Motivating OthersWritten by Militza Basualdo
MOTIVATING OTHERSDo you have a person in your staff who is not performing as well as he/she should? Try these motivation tips. You can work miracles with even mediocre persons that are well motivated. FEEDBACK IS THE BEST MOTIVATOR Feedback on results, especially positive feedback, is best way to motivate your people. If you only give feedback to your people when they do something wrong, very soon they will do as little as possible. They will either vegetate in company or leave it. If you tell person how well he/she did something, right after it happened, you’ll be increasing his/her motivation more than if you did anything else. PRAISE OFTEN Praise people often, as soon as they do something right. Praise them when they exceed standards and even when they consistently meet standards. The most common mistake managers make is to fail to praise. Catch your people doing something right and praise them. Don’t take their good performance for granted. You must motivate them to keep it up. Don’t hold back your praise. Whenever you see somebody doing something right, make sure you praise that person. Make it a point. Don’t let it go without mentioning I to person or you’ll be wasting a valuable opportunity to boost person’s morale’s and motivation. MONEY ISN´T EVERYTHING Money is important. But regardless of how much we ear, we like more in a job than just money. Most of us like to know that we’re doing something useful and worthwhile – that our work is of real value to somebody. Mush as we need money, we also like to feel we are contributing something o human race. We like to be recognized and appreciated. THREE FUNDAMENTALS How do good employees think and feel? 1.They are interested in their work and think it’s important. 2.They think of themselves as individuals who are making a real contribution – not as tools being used by someone else. 3.They take price in themselves and their work. GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR PEOPLE´S IDEAS When an employee offers you a suggestion, you may consider following: Develop and refine – often idea will be half-baked. Help person develop idea so it is usable. Prepare - few ideas can be put to work immediately. Be sure you get all information and equipment needed to implement it. Arrange for a trial – test out idea with others and yourself. Listen to all opinions. Evaluate Thoroughly – if it passes a limited test, it doesn’t mean it will pass full production test. Prove that it will work first. Reward person- one way to assure a continuing flow of ideas is to reward those you get. Praise person. Tell others about his/her accomplishments and its benefits.
| | Be Brief!Written by Stephen D. Boyd
Centuries ago great speakers often spoke two hours and more. But today when sound bytes on television news are norm and serious problems are solved in an hour on a television drama, audiences are most interested in speakers that get their points across in a short period of time. In a speech delivered to a Women in Communication audience, Patricia Ward Brash said, “Television has helped create an impatient society, where audiences expect us to make our point simply and quickly.” Today great speakers are noted for their brevity. Billy Graham, in a recent city-wide campaign in Cincinnati, spoke about 20 minutes each night. Theodore Sorensen in his book, Kennedy, gave guidelines by which President Kennedy prepared speeches. No speech was more than 20-30 minutes. He wasted no words and his delivery wasted no time. He rarely used words he considered hackneyed or word fillers. As Purdue communications professor and researcher Josh Boyd wrote, “In physics, power is defined as work divided by time. In other words, more work done in less time produces more power. In same way, a speaker’s message is most powerful when he [or she] can deliver a lot of good material in a short amount of time." Here are guidelines to make brevity a key foundation in your next speech. First, keep your stories under two minutes in length. In preparing a story, continue to ask question, “How can I say this in less time and in fewer words?” Script out your story and then seek to condense it. There is an adage in using humor: “The longer story funnier it had better be.” Connecting this principle to stories in general, we might say, “The longer story, more impact it had better have.” To make sure your stories stay under two minutes, include only information that answers questions, “Who?” “What?” “When?” “Where?” and “Why?” If it doesn’t answer one of these questions, leave it out. Make sure also that you have a sense of direction in story. Each part of story should move toward conclusion in mind of listener. The listener should always feel you are going somewhere in developing your story. Second, when possible, follow proverb, “Less is better than more.” Never use three words when you can say it in two. Leave out clichés, filler words, and hackneyed words, such as "You know," "OK," and "All right." Leave out phrases such as “Let me be honest,” or blunt, or frank. Avoid “In other words…” or “To say it another way…” Speak in short sentences, short phrases, and short words. Word choice should be instantly clear to an audience. Make it a goal to make every word have impact in your speech.
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