians were conduit specialists and some were cable tray specialists, and that those not working directly with the cable terminations simply couldn’t get interested in the subject. What a lesson for me! Motivation in this case was lacking because the team’s purpose was not in line with some of the members’ wants and needs.
So one strategy with a lethargic team might be to stop the process, re-visit the team’s purpose or mission, and see if there’s alignment on it. Even with a team that seems well-motivated, it still is a good strategy to recheck once in a while.
II. Challenge
Another term that I hear frequently when I ask about team motivation is challenge. The human species, as with most animals, has been given a survival mechanism called fight or flight syndrome. When presented with a challenge, our defenses are alerted to move us to action....to run away from danger or address it directly.
Many people will say that their most rewarding team experiences resulted from some sort of challenge. I’ve heard the stories often of mediocre groups that responded to a challenge with heroic success. The challenge itself was the motivator.
In the workplace, these challenges occur infrequently. Teams are not presented with stimulating challenges every day. So the question becomes how to provide challenges to the team at more frequent intervals.
An additional criteria for a challenge is the level of difficulty. If a challenge is too difficult, perhaps perceived as impossible, then team members may give up before they start. However, the same result may occur if the members perceive the challenge as too easy. Little energy is required to accomplish something so easily obtained.
So for ongoing teams, periodic stimulation in the form of a worthy challenge is another method of maintaining motivation.
In 1983, I was managing a work group for a large construction organization. It was a long-term project (10 years), and senior management had discussed conducting an open house for the workforce. Management, however, had always nixed the idea--fearing the difficulty of coordinating an event that would encompass seven thousand workers and their families.
My work group heard about the idea, however, and asked to take on this assignment. There was enormous interest in conducting this event within the workforce, so with much support, my group planned and successfully coordinated an open house that ultimately attracted over 10,000 people.
The challenge for my group was enormous....but achievable. The challenge created high levels of motivation while planning the event; and the sense of accomplishment after the event sustained motivation even longer.
I don’t suggest by this example, that every work group take on such a formidable task, but simply think about the implications of taking on a new challenge periodically.
III. Camaraderie
Seldom, if ever, in our MBA programs (which purport to be leadership development programs) have we seen courses of study in team development and motivation. That is changing now and will continue to change in the future.
If one studies highly effective groups, one finds that the most successful groups over the long haul tend to address both the technical needs and human needs. These groups are at the same time competent in the work they perform and highly functional in their interpersonal relationships. The group is well balanced in both technical and human skills.
Another factor that emerges from my queries about successful teams is camaraderie, meaning comradeship, fellowship, and loyalty. The people on these teams genuinely like each other and work hard to develop and maintain their relationships.
Although they are probably not aware that research supports this behavior, they just seem to understand that it’s a lot easier to support your team member when you have a good relationship. The fallout from this kind of relationship building is open and direct communication, frequent praising of each others’ contributions, and mutual support.
So, you will say, that is all well and good for teams whose members like each other, but what if they don’t like each other?
Much of the time we like or dislike someone, it relates more to how well we understand them. And since our formal training has not addressed this, most of us enter adulthood ill-equipped to deal with the myriad of personalities, temperaments, cultures, values, beliefs, ideologies, religions, and idiosyncratic behaviors of those we meet.
One way to break down these barriers is to expand one’s understanding of his own species. Training is available to address most of the topics above, and exercises can be beneficial if they move us to another level of understanding.
But don’t overlook the simple solutions. Designing an off-site activity for the team, sometimes just to play together, is a powerful way of building camaraderie. For more thoughts on this, see our article "Celebrations and Events to Build the Team".
IV. Responsibility
In general, people and teams are stimulated by being given responsibility. Having ownership of an identifiable block of work is a long-held tenet of motivation in groups.
Responsibility can be tricky, however. Implied in this concept is the understanding that the responsibility comes along with authority to make the necessary changes. Teams that have both the responsibility and authority tend to maintain motivation over longer periods of time.
Responsibility can be demotivating if the consequences of error or failure are too great. If the organization, for example, has a history of punishing mistakes, then the giving of responsibility is viewed more as a negative. The short-term performance may be good (remember fear is a motivator), but long-term motivation will suffer. It is difficult to sustain high performance when energy is being sapped by fear.
V. Growth
Finally, personal and team growth can provide another basis for sustained motivation. When people feel they are moving forward, learning new concepts, adding to their skill base, and stretching their minds, motivation tends to remain high. Personal growth adds value to the individual, enhancing self-esteem and self-worth.
