The Old Boy.

In early 2008 Starbucks was reporting negative daily comps—meaning sales were down compared to the same day a year earlier—in the double digits. Sales were in a free fall. Every day around the country, fewer and fewer people were coming into Starbucks stores. And those who did were spending less money than in the past. This was the worst period in Starbucks history. Things looked bleak and it seemed that Starbucks had lost its magic.

Starbucks needed a leader, and that leader was Howard Schultz, the original visionary behind the company. He would comeback to return as the CEO and rekindle that magic that had been lost.

Howard Schultz is a transformational leader. He leads employees by aligning employee goals with the leader’s goals. He uses charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration to influence his followers. He leads employees by aligning employee goals with his goals. Thus, employees working for him start focusing on the company’s well-being rather than on what is best for them as individual employees

Howard Schultz uses the four tools of a transformational leader.

Charisma: Once he returned to Starbucks the first thing he set out to do was build confidence. He took the blame for the failure of Starbucks and rather than blaming others he focused on moving forward. He said “the number-one priority in the next weeks and months was to instill confidence in our future. Without confidence, people could not perform.”

Inspirational Motivation: When confronting competition, he did not back down from his original vision to compromise with the other low cost coffee competitions such as McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts. He stuck to his vision and stated “We cannot allow competition to define us. We have to play offense, proactively defining ourselves by sharing the full story of Starbucks' value proposition: Behind every cup of Starbucks is the world's highest-quality, ethically sourced coffee beans: baristas with health-care coverage and stock in the company: farmers who are treated fairly and humanely; a mission to treat all people with respect and dignity; and passionate coffee experts whose knowledge about coffee cannot be matched by any other coffee company.” “ If we can't do all that, then same on us and they deserve to take our business.” Howard Schultz stuck by his clear vision and thus gave motivation to the thousands of workers that Starbucks is special and that they are working toward a valuable goal.

Intellectual Stimulation: Employees at Starbucks have the opportunity to learn more about coffee. They are trained how to make the perfect coffee, and if they complete a course they can get the famous black apron and become a certified Coffee Master. There is no extra pay for those who get a black apron, but this does provide intellectual stimulation for employees and thus encourage motivation and hard work.

Individualized consideration: When he was 7 years old his father, an uneducated war veteran, had fallen and broke his hip and his ankle. His father lost his job, had no worker's compensation, no health-care, and no severance. So, in one of the most famous examples of individual consideration Howard Schultz offers health-care coverage and stock options to his workers even though many are part-time workers He believes in creating an engaging, respectful, trusting workplace culture.

Howard Schultz uses Charisma, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individualized Consideration, and this makes him a transformational leader.

by 

Brodie Monical

Seeds of De-Motivation

Free trips, annual bonuses, giving time off seems nice to a person who never had them, aren’t they? While these types of extrinsic rewards may cause a short-term burst of productivity, they also contain the seed for de-motivation in the long term.  Now let us imagine an employee who starts getting these extrinsic awards every time he performs well. He keeps on doing well even in bad economic times. He will not get those probably now and the unsatisfactory level of the employee rises because once they are awarded, they become expected. Company’s profit will dictate the terms of these awards. A ladder with rungs of dissatisfactions leads to the ceiling of De-motivation.

            So how managers prevent that to happen? A noted psychologist and one of the most influential names in business management, Herzberg's research showed that real motivators include achievement, recognition, meaningful work, responsibility, advancement and growth which is also called 'The Two-Factor Theory of Motivation'. Effective managers invest time in knowing people also. They not only focus on tasks but they focus on people also. Some managers do make the mistake that they care about work a lot more than people. This makes the employee feel insignificant. Every individual has a subconscious need that his work should be appreciated by others because recognition is a kind of feedback which lets the employee knows that his work is meaningful.

