Leadership Development Program (Training & Development)
Motivation and Awards
Introduction
The realisation by many employers from almost all industries across the world, if not all, that there is need for providing more incentives than mere payment of wages and salaries enable one to get the most out of employees is the mother of several insights that are out today with most scholars terming this study one of the most complex yet meaningful (Higgins, 2012). Motivation denotes a combination of factors that directs and sustains a goal-orientated behaviour demonstration by the employees.
It seeks to explain why an employee given the same time and capital resources and under an assumption of the same physical strength in the same environment will still display a great disparity in the output at work with different managers or supervisors. The motives underscored in the foregoing statements cannot be seen but the effects manifest in behaviour of an employee.
The process involves the identification of the needs of the employees or listening to their feedback, Deci & Ryan (1985), on the services the company offers to them and then coming up with an effective scheme to attend to their grievances accordingly. Following these concerns major theories have been put forward by different scholars to try and identify the needs of the employees at workplace or even elsewhere provided the factors therein will affect the way an individual delivers.
Maslow’s need-hierarchy and Herzberg’s two- factor theories also known as the content theories are named as those that are based on identification of the employee needs. These two theories all consent to the fact that people have certain needs which are time bound a situation that makes the assessment of human needs highly dynamic as the needs change with time. There are also cognitive theories which examine employee’s behaviour and performance and then compare it with the corresponding rewards the employer offers to them. These theories are Vroom’s expectancy and Adams’ equity theories of motivations.
Following Moscow, there are five levels of employee’s needs. He alludes to a possibility that human needs can be satisfied exhaustively (Dransfield, R., 2004). He explores further that the satisfaction of one human need theory may lead to the rise of another need, cancels it out of the question for the needs that are the present driving force of motivation. Herzberg disintegrates the process of needs consideration in two phases: motivators and hygiene.
This theory affirms that people are influenced by these two factors- motivators and hygiene. Employees achievement, recognition, responsibility, work, advancement and growth are named among the greatest motivators and dissatisfying factors in a company that vests a lot of its focus on the development of its policies, supervisory styles, salary and co-worker relations .these theories are very helpful when it comes to the needs analysis as they help understand the factors that explain the behaviours of employees in an organisation.
Adams equity theory attempts to bring to light the reasons for the reaction of employees with regard to the fairness of the services they receive compared to the work they do. Equity, according to Adams, is achieved when the ratio of employee receivables to the inputs equals the ratio of other employee receivables to their input that if their incomes are proportionate to the work they do. The motivational differences for the permanent and casual employees of an organisation are thus divulged.
Managers can also use Vroom’s theory that state that it is the effort that leads to performance and then performance brings forth reward. Positive rewards will tend to motivate the employee to work more effectively and efficiently while the more negative rewards have the effect of demoralizing the worker. The positive rewards may include among others bonus, company discount card and pension.
Almost all employees regardless of their ranks with show an improved work habit when Adams theory is applied at work. The different stages in the work are improved by use of Maslow’s need-hierarchy theory. These theories are even extended to show what a permanent and a casual one is entitled to in an organisation. The needs of employees are simply identified and analysed using one or more of these theories to come up with an effective way of treating employees at work.
Motivation should be a matter of preference to any organisation that intends to rip the best out of their employees. The challenges that are faced in the processes involved in the formulation of the schemes used to motivate the employees should be identified early enough to allow ease of counteracting resistance by providing commensurate motivation. There sshould be an elaborate way of identifying employees that perform exceptionally well and reward them proportionately.
DECISION MAKING
Decision making is inevitable in any processes that are aimed at success. In fact even those actions that are done spontaneously and with no prior plans involved to the lower side an information diagnosis of what next, decision making process. According to Bell, Raiffa & Tversky (1988), human beings have no exception to decision making as they are confined to make the decisions in the very many daily routines they engage themselves in. in the field of commerce, there must be a set of proper channel followed in decision making that results in decisions intended to prosper the profit making aims to a reality without which the business will continually make losses and become insolvent. Before this stage sets in, managers have a task to consider all the ways possible to ensure proper management of all the resources available.
But what is decision making? This denotes the cognitive process by which an individual chooses a course of action or direction of action following the availability of other options. The process of making such choices may be done within a few seconds or can be achieved over a long period of time depending on both the magnitude of the matter at hand or the urgency with which the action is to be done there later. Decision making will prompt an individual to first identify and then choose amongst the available variables one that befits the situation based on their values and preferences (Ko?ksalan, 2011).
Whether one decides to make private decisions or group decisions the fact that is of worth noting is that the whole process is paramount for the success of any action. Even then, the process of decision making has never worked cohesion for all the parties involved. Somehow at some point one has to compromise on their views and believes for the sake of the majority. This calls for the use of techniques, tools and perceptions to ensure that the process does not always leave wounds on the hearts of the minority people.
Decision analysis comprises all the techniques used to address significant decisions in a formal way. It includes the methods and procedures used to identify, represent and for the formal assessment of the decision making process in an organization. The course of an action to be prescribed for a given process is well defined within the expected standards of the axioms. The translation of the formal proceedings of the decision making process will also be done by this process in a bid to ensure that the parties that are not part of the decision bench are well informed of the demands and implications of the resolved decisions on them as employees or stakeholders.
