Discussion and 2 responses to classmate due tonight 12am

This week’s Shared Practice requires you to consider what rewards have motivated you to perform in your professional career. Then, you reflect on your experiences to determine how you frame your primary motivation and purpose.

With these thoughts in mind:

Post a description of a positive professional experience when you felt motivated to perform at your best and a description of a challenging professional experience when you did not feel very motivated to perform. Be sure to include what were the sources of motivation in both experiences. Then explain what each experience taught you about the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on your performance and the motivations that are the main sources of job satisfaction for you.

As you are analyzing your motivations and sources of job satisfaction, consider the advice that was reportedly given to U.S. President John F. Kennedy:

"A great man is one sentence."

—Clare Boothe Luce

After you post your descriptions, write your one sentence that captures how you define your purpose or main priority on which you want to focus to make your organization, community, or the world a better place. Think about the legacy you want to leave or how you want to be remembered, or what makes you want to get out of bed each day.

Hint:  Your sentence should emphasize how you want other to see you. For example, your sentence might be: Jane Rivera founded a company that gave back to the community and served a role model for young entrepreneurs. Or, Travis Williams’ family and friends could always count on his unconditional support.

Provide your assessment of why you chose your sentence and what it means to you.

Part 2

Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings.

Respond to two or more colleagues’ posts in one or more of the following ways:

· Consider how motivational techniques shared by your colleague might work for you, but potentially not work for others. Explain your rationale.

· Share suggestions to a colleague regarding how she or he can work to accomplish the purpose captured in their sentence or observations you have made or examples you have seen of others who seem to be driven by a similar purpose.

1st Person to Respond to:

“People are motivated by good relationships with bosses, collaborators, and customers” (Maccoby, 2010). Working in a behavioral health setting, things change daily. You are not in control of these changes, because you are funded by Medicaid, which means as a company, we must follow these changes, or we face consequences. It is my job to do a quarterly check, where I must complete an audit on each client to make sure everything is in order and nothing is missing. I have a deadline to meet, so I push myself to get it done as early as possible. In doing so, I can get overwhelm easily, because I am checking over 150 charts to make sure everything is in order with no mistakes. Instead it motivates me to check every detail carefully, because I know as a company, if we ever have an audit where someone must come out to grade our charts, everything is in order and we can pass our audit together. Working in a positive atmosphere around respectful human beings plays a big part to why I motivate myself to do my best. “People are motivated when their responsibilities are meaningful and engage their abilities and values” (Maccoby, 2010).  I knew that checking these charts and making sure everything is in order, can help my company grow as a team and it would benefit us in the long run. “A caring person is motivated by work that helps others, like teaching and mentoring” (Maccoby, 2010). Working with this company over the years, meeting new people, and dealing with nonsense, have made the workspace miserable. As time went by, I started to be surrounded by drama. I went from being motivated to do my job, to being unhappy to go to work. Every day I would work hard, but not hard enough because I did not want to be there anymore. Working in a place full of drama, can put you in a bad space, because you are forced to see things you are not interested in seeing. It went to a point where I would not talk to anyone, because I did not know who I can trust. Eventually I quit and found me a better job that made me happy. This experience has taught me that I perform an intrinsic behavior because I motivated myself to do my job because I enjoyed doing it and I knew as a company it would help us grow together. Working around positive people made me realize that it helps you perform a better job because you are happy and eager to get positive feedback for not only you but for your team.

One sentence that defines me.

Chloe’ always recognized the best qualities of her friends and family, because she believes that everybody can reach their fullest potential if they have the greatest support system.

I always felt the support and love from my family and friends with all my accomplishments. This always will be the person I am today because they have always supported me from the very beginning. I’ve learned from my family and friends so many great things and it is a honor to be surrounded by so many great people.

References

Maccoby, M. (2010). The 4 Rs of motivation. Research Technology Management, 60–61.

2nd Person to respond to

Hello class,

Positive professional experience

On Tuesday 12 January 2010, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Haiti leveling approximately 80% of the country’s infrastructure and killing more than 220,000 of its citizens. Jamaica through the Military committed to rendering emergency assistance to our Caribbean neighbours and 48 hours later, a team of 150 soldiers along with me as the Disaster Relief Commander were on a Canadian Military carrier to Haiti. The team consisted of engineers, medical professionals, logistic specialists and security personnel.    

The initial pictures which emerged from Haiti in the aftermath of the quake, though heart wrenching, failed to capture the reality on the ground. Upon landing we were bombarded with destruction so intense you could feel and taste the horror. Every human sense was exposed to the onslaught: I saw, smelled and heard the impact of the devastation. Not daunted by the difficult working conditions, the entire team sprang into action, paving the road to recovery.

Though the conditions were unlike anything imaginable or close to anything I had ever been exposed to and the initial 2 week deployment ended up being a 4 month stay, I was motivated to perform unlike any time before or since. I was a newlywed husband, away from my family, had only very basic amenities, was exposed to very risky conditions both in terms of health and violence, and was not benefiting financially in any way. However, strangely, my sense of duty to help those in need and to contribute to easing the suffering of our neighbours pushed me to work long hours and give my all even when physically and mentally drained. Even the soldiers under my command fed off my energy and really made a mark in the lives of the Haitians. At no point can I recall anyone making a request to go back home or to stop helping and even at the point of my being relieved, I still wanted to assist and give my service.

Challenging professional experience

In 2016 I began working with a bank in the capacity of IT Technical Services Manager. At the time, the banking system which was being used to manage core banking functions became outdated having missed five successive version updates over five years. In a communique from the vendor, it was clearly stated that the application was off support and they strongly recommended an urgent upgrade to a supported version. IT did the assessment and in conjunction with the vendors determined exactly what needed to be done. With that information, I did the project plan, feasibility study, risk analysis and being suitably satisfied, recommended a date which was 2 months before the vendor recommended cutoff point.