            Why do we want that our work should be meaningful? It is because every time we do something we want to add a value to ourselves. We look that what we are adding to the society. In order to make the employee’s work more meaningful a manager should make the transition from problem solver to coach. He lets the employee take charge of the problem and provide support and delegation. This not only makes the employee feel that he is adding value also the manager is allowing his employee to flourish to a new level, as a professional and as an individual too. This offers a greater level of satisfaction to an employee as compared to short term extrinsic awards. This style of managers can also be termed as ‘The Transformational Leadership style’ as the leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation.

Another thing which is very important from the standpoint of a manager is to be supportive towards employees which are sincere.  Jack Welch (Former Chairman and CEO of General Electric) was once asked in an interview that “Did you have a particular boss who inspired you?” He replied in his first job he had a disaster once when a plant blew up in Pittsfield. He had to go down to Connecticut to see his bosses and explain what had happened. He was expecting criticism, people yelling at him, get fired but they couldn't have been more supportive and encouraging to him which motivated him towards his work and leveraged his loyalty towards GE.

Innovative culture in engineering - Siemens

Siemens is the engineering group that is behind many of the products and services people take for granted in their daily lives. The list of products designed and manufactured by Siemens is almost endless. It includes traffic lights, gas turbines, superconducting magnets in medical scanners, wind generators, automated factories as well as domestic appliances like kettles and fridges. It generates about 40% of the UK's wind energy and it hosts, supports and maintains the BBC's website including the development of the BBC iPlayer. The company has been operating in the UK since 1843 and employs more than 18,000 people. Across the world Siemens employs over 427,000 people.

Engineers use scientific principles to develop products or systems to solve real life problems. Much of engineering is about innovation rather than invention. This means that engineers transform creative ideas into improved products, services, technologies or processes.

Motivation is the driving force for a successful company and motivated employees are a company’s most important assets. Each individual is motivated through different factors and its as unique as one’s personality. A creative environment, such as that provided by engineering, can be very stimulating. Some staff at Siemens thrives on the problem-solving aspect of their roles and respond to challenges. Other employees find the varied nature of the work motivating having the opportunity to try different roles. Siemens employees also value the fact that they are allowed to be imaginative and can influence their own work. The structure of Siemens motivates individuals by empowering them to improve processes. Siemens provides the sort of environment where workers can learn new things and are given the opportunity to progress within the business. This culture demonstrates that Siemens values its employees and helps to recruit the next generation of engineers.

Perhaps the earliest attempt to design jobs came during the era of scientific management. Taylor’s scientific management theory involved observing workers to see how they carried out tasks. As a result of his work tasks were broken down into smaller scale units of work, requiring little understanding from employees of what they were doing. This job specialization meant that workers undertook tasks with a narrowly defined range, for which they were rewarded according to how much they produced. Payment systems rewarded those who produced the most. Today, engineering needs people with greater creativity, capability and flexibility. Taylor’s way of working is very different from the needs of the modern working environment. However his work has helped form a scientific understanding of how work is organized.

Siemens have succeeded in creating an innovative culture in the engineering process which is quite challenging in this particular industry. At Siemens, the culture encourages employees to be involved in their work, suggesting and implementing possible improvements. Control as originally suggested by Taylor, which removed personal responsibility, is not what modern engineering is about. Controls still exist but the person doing the job is encouraged to work as part of a team and become involved in deciding the best way to do or improve a task. This is because in engineering there is a continuous need to develop new and better products and processes. They cannot be confined to one way of doing things. For example, a new product or process may open the way to new markets.

One of the most famous theorists on motivation is Abraham Maslow. In 1954 he developed a “hierarchy of needs”. This he represented as a triangle. The most basic needs are at the bottom. The more complex needs are at the top.

Siemens provides their employees with opportunities to improve their higher order needs. Mostly, engineers have a high priority to fulfill such needs due the creativity demand of the job. Esteem is about having self-respect and the respect of others. Feeling that one’s work is making a difference can improve self-esteem. Recognition of an employee’s achievements by the employer also helps to meet esteem needs. For example, Siemens runs schemes in which suggestions and projects for improvements are rewarded. This could be financially, either individually or as part of a team, or in terms of peer or management recognition of their achievements.