The process of the decision making regardless of the organ steering it begin from the most primitive part of problem identification. No wonder the wise men said a problem known is a half solved. The proper identification of the problem will go hand in hand with the solution seeking procedures that follow there later. In other words the success of any decisions made by a group or an individual so much pegged to the point of the problem identification that it would die off if the latter process was dubious!
Now, the problem is identified using symptoms. Managers who trouble themselves bothering about symptoms may end up in a tragic failure. For example, the prevalence of poor sales may be as a result of poor marketing strategies and not the failure of an individual employee. All managers surprisingly need to make good decisions but this can only occur in cases where the manager will be willing to make use of resources such as time, information, personnel and equipment in identification of the limiting factor. Managers operate in non-ideal conditions in which they may lack one or more of these resources with time specifically being short and thus must strive to make the best decisions. An interactive process of brain storming is involved in coming up with ideas. The people work in groups from which suggestions arrived at by harmonization of the thoughts of the group members are considered for further action (Zey, M., 1992).
It is usually a common feature to see managers and their teams concentrating on the problem at hand. This way they are able to remain focused on the course of pursuance of the solution to a problem and identification of the causes which are then recommended for avoidance. In this stage every member of the decision making bench should be as accommodative as possible to allow them to factor in all possibilities that would make the process efficient. The assumption of working under no bad idea environment no matter how ridiculers the idea may be should carry the day. A member’s ideas should not be evaluated on the spot by other members, no room for prejudgment until the process comes to an end.
In addition to brain storming there are other techniques that can be used to generate ideas. The nominal group technique involves an approach that factors in a highly structured meeting with well-spelt agenda and discussion restriction procedures. Each and every member is assured of contributing and this method also eliminates to a greater extent the chances of eruption of violence as compared to brain storming. Another method that is commonly used is the Delphi technique that does not involve physical meeting between the participants but the leader uses responses from a questionnaire to make decisions.
To make proper decisions both intuition and reasoning should be used. The decision making process should be structured to reflect some key stages. More complicated decisions are supposed to be simplified as much as possible to create an understanding and the number of the decisions that are arrived at should be known. Decision making should also be planned to meet the set standards and deadlines.
TEAM WORK
Introduction
A team has a connotation of a group people who are working together to achieve a common objective. Teamwork by inference is therefore the quality of being able to work together for a common course (Maxwell, J. C., 2002). It is the mastermind behind enormous achievements by those considered otherwise unable. A team is very different from just a mere group as a mere group is consisting of people who have come together with no common objective to accomplish. In a group people may have just met arbitrarily and as such they do not trust each other like the case of a team where the purpose is the uniting force.
We all need to work together for us to be able to achieve the most out of our duties following Nordensson, Ash & Kelley (2010). There is saying that goes that ‘‘two heads are better than one’’ meaning the power that is drawn when more than one person do some duty can never be realised at once with an individual alone however much the individual maybe dedicated. The members of a team bring a rich pool of ideas together to better their decisions, more physical strength and resources hence a team can achieve greater things within a short period of time more easily as compared to the efforts of an individual.
The selflessness and determination that comes with teamwork cannot be wished away and any manager who comes to terms with this eminent fact is on their road headed to success. Faster learning is enhanced within a team as there is a healthy competition that keeps members on toes and hence reduced time for accomplishment of duty. Teamwork also enhances creativity that is brought in when every member comes with their own ideas in the organization only to groom up innovativeness. This is very important in improving the productivity of the industry. Individuals who are best suited for particular designations are identified and assigned the respective duties for optimal results.
Given that members of a team work voluntarily, they show a great commitment at work and are very passionate about their goals. People are more zealous and performance soon shoots above the standard. There is less need for supervision a situation that further makes the productivity to soar up in the firm.
Teamwork Development
West, M. A. (2012) appreciates the fact that an effective teamwork development is not an ample pie. It can take an organization along time and a lot of resources to build. The building blocks of a team need be clear in the minds of the managers who would wish to drum up massive efforts in investing in teamwork development to achieve the most out of their organization. The secrets in building a successful teamwork is the ability to admit that change is inevitable, the adoption of appropriate conflict resolution if any and last the great sense of focus among the team-mates that will keep them committed. Even though teamwork is the talk of anyone in any organization today, only a few organizations have been able to embrace this noble culture. As mentioned before, team building would require time, pertinence and commitment to be realised.
A team develops in the five most general ways as illustrated thereafter:
Forming is the initial stage of team formation and is the most challenging. The members do not know each other well at this time and may be very cautious in their interpersonal relationships with other members. At this stage it is essential to maintain an open communication, spell out the rules and regulations that the members have to go by and finally specify the exact tasks to be done by the team members and give a light on the goals.
Storming is the second stage where the members begin to link their goals and the team goals. The trickiest part is that members seem to have conflicts with their own roles even after being briefed in the forming stage. The leader of the team should ensure things that are contentious are put in order in an open manner and make sure the standards are maintained to achieve the set goals and objectives.
In the norming stage, commonly known as the acceptance stage, is where the goals and rules are now well comprehended by members, responsibilities are clear and the relationships have solidified. The leader is tasked with ensuring smooth running of the group by providing guidance to members and showing a great level of confidence in achieving the goals of the team.