Accordingly, team members and team leaders should look for opportunities that help add knowledge and skills. A good technique is to simply ask members what they would like to get from their association with the team, then listen for areas of possible growth.
VI. Leadership
A good leader can be a catalyst for motivation in the short term, but the best leaders create the conditions for the team to motivate itself.
We have all seen examples of how leaders inspired teams to accomplish some phenomenal task. History books and Hollywood are full of these stories, and we come to honor these leaders.
But the charismatic leader that can be so effective in the short term, cannot necessarily sustain motivation indefinitely. Motivation is inherently intrinsic, residing within oneself. Therefore, if one depends continually on another for their source of motivation, eventually it ends.
Great leaders have a knack for helping others see the best in themselves, providing the stimulus for self-actualizing behaviors.
But great leaders also understand the importance of team purpose, challenge, camaraderie, responsibility, and growth, and focus much of their time on creating the conditions for these to exist.
Great leaders understand that their team members have needs, and that for motivation to grow and continue, the activities of the team must help in some way to meet these needs.
Summary
A team whose members are aligned with its purpose, feel a challenge in their task, have a strong sense of camaraderie, feel responsibility for the outcome, and experience growth as a team and in their personal lives, will tend to sustain motivation over the long haul.
This is not to say that they will not have difficulties at times, or that members’ wants and needs won’t change over time. In these cases, sometimes changes will have to be made. A member who no longer feels the team is meeting his or her needs may have to leave the team to continue on their own path.
But, in as much as it is possible to sustain motivation indefinitely, the factors above will tend to create the best possible environment for it.
CRK
From India, Vijayawada
Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always intellectual Cheers Rashmi "To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did"
From India, Mumbai
From India, Mumbai
Source: AspireNow.com
Are you managing an organization and want to boost your team's performance?
Whether you are heading up a division of a major corporation, leading a governmental agency, coaching a sports team, starting a new company, or just took the position of President from your local Toastmasters, you'll need to know the secrets to building a great team.
Questions you will likely face are:
How do we get people contributing unselfishly?
How do we create unity, a sense of community, and wanting to be part of the team?
What can I do to make an immediate impact?
Questions may arise about your leadership capabilities if you do not answer difficult questions quickly. As someone who studies leaders, I recently completed a poll of the actions and strategies of great leaders who build great teams. In this study, I evaluated previous leaders of great nations, head coaches of winning franchises, and interviewed teachers and other local leaders in California. In sharing these qualities with you, the goal is to help each of us create better teams to lead to more empowered and successful organizations.
Here are our seven most successful strategies to build a great team:
Build a core nucleus.
Raise the bar of expectations.
Keep consistency in all things.
Have a singular objective, supported by three related objectives.
Promote people with performance success to leadership positions.
Recruit new winners to build around the core nucleus.
Create an atmosphere of fun, success, and being part of something special.
1. Build a core nucleus
The #1 most important secret to successful teams is the ability to attract three key players who are committed to the success of the team. These key players need to demonstrate high levels of ability, leadership, and loyalty. Find these three players, and keep them by letting them know they are valuable to your organization through loyalty. Loyalty begets loyalty, and the best in ability and leadership will look for a commitment in loyalty from your organization.
If you want to build a fire, you will not succeed with one log. With two logs, you might get a fire to burn for a little while, but the fire will almost always goes out before the full energy of the logs are consumed. Yes, a fire requires three or more logs to burn efficiently. You cannot build a bonfire without three logs. So, start with your three "logs" and build a nucleus around them.
Phil Jackson of the Chicago Bulls used the power of three in his "triangle offense" which featured Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippin, and Horace Grant. Pat Riley used the power of three with the Lakers' 80's dynasties with Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, and James Worthy as his "showtime" offense. Bill Walsh and the 80's 49er organization used the power of three with Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, and Roger Craig. The Cowboys used the power of three with Troy Aikman, Emmit Smith, and Michael Irvin in the 90's. The power of three is the key to your nucleus, and it must start there.
2. Raise the bar of expectations.
Did people fail before you? Is your organization in chaos? This is a good time for you to implement your program, as people are looking for leadership in times of chaos. In times of failure, we must learn. In times of chaos, we must lead. Leaders raise the bar of expectations. Winning is the objective. Building upon success is usually the strategy.