Self-actualization refers to the need of becoming all you are capable of becoming. Siemens offers engineering staff training and development opportunities. This links with self-actualization as it helps engineers to extend their capabilities which may lead to a progression up the career ladder. Training and development also helps individuals to meet the changing demands of the business global markets.

Frederick Herzberg approached the question of motivation in a different way. By asking individuals what satisfies them on the job and what dissatisfies them, Herzberg came to the conclusion that aspects of the work environment that satisfy employees are very different from the aspects that dissatisfy them. Herzberg labeled factors that cause dissatisfaction of workers as “hygiene factors” (company policies, supervision, working conditions, salary, safety and security on the job). In contrast, motivators are factors which are intrinsic to the job such as achievement, recognition, interesting work, increased responsibilities, advancement and growth opportunities. Herzberg’s theory showed that managers need to attend to the motivating factors and personal development aspects to improve employee performance. They also need to ensure that hygiene factors are met or managed in order to avoid dissatisfaction in the workplace.

To remove dissatisfaction, Siemens follows the method where they raise awareness of issues with employees and encourage their involvement. They then understand and recognize the need for change. This has helped Siemens to manage change programmes. Motivators at Siemens are the factors that stimulate engineers to work in the best way possible. They enjoy the characteristics of their roles. Being empowered helps them to manage their roles and enables them to use this power to change things. Whether individuals enter the organization after they have taken their A-levels, as apprentices or as graduates, the work they undertake is stimulating.

By 

Sonu Soney Joseph

Some Thoughts on Motivating Employees

Motivating employees can be very difficult work. People come to work to fulfill certain needs. The most basic of which, according to Maslow, would be physiological needs. A job provides money for shelter and food. Following the theory, people will work their way up from there to fulfilling self-esteem needs. Unfortunately the real world is not that simple. Every starving artist, writer, and Mother Teresa like figure pokes a rather large hole in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory.  Rather, I think, motivation at work is swirling mix of achievement, affiliation and power needs (from McCelland) on the higher aspirations side, and a mix of Maslow and Expectancy theory on the basic needs sides. (Note: this is my theory, as all three theories above are used to explain the entire spectrum of motivation).

The last time I was a manager, I supervised a diverse group of employees, several Baby Boomers and some Gen Y (I was the only Gen X), tenured and new, men and women, with fair amount of surface and deeper diversity. Finding the valence, or what was valuable for each employee, was very difficult. Furthermore, as I worked for a large company with a rigid performance and reward system, establishing instrumentality between the effort that an employee made and the reward was difficult. Monetary rewards could be given only yearly and only after a complex process.  This often resulted in a strong immediacy bias in rewards, and sometimes ‘sand-bagging’ of achievements so they will fall closer to the review processes. Non-monetary rewards were very limited and often taxed as cash! Although I hate to stereotype, for that particular circumstance, the difference between generations and employee tenure (which were often related) made the biggest difference in discovering how to motivate my employees.

Generation Y were a very young group at that time (still are), and several in this group were worried about basic financial issues like college loans and the cost of living. Although public recognition in team and department meetings seem to motivate most, it was particularly important to Gen Y employees. Their preference for this social/self-esteem goal contradicts Maslow’s theory. Also, time off seemed very important. Baby Boomers were more difficult to motivate. Most had been with the organization for some time. Many were near the top of their salary ranges, making the instrumentality between extra work and monetary rewards almost non-existent. Public recognition sometimes fell flat, as I managed in a finance department, which contained a lot of introverted personalities. Also, fault lines would quickly form between the older employees (mostly white, introverted, and promoted from support jobs) and the newer employees (more diverse, slightly more extroverted, and hired directly into higher level roles). Despite the fault, older employees were often able to quickly jade the younger employees and themselves on non-monetary incentives. However, active, direct and honest communication about department/company direction and goals did motivate the Baby Boom generation. Being long term employees and very committed to their jobs, feeling that they were included in decision making and understanding why decision were made was very important to this group.

