مجموعة من العلماء و ضعوا 5 قرود في قفص واحدو في وسط القفص ووضعوا سلم وفي أعلاه وضعوا بعض الموز
Now, the moment monkeys saw the banana on top, they tried to climb up the ladder and grab the banana. But what the scientists did was, the moment any monkey tried going up the ladder, they would shower freezing cold water on rest of the four monkeys.
في كل مرة يطلع أحد القرود لأخذ الموز يرش العلماء باقي القرود بالماء البارد
After a few cold shower, the monkeys understood that they are subjected to the cold showers only when any of them try to go up the ladder. So next time any monkey tried going up the ladder, the rest of them would beat him black and blue!
بعد فترة بسيطة أصبح كل قرد يطلع لأخذ الموز، يقوم الباقين بمنعهو ضربه حتى لا يرتشون بالماء البارد
After several beatings, every monkey gave up tried going up the ladder, even after having the temptation of the bunch of bananas right in front of their eyes!
بعد مدة من الوقت لم يجرؤ أي قرد على صعود السلم لأخذ الموز، على الرغم من كل الإغراءات خوفا من الضرب
Now the scientists brought a change in the setup. A monkey from the set of five, was replaced with a new monkey. This new monkey, the moment saw the bunch of bananas, tried to go up the ladder and grab it!
بعدها قرر العلماء أن يقوموا بتبديل أحد القرود الخمسة و يضعوا مكانه قرد جديد
فأول شيء يقوم به القرد الجديد أنه يصعد السلم ليأخذ الموز
Upon this, as per the usual practice, rest of the four monkeys gave him a severe beating! After couple of such beatings, the new monkey also gave up trying going up the ladder and grab the bananas, without ever knowing why he was being beaten for going up the ladder and grabbing the bananas..
ولكن فورا الأربعة الباقين يضربونه و يجبرونه على النزول
بعد عدة مرات من الضرب يفهم القرد الجديد بأن عليه أن لا يصعد السلم مع أنه لا يدري ما السبب
Now the scientists made more changes and replaced one of the old four monkeys with a new one. This time, same as the last time, first thing the new monkey did was to try going up the ladder and grab the banana! But upon this, he was severely bashed. This time, even our last replaced monkey, joined in beating the new monkey. Neither the new monkey knew why he was being beaten on trying to go up the ladder, nor our last replaced monkey knew why he is beating the new monkey on trying to climb up the ladder!
قام العلماء أيضا بتبديل أحد القرود القدامى بقرد جديد و حل به ما حل بالقرد البديل الأول حتى أن القرد البديل الأول شارك زملائه بالضرب و هو لا يدري لماذا يضرب
Going ahead with the experiment, the scientists kept replacing old monkeys with new ones and every time the beating was repeated.
و هكذا حتى تم تبديل جميع القرود الخمسة الأوائل بقرود جديدة
After some time what was left was a group of five monkeys who never received a cold shower but which never tried climbing up the ladder to grab the bananas and kept beating any monkey who triedclimbing up the ladder and grab the bananas!
حتى صار في القفص خمسة قرود لم يرش عليهم ماء بارد أبدا
و مع ذلك يضربون أي قرد تسول له نفسه صعود السلم بدون أن يعرفوا ما السبب
If it was ever possible to ask these five monkeys why they beat any other monkey who try to go up the ladder and grab the bananas, I'm sure the answer would be.. “I don't know... but that's how things are done over here!”
لو سألنا القرود لماذا يضربون القرد الذي يصعد السلم؟ أكيد سيكون الجواب: لا ندري ولكن وجدنا آباءنا وأجدادنا له هكذا
"عادات وتقاليد"
In life, most of the time we would encounter people, at work, among friends, peers, even family members, who would throw their solid fist on you every time you try to go up the ladder, without anyjustifiablereason or point! But unfortunately... “That's how things are done around here!”
We have a choice... either we can continue being a monkey and go on with bashing and beating.. or stop being one and start climbing the up the ladder!!
نحن نملك قرارنا.... إما أن نصبح قرده ويتم فيه ضربنا وتخلفنا... أو إما نقف عن صمتنا ونبدأ صعود السلم!!
