There have been a few different articles on WorkAwesome about how to stay motivated, from musical motivation to motivational quotes, but according to this report from the Harvard Business Review’s Breakthrough Ideas of 2010, the number one way to stay motivated is to have a clear sense that progress is being made.
Sense of Progress = Feeling of Motivation
The findings were based on information received from 12,000 end-of-day diaries, and after reviewing the content, the researchers were able to measure the relative motivation of the workers.
When the workers said they were having their very best days, these were the 5 factors that influenced their level of motivation the most.
- Making progress = 76%
- Collaboration = 53%
- Organizational Support = 43%
- Interpersonal support = 25%
- Doing important work = 19%
The funny part about this report is the management was asked to rate what they felt the most important factor for motivation was, and they determined it was recognition for good work. A sense of progress came in as the least important factor, in their opinion.
So if you are a manager, talk to your team and find ways to remove the barriers preventing them from moving the project forward. If you’re a worker, share this report with your manager, so they can see that what they may think is motivational is not quite as important as getting the job done. Keep Reading…
I recently wrote a post about how to hire an intern. Now that you’ve got a willing, able and capable intern, what do you do with them? As their manager you need to provide them with stuff to do, especially at first when they’re still figuring out what their routine will be.
Remember, an intern isn’t just someone you can use to fetch your coffee or pick up your dry cleaning. They’re working for you (probably for free) in order to learn something valuable. It’s up to you as their manager to help them get the most out of their time at your company.
Here are some important questions to ask yourself before your interns first day on the job: Keep Reading…
Hiring an intern for your business should not be a task that is taken lightly—as anyone who has had the intern from hell will tell you. The reason small businesses, like the one I work for, hires interns is to improve our profitability. Interns are free labor.
Besides being cheap, interns are also eager to work and learn and bring a young, vibrant vibe into your office. That is, if you know how to hire an intern correctly. The effort you put in to hiring an intern directly corresponds to your return on investment. Who knows? Perhaps your new intern will end up becoming your next full-time hire.
If you are lucky enough to have interns banging down your door, then your job is easy. If you have to reach out to the local community to find interns, here are some ideas on where to start: Keep Reading…
Scope creep is every project manager’s biggest challenge.
When a project’s scope gets expanded to include ambitious work that was never planned for, it can disrupt the original project plan, stretch the timeline and blow away the budget. Some call it featuritis, as in “We’d like to add these features that weren’t included in the initial project.” When software developers are asked to haphazardly include strange, orphaned features, their software becomes bloated with additions that seem out of place. Hence the term “software bloat.”
Are you feeling bloated? You might be due for a surprise addition at any moment. Scope creep can make you the babysitter of someone else’s unplanned brainchild. As a project manager with a new, unexpected addition to the family, all of its needs, complaints, kicking and screaming becomes your problem.
Some try to prevent project scope creep by explicitly defining the plan, timeline and budget of a project on paper. It’s a good strategy, but those set-in-stone documents can often get ignored if someone has a sudden brilliant epiphany that must go into the project. After all, “big picture” people can’t be bothered with silly trivialities like budget, resources and project scope, right?
Have you suffered from scope creep at work? Have you defeated it? How? Keep Reading…
Remember when we talked about time management skills, where the last point was “delegate if you can” so that it could free up time for important work? Well, I’d go a step further and recommend that you learn how to delegate and outsource work as much as you can.
You’d be amazed to find how useful outsourcing could be once you get started with it. Of course, finding the right person for the job and then training him or her might be difficult, but once you’ve got someone taking care of things you don’t really want to do (for example, you’re a social media guy but you’re also doing coding and design stuff), not only you’d be more productive, you’ll make more money too.
And maybe you’ll get your weekends back.
So, do you outsource your non-core tasks? Or do you prefer to do everything on your own? Keep Reading…
There are two basic types of leaders; those in a leadership position, and those who lead. One is called a leader because their title or level of seniority (or authority) says so, while one has a calling to be a leader.
It’s important to be able to tell the difference between the two. Keep Reading…
Many managers, particularly those new to management do not make the most of having a personal assistant. A well organised, reliable assistant can provide significant value to a manager transitioning into a new division or company. The practical tips below will have a new manager and their assistant performing as a well oiled machine in no time. Keep Reading…
So a great management position has just come your way and you’d love that new title — not to mention the salary bump. But, before you rush to submit your application think long and hard about whether you have not only the right skills, but also the right personality for the job — especially if the managerial position you’re interested in includes supervising others.
No matter how good that pay increase may sound or how impressive the title may be, understand that not everyone is cut out for management. Sure, you may have been with at the company for several years now and you may have mastered the skill set required for your current position. But that still doesn’t necessarily qualify you for management. Being an effective manager requires a set of interpersonal skills and personality traits that may not be required for your current position.
Keep Reading…
During family dinners in my household, we’d all bring an item from the kitchen to the table. None was exempt from this ritual. No matter who cooked dinner that night, everyone ended up contributing to the meal because of what they brought to the table. What they brought was incidental–the fact they brought something was what was important.
The same applies in a work environment–especially in meetings. We all have different things we bring to the table. What we bring often depends on the role we have in the organization or the area of expertise we apply every day to our work. None of these are really any different than setting a dinner table – every part of the meal is important.
Keep Reading…