Christian Hunt

Bulls Eye

AS we know from the Hygiene Theory of motivation that achievement is one of the factor which increases job satisfaction. A sense of achievement gives us strength and builds our confidence but at the same time it is very important that the achievement which we are trying to chase is valued by not only us but others also. Goal setting theory just works with that argument. Valued by the organization targets are given to the employee or the targets are defined by the employee itself. In a survey of organizational behavior scholars, Goal Setting Theory has been rated as the most important theory but it has to be conducted very carefully considering certain things in mind like regular feedback, ability of the employee chasing the goal, goal commitment of the employee.

Microsoft Corporation has a long tradition of emphasizing individual goals in its performance management system to support its performance based culture. Due to number of reasons like economic and competitive pressures and several exhaustive legal challenges to its business practices, the CEO of the company Steave Balmer instituted several changes in the organization’s structure and processes to ensure the success of Microsoft in future. The PM system review team conducted an audit of over 1500 employee annual performance review forms using the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Aggressive, Realistic, Time Bound) criteria to assess the quality of employee goals. The annual performance review includes the employee’s goal for the year, employee’s and manager’s review regarding the goal and official employee’s performance rating. Results were very astonishing: -

·         25% of all employees had not included “specific” goals on their annual review form: -

A person without a specific goal is just like a ship without rudder. Chasing something makes a lot sense when we know what we are chasing.

·         Only about 40 per cent were estimated measurable: -

Effective goals are more quantifiable. It someone knows the specific goals the performance is inclined to be higher.

·         The goals were more activity-focused than focused on results, and it was hard to see alignment with broader organizational or company goals: -

Giving employees goals that are not aligned with company goals will be a problem, because goals will direct employees' energies to a certain end. How can the big ship go in a specific decided direction unless all crew members of the ship does not want to go in that direction?

To explore the reasons for ineffective goal setting the PM review team conducted focus groups with managers and employees at different levels and at different regions worldwide. Some of the findings and their relationship with OB concepts were: -

·         Managers and employees need to meet more regularly to update progress toward achieving goals. This is the feedback part which is very important as the manager comes to know the progress of the employee towards the goal and gets enlighten by the challenges and conflicts faced by the employee. It really enhances the information of manager about the employee’s personality and gives the hint that how a specific employee can be motivated towards the goal.

·         The findings indicated that many concepts and condition were not present for many employees at Microsoft. Goals direct attention, energize people, influence persistence, effort, and work pace. So, some of the essential SMART Goal motivators were missing from the employees. It was difficult to know what directed their attention, energy, and efforts.

·         Managers need more training in setting SMART goals. It was clear that it is important to stick with the SMART goals as this is the motto of the company. Managers at Microsoft often motivate people to discover new ways to achieve the goal which were aberrant as per Microsoft’s goal.

Microsoft leaders concluded that goals are viewed as hopes rather than genuine commitment and it is imperative to have commitment with the goal. Thus the first change that was made was to combine the two by changing the actual language from ‘goals’ to ‘commitments.’ The commitment terminology came directly from leaders who believed that when an employee makes a commitment, there is a greater level of accountability to meet that commitment. To support the CEO’s plan to drive a culture of accountability, this language change was important. Along with that some important things were taken care like regular communication with manager, alignment commitment across the company by cascading commitments all over the organization.

In a nutshell one can say that along with the other causes Feedback and Commitment were the reasons of the ineffective practice of Goal Setting theory and company recognized it and worked on the essential parts of it.