“Only two things are infinite.. the Universe and Human Stupidity, and I'm not so sure of the former!” -Albert Einstein.
هكذا قال أينشتاين
هناك شيئين لا حدود لهما ... العلَم و غباء الإنسان
وهو مايطبّق وليس له سبب معروف اجتماعيا أو دينيا أو ماشابه
عملياً هذا ما نطبقه نحن في أعمالنا وحياتنا اليومية نبقى في الروتين خوفاً من التغيير
(حاول أن تغير وتتغير حتى تشعر بلذة الحياة)
وأقرأ هذه الحكمة وفكر فى معانيها : ....you can if you believe you can
There are many different power bases that a leader can develop and use.
These include problematic ones such as the power of position, the power to give rewards, the power to punish and the power to control information. While these types of power do have some strength, they put the person being led in an unhealthy position of weakness, and can leave leaders using these power bases looking autocratic and out of touch.
More than this, society has changed hugely over the last 50 years. Citizens are individually more powerful, and employees are more able to shift jobs. Few of us enjoy having power exerted over us, and many will do what they can to undermine people who use these sorts of power.
However there are three types of positive power that effective leaders use: charismatic power, expert power and referent power.
This article teaches you how to build expert power.
How to Use the Tool:
Expert power is essential because as a leader, your team looks to you for direction and guidance. Team members need to believe in your ability to lead in a worthwhile direction, give sound guidance, and co-ordinate a good result.
If members of your team see you as a true expert, they will be much more receptive when you try to persuade them to do something, and when you want to inspire them to make more of an effort.
And if they see you as an expert, you'll find it much easier to motivate them:
If team members respect your expertise, they'll trust you to show them how to work effectively.
If team members respect your judgment, they'll trust you to guide their efforts in such a way that you'll make the most of their hard work.
If they can see your expertise, they'll believe that you have the wisdom to direct their efforts towards a goal that is genuinely worthwhile.
Taken together, if your team sees you as an expert, you'll find it much easier to motivate your people to perform at their best.
So how do you build expert power?
Gain expertise: The first step is fairly obvious (if time consuming) – gain expertise. And, if you are already using tools like the information gathering tool, the chances are that you have already progressed well ahead in this direction.
But just being an expert isn't enough, it is also necessary that your people recognize your expertise and see you as a credible source of information and advice. Gary A. Yukl, in his book "Leadership in Organizations," details some steps to build expert power. These are:
Promote an image of expertise: Since perceived expertise in many occupations is associated with a person's education and experience, a leader should (subtly) make sure that subordinates, peers, and superiors are aware of his or her formal education, relevant work experience, and significant accomplishments.
One common way of doing this is to display diplomas, licenses, awards, and other evidence of expertise in a prominent location in your office – after all, if you've worked hard to gain knowledge, it's fair that you get credit for it. Another tactic is to make subtle references to prior education or experience (for example, "When I was chief engineer at GE, we had a problem similar to this one"). Beware, however: this can easily be overdone.
Maintain credibility: Once established, you should carefully protect your image of expertise. Avoid making careless comments about subjects on which you are poorly informed, and avoid being associated with projects with a low likelihood of success.
Act confidently and decisively in a crisis: In a crisis or emergency, subordinates prefer a "take charge" leader who appears to know how to direct the group in coping with the problem. In this kind of situation, your people will associate confident, firm leadership with expert knowledge. Even if you're not sure how to deal with a crisis, you'll lose influence with members of your team if you appear confused.
Keep informed: Expert power is exercised through rational persuasion and demonstration of expertise. Rational persuasion depends on a firm grasp of up-to-date facts. It is therefore essential that you keep well-informed of developments within your team, within your organization, and in the outside world.
Recognize team member concerns: Use of rational persuasion should not be seen as a form of one-way communication from the leader to members of his or her team. Listen carefully to the concerns and uncertainties of your team members, and make sure that you address these.
Avoid threatening the self-esteem of subordinates: Expert power is based on a knowledge differential between the leader and team members. Unfortunately, the very existence of this differential can cause problems if you're not careful about the way in which you exercise expert power.