The proposal was given to the Vice President (VP) IT who openly questioned the research and advised the CEO that it was not as urgent or critical as it was being made out to be. The resources for the initiative were redirected to what was said to be more critical expansion projects. I lobbied both the VP and the CEO but was told the decision not to proceed was final.

Two days prior to the cutoff point, on a Friday, an email arrived from the software vendor to the CEO indicated that newly discovered information revealed that the old version of the application, which the bank was using, contained a bug which would render the application unresponsive after the cutoff date, which was 48 hours away. This sent both the CEO and VP scampering into a tailspin trying to reorganize and avert a banking system crash, which would have meant the job of the VP and at least reputational damage to the CEO. They called emergency meetings after meetings and attempted to pressure the team into executing a one-week upgrade project in under 48 hours. Promises of cash for meeting the time was offered but none of the IT resources were the least bit motivated. Scofidio (2010) reminds us that generally, people draw greater motivation from feedback on how they are doing in the form of recognition for hard work than they do from receiving hard cash. The major flaws associated with tangible cash incentives are further listed as it extinguishes intrinsic motivation, diminishes performance, crush creativity, foster short term thinking, encourages unethical behaviour such as cheating and short cutting and can become addictive (Scofidio, 2010). While I was disinterested in the sudden rush for obvious reasons, I had my personal brand to protect and could not risk influencing my team negatively and so I put on a facade and met with the team. In the end, the team spent an entire 48 hours working through the weekend and successfully performed the upgrades.

We lost approximately 2 hours of system uptime by virtue of overshooting the window, but no customer was impacted, and both the CEO and VP kept their jobs. It was the most difficult IT process I have ever had to participate in because I knew, the crisis could have been avoided and even in the middle of the process, the VP was attempting to deflect blame by saying IT did not stress enough the importance of the activity which is why it was not approved. I was so demotivated, uninspired and disinterested in the process and I knew my team felt the same way but went ahead very laboriously. According to Amabile & Kramer (2011), employees need to know they have the full support and backing of senior management. Persons on the ground and in the trenches furthering the business strategies must feel motivated and supported or the greatest of strategies will fail.  I had lost trust in the leadership of my superiors and within 3 months, I moved on. Within one year, all the members of the initial team also move on.

Motivation during each experience

Motivation is an important determinant in why a person may pursue or avoid a particular activity (Locke & Schattke, 2018).

During the Haiti experience, my source of motivation was intrinsic based on the values and sense of responsibility that was inculcated in my earlier years. I saw people in need who needed help and I was duty bound as a human, a neighbour, a soldier and a leader. Regardless of what was happening around, my focus was fixed, and my satisfaction came from responding positively.

In contrast, for the IT manager experience, I struggled to find self-motivation to perform the task at hand. Internally, I had long concluded that my superiors failed to listen, lacked integrity and were not worthy of my efforts and therefore the task received a corresponding priority level. Despite their efforts to introduce external motivation factors, I was cold and uninspired. In the end, my personal sense of responsibility and leadership of my team marginally drove my actions. Through the experiences, I learned that my primary source of motivation is intrinsic.

Defining my “one sentence”.

The one sentence which embodies my attitude, my goal and my ambitions is: “Damion continually and consistently dedicated his life to making things better for himself and others with the belief that great things were never achieved from comfort zones”

A comfort zone symbolizes an imposed limit, a fear of the unknown, a mental resign, a compromise and conformance to a lower standard, a lack of learning and stagnated growth. Beaudoin (2013) describes his interpretation of comfort zones as a safe place where we accept the status quo that limits actions and imagination. He further describes it as imposed controls restrictions which appeases fears and erases any hint of empowerment to act.

My early years were less than ideal, and I suffered many humbling experiences which could have easily destroyed my self-esteem and any aspirations for achieving better. I made a conscious decision not to ever allow my circumstances to define who I am and consequently, made a commitment to myself that I will always aim for the best and to be the best.

Through this commitment, I banished comfort zones; I recognize no limits, harbor no fears of the unknown, will never give up mentally, will never compromise nor conform to anything substandard and will always be on a quest for knowledge and growth all for the purpose of contributing to improvements.

My “one sentence” as a catalyst for positive change.  

What this has meant and will continue to mean for me is that, for every organization or community with which I am associated, I have and always will continue to leave the grouping in a better state than when I got there. There is always room for improvement in processes, policies, structure and people. According to Cyr (1992), our current business reality is one where recessions, free trade and global competition are real and process improvement is far more than a cute buzzword; it has become an absolute matter of survival as both public and private sector organizations confront the urgent need to eliminate inefficiencies and do more with less.

Through my resolve to champion the introduction of technology for efficiency, removal of manual processing and an overall focus on measuring what matters, organizations and communities will continue to experience positive changes.

Rational for selecting my “one sentence” and what it means to me.

I have attempted to revisit my sentence numerous times in an attempt to revise, improve and expand it, but I have found that it accurately defines my purpose. It is general enough to cover every aspect of my life and existence, yet specific enough to communicate that I am aiming for the best and to be the best. It also allows others with whom I interact on a personal and professional level to understand clearly my focus and that while I am committed to serving, I am moving forward, with or without them.

References

Amabile, T., Kramer, S. (2011). The power of small wins: want to truly engage your workers? Help them see their own progress. In: Harvard Business Review. May 2011, Vol. 89 Issue 5, p70, 11 p.; Harvard Business School Press Language.