This section lists creative ideas in different fields
and subjects: business, products, services, personal life and more. If a
particular subject interests you, please tell me, so I may try to include it in
upcoming issues.
Often when I facilitate management workshops on the subject of
employee motivation, managers complain that they have too few ways to reward
their employees. Many of them say that without an
extra budget, they have no way to reward employees. However, as the
workshop progresses, participants become aware and come up with a long list of
ideas for rewarding their team members.
In case you find youself in need for a creative idea to
boost employee motivation without making a 50% pay raise - here is a selected
list:
Share the employee's success with their
family:
I can safely say that too many great efforts and
achievements on the part of employees do not receive due positive
feedback. Even more rarely do the family members of employees get to hear
of their good work.
The positive results of sharing the success of an
employee with their family are numerous. To name a few:
The employee would feel proud and
appreciated.
Family members will understand the
importance and support the employee's efforts and
investment at work.
The organization will develop stronger
relations with the community and will improve its employer
image.
Here are a few ways you can make this happen:
Write a periodic letter of commendation to the employee's
family, listing specific achievements they recently accomplished.
Invite the employee's partner, children or parents for a
tour of the workplace, pointing out projects the employee has been
involved in.
Visit the employee's home to tell their family how highly
you think of their work.
Send out an electronic newsletter to all employees'
families, highlighting the successes of several employees each
time.
All of the above ideas require little, if any,
investment. A lot more can be done if you simply turn your attention to
this powerful and important channel.
Promote a group culture of "motivation
support":
There is a lot of evidence demonstrating the power of the
group at work. This power can be tapped to help keep motivation levels
high, through a "motivation support" culture.
Organize events and rituals in which a group of
employees boosts the motivation of at least one team member. For
instance:
Each member of the group tells of a unique contribution
that person has made during the past month.
One team member shares with the group an idea they wish
to promote or a problem they need to solve and group members all come up
with ways to make that wish come true for the team member.
Play a game in which team members draw a name
of another team member and have to secretly do things that boost that
person's motivation for a week. The game ends in a big party during which
participants guess and later reveal who was their secret
benefactor.
B. Creative Tool: Killing the
Demons
Often, being creative is more about breaking psychological
barriers than about being a skillful inventor. Many people fail to fulfill
their full creative capacity because they are restrained by past experiences,
fears and inhibitions.
Obviously, overcoming these obstacles is not easily
done. However, following is a step-by-step process that might help you
break new grounds. Some may find it easier to execute on their own, while
others may prefer the support of a group:
Write down your current situation in 5
sentences:
Example 1 - personal situation: list 5
points that describe the central aspects of your position. This may be your
professional position, your situation related to a specific project, or even
your life as a whole.
Example 2 - organizational
situation: list 5 points that describe the situation of a
project, of the team or of the entire organization.
Uncover the demons that are holding you back:
Example 1 - personal situation: list
3 things that are holding you back. Try to focus on things that are based on
your own beliefs, fears, or past experiences, rather than on things related
to external barriers. You might think of underlying assumptions that you
acquired from your parents or your teachers, or of restrictions that you
have taken on yourself following your professional education or on
social norms.
Example 2 - organizational situation: list
3 things that are holding you back. Try to focus on things that are based on
your own methods of operation, structure, or historical rituals and habits,
rather than on things related to external organizations or market effects.
You might think of the formal lines of hierarchy and communication, the
unspoken "do's and don'ts" of the group, the reactions to unorthodox ideas
and behavior.
"Kill" the demons to discover new
possibilities:
Example - personal & organizational
situation: imagine what would happen if you could do away with
one of the demons you listed earlier. Rewrite the 5 points describing your
situation imagining that demon is no longer holding you back. Now
repeat the exercise "killing" another of the 3 demons. Do this until you
feel you where able to break away from your major holdbacks and describe an
unrestricted new reality.
Travel on - but beware of the demon's return:
Once you've sketched the possibilities of overcoming your
restrictions, you may draw ways to make these unlimited achievements real.
When you do so, your "demons" will re-surface every once in a while - trying
to fight you back into your previous restrictions. This is natural - after
all, many of these restrictions serve to protect us personally and our
society. Yet many other restrictions originate only from our fears and
overcoming them poses no real threat to ourselves or to
others.
Goodluck!
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