Team members can dislike unfavorable status comparisons where the gap is very large and obvious. And they are likely to be upset by a leader who acts in a superior way, and arrogantly flaunts his greater expertise.
In the process of arguing for what they want, some leaders lecture their team members in a condescending manner and convey the impression that the other team members are "ignorant." Guard against this.
This is one of the articles in Mind Tools’ “How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You” course. Not only does the course explain how to use the other "good" power bases, it teaches you how to use a range of honest influence tactics and powerful motivational techniques. Click here to find our more about “How to Lead".
Discover key factors for building a motivated team
Managers everywhere want teams that are effective, focused, and committed to organizational goals. With a team like this, just think of the performance and results you could deliver!
Teams only perform like this if their managers are motivating them effectively.
This is why you need to be able to motivate your team if you want to create a productive work environment. By combining good motivational practices with meaningful work, the setting of performance goals, and use of an effective reward system, you can establish the kind of atmosphere and culture that you need to excel.
The better you are able to link these factors together, the higher the motivation levels of your team are likely to be. That's a win-win for you, them, and the organization.
The interactive motivational skills quiz in this article helps you identify the aspects of team motivation that you can improve. From there you will be directed to specific tools that will help you improve your motivation skills.
Take the test and apply the things you learn from it. You could well see the performance of your team soar!
How Good Are Your Motivation Skills?
Take the online test below, and click the 'Calculate my total' button at the foot of the test the assess your motivation skills.
Instructions: For each question, click the button in the column that most applies. Click the 'Calculate My Total' button to add up your score and check your result using the scoring table underneath.
Score Interpretation
Score
Comment
15 - 34
Ouch. The good news is that you've got a great opportunity to improve the way you motivate others, and your and your team's long term success! However, to do this, you've got to fundamentally improve your motivation skills. Start below!
35 - 52
You're good at some aspects of motivating others, but there's room for improvement elsewhere. Focus on the serious issues below, and you'll most likely find that your team's performance will increase.
53 - 75
You're probably motivating your team very effectively! Still, check the sections below to see if there's anything you can tweak to make this even better.
As you answered the questions, you probably had some insight into areas where the motivational practices you use could use a pick-me-up. The following is a quick summary of the main areas of motivation that were explored in the quiz, and a guide to the specific tools you can use for each.
Providing Productive and Challenging Work (Questions 1, 4, 15)
The first step in building a highly motivated team is providing interesting work, which is well organized to meet the needs and desires of team members. No matter how self-motivated a person is, how challenging the goals he or she sets, or how wonderful the rewards, if the work is badly designed, it will be hard to motivate people and work will be less than ideal.
Effective motivators understand that work design has a strong impact on performance. When a person finds a job inherently unsatisfying, there's not much you can do to motivate him or her. Job design and enrichment combine to match characteristics of the job with workers' skills and interests: The more variety, challenge and autonomy there is to a job, the more intrinsically satisfying it will be.
Our article on Job Enrichment details how to set up meaningful work assignments. Other articles of interest include Pygmalion Motivation, which addresses the impact that your work assignments have on conscious and unconscious motivators, and Dealing with Poor Performance, which outlines steps that you can take to ensure you have a good fit between the person and the job.
Setting Effective Goals (Questions 2, 3, 12, 14)
When you are confident that the work you provide is well organized, the next thing to do is to ensure that workers have clear and attainable goals that they're working to achieve. Managing the goal setting process is essential for creating a highly motivating environment. The effectiveness of goal setting in motivation is a well-recognized fact, and by making goals specific, consistent, and appropriately challenging, you can set goals that are powerfully motivating. As such, the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) acronym helps you define effective goals.
Specific goals are measurable, unambiguous and behavior-changing. They outline exactly what needs to be accomplished, and when it will be considered as "achieved". Having goals that are consistent with other personal goals as well as organizational goals is also important. If goals are inconsistent, the resulting confusion and incompatibility would like cause the person to do nothing rather than work in different directions.