So, find a small goal, set it, and achieve it at all costs. But raise the bar. The first year, set a goal for 30% improvement. The second year, raise it again. The third year, set a goal for 100% success, with 200% effort, and watch your success grow. Jon Gruden, Coach of the Raiders from 1998 to 2002, set a goal to beat division rivals in his first year. He did that in 50% of the games, a marked improvement upon his predecessor's record. The next year, Gruden aimed for the playoffs. He missed the playoffs but his team fought valiantly.
The following year Gruden's team won twelve of sixteen games and went all the way to the AFC Championship before losing to the Ravens. The following year, the Raiders lost to the Patriots in a game many felt was a gift from the referees. A step back, Gruden left. The new coach kept his nucleus. He also kept the same workout schedule, the same playbook (with some new wrinkles), and the same great players (Jerry Rice, Rich Gannon, Tim Brown) and took the team to the Super Bowl before losing to Gruden's Buccanneers.
Which leads me to our next key: consistency.
3. Use consistency to grow your team. In consistency, there are three components to success:
a. consistent habits
b. consistent location
c. consistent people
Consistent habits are important for individual performance, and also important for team performance. If you hold a meeting for your organization on Tuesday at 7pm, keep it at that time and don't change it unless absolutely necessary. Location is also important.
My father is a Distinguished Toastmaster, which is Toastmaster's International's top ranking of achievement. He informed me that when he stepped down from President of his organization, the new President changed locations three times in one year. Their club went from twenty-eight members to eight. When the club drops to eight Dad says "that's when they start to fail." Well, I figure a DTM ought to know a key to consistency.
I once had a sales manager who frequently pulled salespeople out of one territory, then assigned them to a different geography. The team struggled under his poor leadership. The new manager assigned both geography and vertical markets to his team, and kept those territories 80% in place for three years. His team succeeded dramatically higher than the previous manager's team.
Consistency in people is the biggest problem organizations face. The pressure to succeed is enormous -- especially when you have been failing (missing quotas, missing playoffs, blowing budgets, etc.). New leaders often have such enormous pressure to win it all in their first season as coach. I've always felt there are two reasons why relationships fail: inability to communicate and unrealistic expectations. It is no different in leadership.
Reasonable expectations, clearly communicated, should result in higher success over time. However, organizations with consistently poor performance usually have an unusually high record of "firing" or "replacing" their top leaders. Organizations that succeed keep their top leaders, keep their top players, and through that loyalty attract others to their winning ways.
4. Have a singular objective, supported by three related objectives.
Great leaders almost always strive for a singular objective. In basketball, it might be to win 50% of games. Or, it might be to attain the playoffs. A winning organization might set a goal to win their top trophy and the big game.
In government, an objective might be to eliminate wasteful spending and hit a new budget figure through innovations in organization. Whatever it is, figure out what is most important, and achievable, and set that as your goal. The very best leaders go a step further and implement a SYSTEM of success.
Beneath that goal, there are usually three ways to focus on daily or weekly actions, which if succeeded will lead to success of the major goal. I look at it as the singular objective is your mission. The related objectives are the goals. Achieve each goal, mission is accomplished. Fail to achieve goals, you'll know where to adjust the next season.
5. Promote your successful people and learn from your failures.
It is okay to fail. In fact, many organizations do not appreciate the full height of success unless they first experienced the full despair of losing. The previous examples of the Cowboys and 49ers were both preceded just several years earlier with two win seasons, with twelve or fourteen losses. To put it mildly, they were ugly.
The new coach first got a quarterback, then a running back, then a receiver. And they were on their way. The way the coach found those great players was by trial and error, at first, and the players who delivered in clutch situations were promoted to those key positions of leadership. It is the same for successful sales organizations. If you wish to achieve sales success, give each salesperson an equal territory. See which one performs the best during a test period of time, and you likely have your nucleus of performers. Or, if the nucleus is established, the way to figure out who will rise above the pack is to encourage each person equally, and place them with mentors.
Make sure the mentors are informed as to how to "coach" their mentored teammate. The mentors will then let you know if their teammate will make it, and also help them succeed by teaching them their own secrets to success. If people do not succeed with mentors, they might require special handling, but promoting people who repeatedly fail is not likely to result in success. Learn from failure, promote from wins.
6. Recruit new winners and surround them with winners.
Sometimes we cannot promote from within. Either we are growing quickly and we must bring in new people, or the people previously in our organization left for other opportunities. Either way, we must grow from an atmosphere of success.
