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Motivation, Ability and Confidence Building in People PDF

390 Pages·2007·10.21 MB·English
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To Jan, with love.. . . . .Mac T Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP 30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA First edition 2007 Copyright 0 2007, Adrian Mackay, Duncan Alexander & Wilmshurst. Published by Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved The right of Adrian Mackay, Duncan Alexander & Wilmshurst to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone (+44) (0) 1865 843830; fax (+a()0 ) 1865 853333; email: [email protected]. Alternatively you can submit your request online by visiting the Elsevier web site at http://elsevier.com/locate/permissions,a nd selecting Obtaining permission to use Elsevier material Notice No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN-13: 978-0-7506-6500-1 ISBN-10: 0-7506-6500-9 ~ ~ For information on all Butterworth-Heinemann publications visit our web site at http://books.elsevier.com Printed and bound in Great Britain 07 08 09 10 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Working together to grow libraries in developing countries I I I I www.elsevier.com www.bookaid.org www.sabre.org Preface You have been the inspiration behind this book - so thank you! Well, people just like you: people in jobs, as employers and as employees. Inspiration has come from my former managers and my staff, my clients, and those delegates on the thousands of training courses I have delivered or attended over the past 30 years. As a tutor on the Chartered Management Institute certificate and diploma courses, through attending classes myself as a delegate at University College Northampton, attending my MBA classes at Hull University Business School and working with the Chartered Manage- ment Institute, tutoring at St Gallen Business School in Switzerland, as a sports coach and RFU Referee in rugby, and in delivering management development workshops as far apart as Manhattan and Istanbul, I have noticed an enduring theme when it comes to study, work and play - wherever one looks, it is down to people doing these things successfully. It occurred to me that three factors need to be in place for success to follow - and for people to be fully effective, success requires all three to the same degree. Obviously, we need people that want to do things; people that want to do the right things and do things right. People who can be bothered to do what is required in the appropriate fashion; bothered to do things better, cheaper, faster - bothered to do what their organisation’s stakeholders want. We recognise this as a person’s motivation. In my studies, courses and reading I discovered a wealth of information and research from others trying to understand this most pressing human emotion. These ideas have been distilled into a pragmatic model of how managers (or those tasked with a leadership role, such as team leaders and supervisors) can apply some of these approaches in practice to manage the process of bringing out the best in other people - that is, motivation building in people. But no matter how willing an individual might be to undertake a task, no amount of effort will produce the desired outcomes if people don’t know what to do. How to do their jobs, how to learn how to do their jobs better and why be bothered to learn in the first place are all key issues that need to be addressed. We recognise this as a person’s ability. A natural starting point for any tutor is to understand how people learn, but it is also fundamental for any coach, supervisor or manager to know how to instil improved competences in others. ‘Sending them on a course’, standing them up against a wall and lecturing them to death are not enough to improve someone’s ability - such activity might just switch them right off and so become a barrier to their further learning. This text builds on a foundation of how people learn and offers a parallel model to that on motivation building, enabling readers to explore their approach to helping other people learn - that is, ability building in people. Preface The popular academic and professional texts have addressed these two factors at length. There is over a century of motivational theory to draw upon, where ability development has gone hand in hand. However, there seems to be a shortfall in the literature on how to go about developing someone’s self-assurance and belief in themselves. We recognise this as a person’s confidence. Even if someone has the motivation to undertake a task and has the relevant know-how to do it, they will often be held back through concerns about ‘what if‘: ‘What if I make a mistake?’, ‘What if they get cross?’, ‘What if I forget something?’ As a manager, have you ever had a perfectly competent and motivated person check something with you - yet you know they are just offloading the decision onto you rather than using the confidence of their own conviction? Have you ever wondered why problems seem to occur when you are there, magically getting sorted when you are away? This text addresses the confidence factor as well, providing the reader with a model, again using a parallel framework as for the other two factors, to explore their style in developing the self-esteem and self-reliance of others - that is, confidence building in people. I have battled with all three from time to time as manager, tutor and parent; as instructor, trainer and coach; as colleague, team member and individual. I needed a practical guide when dealing with people. Not just in their motivation building - after all, if I was motivated, why couldn’t I get them motivated? And not just in developing their ability - how could I pick up the skills yet they couldn’t pick them up from me? And even if I was feeling anxious internally - how could I appear confident while other people couldn’t do the same but allow their nerves to get the better of them? This is your practical guide to the three factors. To assist the reader in making the text accessible, this text is presented in five sections, each with a companion web page for students, tutors and practitioners to explore the subject further, found at http://books.elsevier.com/management?is bn= 0750665009. First, we take an overview of the subject of managing people and review a short history of management. The second section on motivation starts with an understanding of what motivation is and explores