Finally, challenge is important, due to the observation that we get what we expect. Up to a point, the more you expect from someone, the harder they will generally work. This has been shown time and again, and is explained by the idea of Expectancy Theory: The idea here is that you need to link high effort with high performance, and high performance with a positive outcome. With those two linkages established, people are motivated to work hard to achieve a positive outcome. Read more in our article on Expectancy Theory.
Tip:
Think carefully about the goals you set, and make sure you adapt them to circumstances in a reasonable way. If you're too rigid with your goals, you may motivate members of your team to "cut corners" in order to reach them.
Understanding Individual Differences in Motivation (Questions 5, 9, 10, 11)
Motivational techniques should bring out the best in people. That means they should build on an individual's strengths and minimize his or her weaknesses.
There are certainly some common denominators in motivation, like fair wages, decent working conditions, a sense of camaraderie with co-workers, and a good relationship with one’s supervisor. Abraham Maslow and Frederick Herzberg are two famous motivation theorists who established that even if these sorts of things are not necessarily motivating in themselves, they have to be present in order to even think about enhancing motivation.
However, the assumption in most modern workplaces is that these lower order, "hygiene" factors are being met, and that people are seeking the things that provide real motivation. These are things like challenging work, control, growth opportunities, and recognition for a job well done.
To decide which motivating factors to provide you need to look at the individual employees. Some will be motivated by more time off, while others may prefer to gain status and recognition in the company. Understanding these individual needs is mandatory for building a motivating workplace, and is why question 11 above is a "trick question": if you try to motivate everyone in exactly the same way, you're likely missing plenty of opportunities for motivating individual members of your team.
Providing Rewards and Recognition (Questions 6, 7, 8, 13)
When you know what you want to provide in terms of reward and recognition, it's important to establish an effective system. The primary focus of a reward system is fairness. Both reward and discipline have to be perceived as fairly distributed according to clear guidelines. This is why setting specific performance expectations is so important. ("Fairness" doesn't mean that everyone has the same reward package - it means that differences between people's reward packages need to be clear and understandable.)
It is equally important to make sure you give your team members the tools they need to be successful. If you're setting goals, then you need to make sure that they are attainable, and you do that by providing the necessary support, tools, resources, and training.
It's also important that you get to understand the challenges your team faces. This way you can appreciate the small victories that lead to the major accomplishments. Motivation is all about encouragement and appreciation.
When you are part of the team and not simply an "observer from above" you will have many opportunities to thank people and recognize good work right on the spot. This is a really important factor in successful recognition. You have to be in a position to show or tell people everyday that you appreciate their contributions. Once or twice a year in formal review process is not enough!
To develop your skills in motivating othes further, try our The Team Motivation Workbook downloadable PDF. Click here for more.
Key points:
If you want to build a high performance team, then you absolutely have to learn how to motivate team members. Side benefits of this include high levels of team-member job satisfaction, and good staff retention.
You can stimulate high performance through providing interesting and challenging work, helping people set and achieve meaningful goals, and recognizing and rewarding high performance in ways that are valued by each individual.
Making a point of motivating people is a challenge in and of itself. Once you decide you are up to it, however, you too will reap the rewards and benefits. This creates a momentum that will help you and your team achieve great success.
There are four basic management skills anyone must master to have any success in a management job. These four basic skills are plan, organize, direct, and control and are discussed separately in detail below.
Plan
Planning is the first and most important step in any management task. It also is the most often overlooked or purposely skipped step. While the amount of planning and the detail required will vary from task to task, to skip this task is to invite sure disaster except by sure blind luck. That's what gives us the adage of the 6 P's of planning (or 7 P's depending on how you count). More Articles On Planning
Although most people associate the term planning with general business planning, there are also different levels of planning:
A manager must be able to organize teams, tasks, and projects in order to get the team's work done in the most efficient and effective manner. As a beginning manager, you may be organizing a small work team or a project team. These same skills will be required later in your career when you have to organize a department or a new division of the company. Clearly, there is a lot of overlap between planning the work and in organizing it. Where planning focuses on what needs to be done, organization is more operational and is more focused on how to get the work done best.