By: - Vashisth Sharma

Team 4

Enterprise Rent-A-Car - A success story in motivation

Motivation is the desire to achieve a goal or a certain performance level, leading to goal- directed behavior. Motivation is particular to an individual so it is important to find out what factors drive each person. Some employees may be motivated by working in a team whereas others could be driven by a desire to make a difference. In this blog I will be throwing light on how Enterprise Rent-A-Car (Enterprise) has succeeded in creating the right environment for motivating and engaging its people through the development of good communication channels, appropriate training and honest and timely feedback.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car provides a car rental service for customers. It was founded by Jack Taylor in 1957 in the basement of a car dealership in St Louis in the USA. Today the company has over 750,000 rental cars in service globally. The company runs on a very strong customer service and only a highly motivated staff will provide this quality of service. The company uses a simple customer satisfaction survey – the Enterprise Service Quality index (ESQi) - to find out how satisfied its customers are. It is based on two simple questions:          

1. Were you completely satisfied with your rental experience at Enterprise?
2.  Given the opportunity to return to Enterprise, would you?

Enterprise knows that to perform well on the ESQi it needs to have motivated employees. Motivational theorist Frederick Taylor believed that workers needed close supervision and were only motivated by money. However, Enterprise-Rent-A-Car has identified a number of factors which are non-financial and which provide high levels of motivation for its employees. According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model, there is a hierarchy of needs that people want to fulfill through their work. At the lowest levels they require good pay so their basic needs for food, clothing and other essentials are met. However, in addition employees’ needs include:

• safety - a need to feel secure, e.g. through job security or personal protective equipment
• social - a need for affection, e.g. friendly work places based on trust, support and encouragement
• self-esteem - a need for self-respect and the respect of others, e.g. recognition and promotion
• self-actualization - the opportunity for personal fulfillment, e.g. learning new skills and working towards personal goals.

As part of its motivation programme, Enterprise managers are expected to ensure that employees are engaged and motivated by:

·         developing good relationships with their staff (this satisfies the social needs of the employee as per Maslow’s hierarchy of needs)

·          providing the right materials, equipment and information

·          encouraging employees to identify personal development targets (this satisfies the employee’s self-esteem and self-actualization needs)

·          recognizing and rewarding good performance. (satisfies employee’s self-esteem needs)

Enterprise also recognizes that motivated employees benefit the company by:

·         working with passion

·         coming up with new innovative ideas

·         moving the company forward.

Enterprise takes good care in developing and sustaining a positive work environment.  Enterprise‘s culture is based on having motivated people working every day to deliver the best service for customers. Managers and team leaders provide a culture through:

• Good relationships – managers take care of their employees. They try to find out about the employee’s expectations .They give clear directions and the team has fun together.
• Clear communications – clear goals and expectations are set and plans are shared. Reasons for doing things are clearly explained so employees can see how they fit into the big picture.
•  Adequate resources – managers make sure that materials, equipment and information are provided and fit for purpose.
• Encouragement – employees are praised for doing the right thing. Frustrations and problems are acknowledged. The focus is on working towards goals.
• Recognition – effort and good performance are rewarded. By establishing best practice, it is possible for Enterprise to measure branch culture against the benchmarks or standards it has set.

Developing a motivating culture takes time and effort. Enterprise managers and team leaders are given in-depth training. This allows them to develop a strategic, long-term approach to building a culture of customer care through motivated people. Everyone at Enterprise takes part in Motivation Training. This gives employees an understanding of motivation principles and techniques, so everyone‘s goals are in sync with the corporate goals as well.

Team leaders need to understand the needs of the people they manage to ensure they apply the right motivating factors for individuals. During training, managers learn to assess the motivation culture of their branch. For example, a branch with highly motivated employees may demonstrate this by:

•  answering the phone before the working day starts
• working together as a team
• regularly attending social work functions together
• arriving early every day
• organizing and preparing the office at the end of the day.

Employees are aware of the benefits of high levels of performance, such as recognition and promotion, but also the consequences of poor performance.

Frederick Herzberg showed that real motivation comes from within. Factors like good pay and working conditions (his ‘hygiene factors’) stop employees from being dissatisfied. However it is the opportunity to set personal targets and to develop oneself that are the true motivators. Within Enterprise, a number of de-motivating factors have been identified. These include:

•  a lack of organization or structure
• a lack of feedback
• a lack of understanding why a task is important
• a lack of consequences for poor performance.                                                                             

Managers are therefore trained to identify and work to reduce these within their branches. This may be by effective communication, training or clear guidance on job standards.