approaches to evaluating the motivation of people. Students and management practitioners will find a full review of the last hundred or so years of management theory, a useful summary that underpins the practical approaches in later chapters. Both individual and team motivation are discussed before exploring the link between effort, performance and rewards; the importance of ‘selling’ a picture of the future is also emphasised. The final chapter of this section presents Mackay ’ s Motivation Development Model, illustrated by a series of case examples of someone who is clearly unmotivated to do their job through to a situation where they are going above and beyond their job brief. The third section addresses ability building. The text does more than look at individual learning styles - it explores the subject from a wider perspective of the learning organisation and lifelong learning. From there, Mackay’ s Ability Development Model looks at differing approaches to encourage someone who starts on day 1 in a new organisation, learning xiv Preface the ropes, right through to full competency in their tasks. Again, a case study approach is favoured, drawing on everyday situations giving both student and seasoned practitioner clear, easy-to-relate-to situations. Confidence building forms the fourth section and considers the development of self- esteem, assertiveness and achievement. This section will be of value to the individual reader for themselves as well as for managers - or those tasked with a leadership role, such as team leaders and supervisors - guiding others to build their confidence. Mackay’ s Confidence Development Model is a particular innovation and follows similar principles as the other two models, simplifying understanding of the ideas for all readers. Finally, Part 5 rounds off the text with a pragmatic look at managing change and the future of work to place the models in the context of the real world, both for today and tomorrow. So, I hope that this text does inspire you, the reader, as people like you have inspired me. I hope that you have the motivation to explore the text, are able to improve your ability to manage people and have the confidence to apply the ideas in practice. Adrian ‘Mac’ Mackay Moreton Pinkney xv About the author Adrian ‘Mac’ Mackay is Managing Partner with Duncan Alexander and Wilmshurst, Training and Development Advi- sors, and is a Director of DAW Limited, that specialises in providing innovative marketing solutions. Mac’s interests are advising professional people on marketing, as well as manage- ment skills, leadership and improved performance, and client care. He has recent international experience in Europe and the USA and has worked with many varied organisations, both large and small. He co-authored Below-the-Line Promotion (1992), Fun- damentals of Advertising, second edition (1999) and The Fundamentals and Practice of Marketing, fourth edition (2002) with John Wilmshurst; is editor of The Practice ofAdvertising, fifth edition (2004); he co-authored The Veterinary Receptionist with John Corsan and is also sole author of Recruiting, Retaining and Releasing People (2007) - a companion text to this book. Mac is an Honours graduate in Physiology and Nutrition from Leeds University (1977), he holds a Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (1983), a Masters Degree in Strategic Marketing (1994), was elected to the Faculty of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and is a full Member of the Chartered Management Institute (2002); he is a former subject specialist on their accredited programmes. He achieved a Postgraduate Certificate in Management from University College Northampton (2006). Mac coaches a local junior rugby team and is an East Midlands RFU Society Referee. He is married to Jan; they share five fabulous children and live in Northamptonshire. A Short H istory of Management Managers learn in business school that relationships are either up or down, but the most important relationships today are sideways. If there is one thing that most of the people in management that I know have to learn is how to handle relationships where there is no authority and no orders. Professor Peter Drucker By the end of this chapter you will: Have had a brief overview of management theory as it has developed over the last century Understand the value of theory underpinning your practice Discover why so many ‘theories’ have had a shelf life Recognise the importance of motivation in the workplace Have had an introduction to some of the key influencers in management thinking. The challenge for management writers is finding things to say that Peter Drucker has not already said better. One just has to read a couple of his books for the first time - from the Concept of the Corporation (1946) to Management Challenges for the 21st Century (1999) - to realise that this is no exaggeration. ‘Drucker’s primary contribution is not a single idea, but rather an entire body of work that has one gigantic advantage - nearly all if it is essentially right’ (Collins, 2004). While others wrote widely on management before Drucker (e.g. Taylor on efficiency or Follett on motivation), it was Drucker who first wove the threads into a coherent picture. In the foreword of The Practice of Management (1954), Jim Collins wrote, ‘This is the first book to look at management as a whole, the first that attempted to depict management as a distinct Motivation, Ability and Confidence Building in People function, managing as specific work, and being a manager as a distinct responsibility’. Drucker proposed that limiting access to management jobs to ‘people with a special academic degree’ would be a mistake - anticipating by half a century both the rise in MBA programmes and the failure of management ‘theories’. Professor Drucker explains, ‘Teaching 23-year-olds in an MBA programme strikes me largely as a waste of time. They lack the background of experience. You can teach them skills - accounting and what have you - but you cannot teach them management.’ Drucker’s view is that management is neither an art nor a science but a practice - in which achievement is measured not by academic awards but by results. The Practice of Management also had a piece of ‘modem wisdom’, that management is about innovation. ‘Every unit of the business should have clear responsibility and definite goals for innovation,’ he wrote - whether ‘selling or accounting, quality control or personnel management’. When people today speak of ‘business process innovation’, they are restating Drucker. His early work warned of ‘the imaginative isolation of the executive’ - the tendency for managers to become so absorbed in their work that they become blind to emerging opportunities or threats. He feels that information technology has made matters much worse. ‘Executives are totally flooded with inside data to the exclusion of outside data.’ In Concept of the Corporation, he described in detail his ideas for ‘self-governing plant communities’ in which workers would play a central role in setting priorities and formulating policies. He considers his ‘. . . ideas for the self-governing plant community and for the responsible worker to be both the most important and the most original’, he wrote years later in his autobiography, Adventures of a Bystander. He feels that the labour movement stifled the self-governing plant community; by representing the workers the unions stopped every direct relationship between management and employees. However, Drucker feels that the rise of the knowledge workers - a phrase he coined in The Age of Discontinuity (1969) - has changed the rules away from the shop-floor. Communities of practice reaching across boundaries are often stronger than bonds within a particular company. As he pointed out in Managing in Turbulent Times (1980), successful organisa- tions must learn to think of themselves as orchestras, not armies. Today, he explained, a multinational is a network of alliances for manufacturing, distribution, technology and so on. Sometimes there is stock participation as an indication of commitment but not for control. These companies are held together by strategy and information, not ownership. ‘Managers learn in business school that relationships are either up or down, but the most important relationships today are sideways. If there is one thing that most of the people in management that I know have to learn it is how to handle relationships where there is no authority and no orders.’ Hence the need for managers to excel at relationships in which they have little author- ity and even less control. And that cannot be learnt in the lecture theatre or from a book. 4 A Short History of Management The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do. Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister We all have our preferred methods of learning (see Chapter 12) and many of us like to ‘try things out’ and discover the practical uses of a new ‘tool’. We may not much like the idea of sitting back, reflecting on our experiences and trying to put those experiences into a logical framework or theory. Yet a theory may well help us better understand our experiences and help us better use the knowledge we have gained. Theory and practice support each other: theoretical knowledge can often give us a good base for developing our practical skills. So, take time to reflect. Consider and relate the theories outlined in this book to your own practical experience. Experiment and see if the theory makes sense to you and helps your understanding of the subject. If, having done all of that, the theory does not help you, then identify the reasons why and put that theory aside. A theory is only useful if it helps you better understand and use your own knowledge. A theory that all management theories have a life cycle was published in America in 1993 in a magazine called Planning Review. It is believed that the theory originated in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. It is outlined in Figure 1.1. The cause of the failure frequently lies in the stage of Overextension: organisations looking for the quick-fix flavour-of-the-month. As the originators imply: announce the new system; arrange some training courses; and then sit back and wait for the magic to work. If only business management were so simple! Whenever we consider a theory, especially one that has been criticised or derided, we need to reflect on how much of the criticism is due to flaws in the original theory and how much is due to the theory being misapplied in practice. Managers’ beliefs about how to get the best out of people at work have changed as the 20th century has progressed. This section briefly outlines those changing beliefs and refers to a few of the many researchers who have influenced management thinking. The approach in the opening years of the last century was very much in line with the views of Frederick Taylor - the father of scientific management - and other work study practitioners such as Gantt. They believed that jobs could be standardised and workers could 5 Motivation, Ability and Confidence Building in People Deficiency Inattention to an important management principle or to changing market conditions leads to anxiety and dissatisfactionw ith the status quo Discovery Creative thinkers develop (or dust off) solutions to correct the deficiency Euphoria The technique’s early success stones are highly pubbised, lowering initial barriers. Wishful thinking and reluctance to address tough trade-offs create Excessive application of the technique in inappropriate situations causes disappointing results. Declining performance perversely drives the organisation to push the same technique even harder Examples of failure grow too obvious to ignore. Participants and the press begin to criticise publicly the technique’s shortcomings, making it far less popular to employ Abandonment Organisations discard the technique and replace it with a more novel and fashionable approach Figure 1.1 All management theories have a life cycle. produce more if they had the right rest breaks to reduce fatigue, the right tools for the job and the right monetary reward in terms of a piecework bonus. Such concepts are sometimes referred to as Rational-Economic models. Given the situation of increasing industrial production and a largely unskilled and un- educated immigrant workforce in the USA, the scientific management approach did bring benefits. However, it took no account of workers as individual human beings. With her concern for creative experience, democracy and for developing local community organisations, Mary Parker Follett is an often forgotten, but still deeply instructive, thinker for educators on motivation at the beginning of the 20th century. By the late 1920s, Elton Mayo (usually acknowledged as the founder of Human Relations Management) was conducting research at the Hawthorne Works of Western Electric Co. 6

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