When you organize the work, you need to:
determine the roles needed,
assign tasks to the roles,
determine the best resource (people or equipment) for the role,
Whether you have been assigned a small team or a project to manage, beginning managers must also be able to organize offices and data systems.
You may not be able to physically move people around in order to get your team together, but you should consider it. On the other hand, you may need to move several people into a small space and you will have to organize things so the team can work effectively within that space. Later in your career, you may need to organize an office to accommodate teams from several different departments and their specific needs.
You will also need to be able to organize all the systems that will handle the data your team needs to collect or distribute. These days, those are probably computer systems. You must decide whether, for example, you need to set up shared web pages on the company's intranet or just a shared folder on the file server. How are you going to organize the systems so everyone who needs information has access to it (and that it is not available to those who should not see it, like your competitors)? If your team needs or produces something other than information, you must organize so that your team gets what they need, when they need it, and can get out to others what your team produces at the right time.
Don't forget about organizing yourself. We will go into this at a higher level in Level 3 of the Management Skills Pyramid, but even as a beginning manager you must be able to organize yourself, your time, and your space so you can be most effective.
Here are some articles that can help you manage yourself effectively.
Finally, remember, that it is seldom enough to organize things once. With constant changes in resources, goals, and external factors you will usually need to reorganize to adjust for them.
Direct
Directing is the action step. You have planned and organized the work. Now you have to direct your team to get the work done. Start by making sure the goal is clear to everyone on the team. Do they all know what the goal is? Do they all know what their role is in getting the team to the goal? Do they have everything they need (resources, authority, time, etc.) to do their part? Pull, Don't Push
You will be more effective at directing the team toward your goal if you pull (lead them) rather than push (sit back and give orders). You want to motivate the people on your team and assist and inspire them toward the team goals.
Some writers try to "soften" this skill by calling it "coordinate" or similar terms. I prefer the stronger term, control, because it is essential that the manager be able to control the team's activities. In the steps above, you have planned the work, organized the resources to make it happen most efficiently, and directed the team to start work. In the control step, you monitor the work being done. You compare the actual progress to the plan. You verify that the organization is working as you designed it.
If everything is going well, you do not need to do anything but monitor. However, that seldom happens. Someone gets sick, the database sort takes longer each iteration than projected, a key competitor drops their prices, a fire destroys the building next door and you have to evacuate for several days, or some other factor impacts your plan. The control step now dictates that you have to take action to minimize the impact and brings things back to the desired goal as quickly as possible.
Often this means going back to the planning stage and adjusting plans. Sometimes it may require a change in the organization. and you will have to re-direct everyone toward the new goals and inspire them. Then, of course, you control the new plan and adjust if needed. This cycle continues until you complete the task. Managers Control Tools
In the control step, you set standards for performance and quality and then you monitor to make sure they are met. There are as many tools available you as there are things you need to monitor.
Scheduling tools - a number of software tools allow you to input your schedule and then update progress regularly. The program will highlight changes in the schedule so you can identify corrective action to take.
Financial controls - as a manager, you will usually have a budget. The reports from the Finance Department will let you know how your spending (on people and other resources) matches the plan.
People controls - you must make sure all the people on your team are performing as planned. If they are not, you need to find and fix the cause. Do they not understand the goal? Do they not have some resource or skill they need? Is the task too big for them and needs to be modified or assigned to a different resource? Your job as the manager means giving your team members feedback on how their performance meets the plan. When it doesn't, you need to take corrective action. Here's how to give negative feedback to your team members in a productive way.
The Full Management Skills Pyramid
The Management Skills Pyramid shows all the skills a manager must master to be successful and shows how these management skills build on each other toward success.
Meetings can be very productive. They can also be a waste of time. Here are some ways to improve your meeting management skill.
Meeting Management Key - Stand PAT
I use a "PAT" approach to meetings. A meeting has to have: a Purpose, an Agenda, and a Timeframe or I don't do it. You should be able to define the purpose of the meeting in 1 or 2 sentences at most. "This meeting is to plan the new marketing campaign" or "this meeting is to review shipping's new policy for handling returns." That way everyone knows why they are there, what needs to be done, and how to know if they are successful.