Recognition, one of Herzberg’s motivators, is important for employees to feel they are valued. To address this, Enterprise has introduced a system called ‘The Vote’. This aims to support and encourage the development of exceptional customer service. It works on the basis of co-workers providing assessment on themselves and each other. All employees in rental branches rank everyone in their team, including themselves, in terms of their customer service efforts. They provide a constructive explanation of the rankings given. These are then fed back to all employees. The names of the best performer and most improved employee are communicated to all employees in the region. This is a way of recognizing those employees who are delivering exceptional service and identifying those who may need additional motivation.

‘The Vote’ helps to achieve high ESQi scores because:

•  everyone is involved in suggesting improvements to others
• only constructive feedback is allowed
•  progress reports are issued regularly to remind fellow employees on how to improve.
•  improvement is valued as much as overall performance.

 A motivated workforce does not just happen. People need to be encouraged. This requires skilfull management and managers trained in motivation. Systems also need to be created which encourage employees to be more engaged with their jobs.

The table below shows how Enterprise highlights the differences between engaged employees and those who are not motivated:

Enterprise managers look for employees showing signs of disengagement so they can take immediate action. For example, they may remind employees why they are valuable.

They may also ask questions like:

·         How does your task and position fit your goals?

·         What could we do better?

By actively listening to the employee’s ideas, they may be able to make changes that will motivate the employee. Enterprise encourages managers to motivate their teams

throughout the working day. This involves:

·         making sure the team understands the objectives and target for the day (taking into account any constraints such as short staffing)

·         monitoring progress at mid-day and giving constructive feedback on how to make the rest of the day run smoothly

·          thanking and acknowledging each person’s achievement for that day and creating enthusiasm for the next day’s work.

Enterprise managers recognize that motivation is personal to the individual. If employees feel that they are being treated fairly, they will be more likely to give their best. Motivation comes from within an individual. Enterprise managers therefore need to find out about the personal goals and aspirations of their employees. What motivates one employee will not necessarily motivate another.

By

Sonu Soney Joseph

Does Steve Jobs Build Supermen?

It is easy to follow the news and get the impression that Steve Jobs is a super genius, working in a secret location, like Tony Stark, working late into the night to create the next blockbuster product that will change the world.  This, of course, is nothing like the truth.  He is just one man, he could not possibly be responsible for creating, designing, programing, every product that has come out of Apple.  For a more accurate picture of the way Apple works, you have to imagine that he is in charge of around 15,000 workers, and on a day to day basis only contacts about 100 people within the organization.  Of course Steve Jobs is incredibly important to the company, but it is not he who creates these wonderful products but rather it is his team and organization.  You may ask yourself, if Steve Jobs is not the super genius, that you thought he is, then he must have a super intelligent staff of Supermen or Superwomen that invent and create for him.  Before we jump to conclusions lets examine further how Apples organization produces super results.

If you had the chance to as Steve Jobs what type of people he hires you might think, "of course, the smartest".  Now you would be right in thinking this.  Steve Jobs hires very smart people, and according to our major predictors of job performance General Mental Abilities is the most important factors affecting Job Performance.  However, Steve Jobs hires from a pool of intelligent people.  The difference between getting a job at Apple and not getting the job, among similar smart people would be love for Apple. Yes, Love!  Steve job consistently hires people who are in love or are capable of falling in love with Apple. Steve Jobs himself is very much in love with Apple.

So, how does love relate to organizational behavior and creating wonderful products?  First of all, employees who love what they do are motivated by intrinsic motivation not extrinsic motivation.  They are not working because of money, or a longer vacation.  Something that exists inside themselves motivates them and that makes all the difference.  According to Frederick Herzberg's two factor theory, at Apple a workers Hygne Factors are met by a good salary and working conditions, but more importantly his Motivating Factors are met by interesting and important work.