I once was recruited from my college campus for the Businessland College Recruit training program. This program was loosely structured, yet worked on many levels. For one, my manager placed me under the supervision of the top salesperson in his branch. This was invaluable experience, as during my first three months the ace salesperson achieved the highest percentage sales success anyone had ever had in Sacramento.
It was phenomenal to see the growth and excitement this success created. Other salespeople started selling successfully. Even the salespeople who struggled eventually broke out and found a way to succeed. Nobody was replaced without first shifting them onto other teams. This system created loyalty. But the old ace moved on to a new assignment.
What would have happened if my manager had not recruited new people and surrounded them with winners? His success would have walked out when the ace salesman left. While he was with the branch, my manager also brought in other salespeople, and groomed the younger salespeople for success by partnering them with the veterans. It worked more than I'd have guessed. For when each previous top performer left the firm, the second or third highest performer would step in and succeed just as highly as the predecessor.
A key to attract high performers is to let them know they are part of something special. If you're building something special, and the mission statement matters to the recruit, they will join your team.
7. Create an atmosphere of fun, success, and unique mission (being part of something special).
If you want to win, you have to have fun. People don't have fun when they are losing. They also don't have fun if they are blamed for failures, backstabbed in communication, or treated poorly. So, eliminate poor methods of management and replace them with empowering methods of communication.
People will rise to the occasion when you empower them. How do we empower others? Let them know the expectation, create a sense of fun, urgency, and doing something special, and then coach them by letting them know they are believed in, supported, and will be looked after. How many sheep will stay in a flock where the shepherd drives one out from being in a bad mood? Like the good shepherd, look after your strays, bring them back in, feed them, and love them. Yes, love your employees. It goes against popular human resource opinion, but it is a core to AspireNow's mission.
If we are to create more abundance, we must create more love. And love is an action word. What actions do we show? Care? Concern? Do we listen and know what makes our team want to perform? What are individual needs?
I once gained a new manager when my company merged. The old manager was reassigned to a new territory but left a short while later. Besides being affiliated with an Ivy League school, I never figured out why that manager was successful, because he never did anything to empower me or show me he listened to me or my concerns.
For example, the company had failed to pay me rightful commissions because the personal in accounts payable had a bad attitude. She had decided I didn't deserve payment on the sales in question, and with my previous manager, that was as far as it went.
This issue was worth $10,000 to me at the time, which was not a small amount of money to me. In my first meeting with my new manager, he asked me why I hadn't been performing much lately with my ability to sell services. I explained candidly that I was holding out on the company because the company wasn't showing me they cared about my efforts.
The new manager stopped me, gained clarification, then asked for the name and phone number of the commission accounting clerk who had decided I didn't deserve payment. I then saw him pick up a phone, right then and there, and proceed to chastise this clerk for not paying "his salesperson" and asking "who are you and how could you decide to keep this man from earning his money at our firm?" She had no valid answer. I was paid five days later. My manager took care of my needs, and two months later I was at 500% of quota. I think his needs were met from that success, too.
Another manager could get people to jump through hoops for him. How? He created fun. I remember he once traded computers for box seats at a local sports arena. Yes, we took our clients there. We also took our friends and family to top notch sports events for free. It's fun to have perks from our job. It makes us want to work harder when we have fun on our job. How do we create fun? Through humor, special events, being a little goofy sometimes.
The dot-coms were great at creating fun in boring atmospheres. Think about it: what's fun about computers? Not much. But what's fun when you get to work on new technology that helps people do more in new ways, and at the same time, instead of boring break rooms you can play foosball or table tennis on your break? That's fun for many people. Some organizations launch special events, others install toys and games, others have company parties or bar-b-ques to let people know they're having fun. Sometimes, just being funny creates fun.
Try putting up your goal, and explain it with humor, yet seriousness, and watch how much people embrace the new goal. As long as the humor isn't disparaging, it almost always works better than the dry approach.
As a manager of a company, I try to show my own employees that they are part of something special. At AspireNow, we aim to change the way business is done in the world. It sounds lofty, and people get excited about it. But if you think about it, you don't have to change 10,000 companies to change business. You only have to convince ten to change, and when they are wildly successful and when others emulate them, through the power of the "Jones" mentality, the world changes with them. How would you like to be part of a fun, exciting, successful organization who strives to make a difference? I sure do. So, I'm creating one here at AspireNow every day.
Make sure to communicate what makes your organization special in each of your meetings and frequently at other times, and see how people respond..
CRK
From India, Vijayawada
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