Set an agenda. List the items you are going to review/discuss/inspect. I like to assign a time limit to each agenda item (see below) and identify the person responsible to speak or moderate the discussion.
Set a timeframe; at the very least set a start and end time. I also recommend setting a duration for each item in the agenda. These should total to the overall meeting timeframe.
Don't Wait
Meetings need to start on time. Don't wait for stragglers to show up. When someone arrives late, don't go back and review what has already been covered. That just wastes the time of the people who showed up on time for the meeting. If the meeting organizer/sponsor doesn't show up on time, consider the meeting cancelled and go back to work. How long to wait for the organizer to show up varies among companies, but I wouldn't wait any longer than 5 minutes.
Keep and send minutes
Someone, other than the meeting organizer, should keep minutes of the meeting. How detailed these are depends on the nature of what is being discussed and the skill of the available note taker. If you set an agenda in the first place, as you should have, the note taker can use that as an outline. The minutes should record who attended, what was discussed, any agreements that were reached, and any action items that were assigned. Soon after the meeting, usually within 24 hours, the minutes of the meeting should be distributed to all who attended, any invitees who did not attend, and anyone else effected by the discussion. Email is a great vehicle for distributing them. Distributing the minutes informs those not at the meeting of the progress that was made and reminds everyone of their action items.
Stay Focused
Every meeting should have a "topic keeper". I like to ask for a volunteer at the beginning of the meeting. The topic keeper's job is to interrupt whenever the discussion strays from the topic under discussion. These new topics can either be tabled until later or scheduled for their own meeting. There is a fine line between what are amplifying remarks about the topic under discussion and what is a tangential topic. The meeting organizer can decide. It never hurts to say "let's take that up off-line".
Be more productive
I believe these things will make your meetings more productive. If you have other meeting management tips to share with your peers, you can post them on our Management Forum. ------
Level 3 is where the developing manager must master personal development. It is the next level of the management skills pyramid, which shows the skills a manager must master to be successful and shows how these management skills build on each other toward success.
Personal Management Skills
There are two areas of personal management skills you must master to be successful as a manager. These are self management and time management. We discuss these in detail below.
Self management
By this point in your development as a manager, you are good at assigning work to your employees and coaching them through the difficulties so they can produce their best work. You know how to motivate them and discipline them. You have built them into a team. But are you as good at managing yourself as you are at managing others? Do you stay focused on the tasks that are truly important and not just urgent? Do you do your job the best you are able?
Take Ownership of Your Job
Every job you do has your "signature" on it. Do it the best you can; do it the best it can be done. That is how you succeed.
Scruples Are A Good Thing
There is a reason for that little voice in your head. Listen to it. Don't just do things right, but also do the right thing. You will do a better job as a manager if you don't have to waste time remembering what lies you told to whom.
Pareto's Principle - The 80-20 Rule
It is important that as a manager you focus on what is truly important, not just what appears urgent. The 80-20 Rule can help you do that.
If you have learned nothing else in your management career, you have learned that there is never enough time to do all the things you feel need to get done. That is why is it critical to your success as a manager that you be skilled at managing time.
A To Do List That Works
You can't do everything so use a To Do list to keep you focused on the important ones. It can be simple or complicated, but develop one that works for you - or use mine.
Don't Multi-task When You Can Use Chunking
Human beings can't really multi-task. We can do different tasks in rapid succession, but not at the same time. Chunking lets you spend less time in "restarting" and more time getting things done. It takes practice to make it work, but it is well worth the effort.
Meeting Management
Managers spend a lot of time in meetings and a lot of time running meetings. You have less control over meetings you attend than over the one you set up. Make sure you get the most out of your meetings by following a few simple tips.
Managing Projects: Time and Schedule
Time management also is a critically important skill for any successful project manager. Project Managers who succeed in meeting their project schedule have a good chance of staying within their project budget.
The Full Management Skills Pyramid
The Management Skills Pyramid shows all the skills a manager must master to be successful and shows how these management skills build on each other toward success. Level 1
Basic Management Skills for Beginning Managers Level 2
Management Skills for Developing Your Team Level 3
Management Skills for Developing Yourself Level 4
Leadership Skills
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