The most important reason Apple is able to attract exceptional workers is that at Apple they control their own Hardware, Operating System, and Software.  Only at Apple are those things under one roof and the best workers come to Apple because only at Apple can they make great products that can be streamlined.  You could say that according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs the programers and engineers can try to fulfill the two highest of needs on the pyramid.  Esteem is satisfied in the fact that they work for hottest and desirable, and well know companies in the world. 

More importantly they are trying to fulfill the need of self actualization.  These programers and engineers are trying to create something more important than themselves.  Steve Jobs has repeatedly said that death is a very important motivating factor at his company.  He is aware of death and our limited time here on earth and therefore he demands that they should create the best products they can while they are still alive. 

Steve Jobs has created a culture recognizing Love and Death.  These factors go beyond salary, vacation time, and status.  This is how Apple has created products that have a cult like following.  This is also, how Steve Jobs has been able to motivate employees to the highest of their abilities.  And therefore Steve Jobs creates Supermen and Superwomen by being able to recruit the best employees and motivate them by appealing to the highest needs of self actualization.




By, Brodie M.

Why should Piggy get his glasses back?

Why should Piggy get his glasses back?

What determines our perceptions of equity? Holding a perception that your employer is fair, and that your efforts will produce a desirable result is not just an aspect of motivation, but a determiner if you actually stay at an employer.

We know from the text, and probably our personal experience, that personality and culture has some effect on perceptions of equity. The text discusses that German and America workers expect more input into business decisions than other cultures to feel motivated and equitably treated. The Japanese expect more equal rewards than other cultures. On an individual level, people have different levels of sensitivity toward equality. Benevolents will tolerate higher levels of inequity, Sensitives have strict codes of equity and Entitleds have no tolerance for inequity, at least for themselves!

Is the need to have our inputs actually deserving of appropriate outcomes innate or socialized? Our perceptions of self-esteem and justice appear socialized. We observe them selectively, processing them into our belief systems, then store them for a time when we are faced with a situation that requires them. But are we all just an imprint of our personality and culture? Would someone raised in a “Lord of Flies” like world still perceive that their inputs should deserve a requisite output, or would they simply be the socialized to their unbalanced world? In the book “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” Ishmael Beah chronicles his life as a boy soldier in Africa. What struck me about the book was how fundamentally unfair his life was, and how unfair it was to anyone who could have been in his referent group for perceiving equity.

The ancient Greeks believed that the gods would play trick on humans. This made life unfair, but putting a mythological reasoning for it made it tolerable. To put it in a motivational sense, inputs could not be expected to produce a fair output, because life was not fair. This was true for the entire cultural (referent) group. Yet thankfully the Greeks maintained an inner sense of what could be fair, and from this I think much of Western philosophy springs. The character “Piggy” in “Lord of the Flies” was victimized as much by the value of his glasses being useful to start fires (which were eventually stolen and his attempt to retrieve them caused his demise) as by his internal sense that things could be better than they were.

So I will ask the question, and hopefully someone will respond, are we capable of achieving a higher understanding of what is fair, or are we just a product of our environment and disposition? Do we have a soul, or are we just the nuts and bolt of our bodies and society? Did Piggy have the right to ask for his glasses back?

Christian Hunt

Introduction

Our team members are:

Brodie Monical

Christian Hunt

Sonu Soney Joseph

Vashisth Sharma

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

-        Martin Luther King, Jr.

Literally, motivation is the desire to do things. It’s a vital element in setting and attaining goals. It's the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement and lazing around the house all day. The importance of motivation in business cannot be overstated and it is important because it is the psychological catalyst employees require to reach the goal. In this blog we will be citing and discussing on various recent examples in the corporate/business world showing how they have succeeded or failed to motivate their employees and possibly suggest ways to improve them. We invite all to contribute their ideas, concerns and suggestions.