In European workplace, people put a lot of efforts doing research on "motivation", trying to figure out what really motivates people to increase their productivities.
Yes! We all came across having a wonderful dream and vision of how we can be in the market place after we graduated with a glory. However, the reality is usually opposite to what we imagine, realizing that this society isn't what we expect and getting a promotion isn't that easy no matter high our education are.
We all have a plan to work all the way up to be an manager or director, we carefully measure what we can do in order to be successful. But it's difficult for us, people don't own a company, not knowing someone from the company or not kissing our bosses asses. This will decrease our motivation after couple months working at the company, but it is also sad that we cannot leave our jobs even we don't like/enjoy it. Because we might have a family to feed, a house to pay off, and so on, plus the whole inflation is like a butterfly effect affects every country glob wide. This suck economic society keeps us stay in where we are, just to make some life and not to end up in the street.
And then, here comes the problem, many companies start to layoff their employees might with reasons, such as the company is closing down or cutting labor costs, or without reasons, like we don't need your service anymore or replacing my relatives/friends first and so on.
Some companies will even hire consulting companies which also called "efficiency management" to investigate employees' productivities, and reporting to our bosses, so that our bosses can decide who can stay and who should go. For what i think about this, i really feel unfair for having outside company to give me interview and monitor me for the whole week, these consulting companies do not work at my firm, they know nothing about what my job but viewing us in their own professional perspectives.
Yes!!! Telling them that i got a family to feed, having a car and house to payoff are not going to be part of their considerations. So, we keep our nerves by increasing our productivities and hope we won't get fired. This kind of motivation is called "Fear" which i talked about last time and this is an forced motivation. How long does this motivation last? We don't know but we will need to do what we have to and exceed it even though we hate it. Fear can only motivate people in the short-term, as long as the economy gets better, people will leave without doubt.
People should have motivation by their own, in this way, people's productivities will be higher and our working environment will be pleasant. But what really motivates people to stay at a firm and work happily? The answer is "Sex and Money", no doubt, money always comes first, we all want more money so we can have a better life quality. And we are all willing to bend our knees if we get more salaries even if we know the company is trying to control us by using this. But how many companies are willing to pay more just in order to motivate us? Not many, you should feel happy that they don't cut your pay check or you don't get fired.
Therefore, many previous researches found motivation on jobs were expectation, enjoining the workplace, and so on which were not totally true. Yes, there are still some people who actually motivate by these factors. But why i said the real factors behind this research isn't true because many researches are done by quantitative means, we only have few options to choose when we are trying to complete the survey, it can be known that if there was not have the option we want, we leave it a blank, we won't even want to waste our time on filling out a survey, of course, we won't have time to write down what really motivates us.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Attribution Training
Attribution Training is how people make judgments concerning the causes of behavior, it has similar meaning with Symbolic Inteaction. That is, for example, we usually attribute meanings by others actions from our own culture, we know that in most of our cultures, smiling means happy, crying means sad, feeling sick is okay to tell people, these actions are interpreted as "Norms" from the culture that we grow up with. However, smiling might mean sad, getting an headache might not okay to tell others in some other cultures which we are not familiar with. Also, we will automatically think of some kinds of actions and react about it, for instance, imagining if someone passed by and put an cockroach on our plates, we will think that's disgusting by nature and say 'god, that's so gross'.
So, this training is to train people to control it and stop it, before we attribute meanings, think of it and then react it.
This also has the relationship with human mental programming, Hofstede illustrated three levels of uniqueness in human mental programming. The first level is Human Nature which could be divided into universal or inherited, in inherited level which means the nature of we were born with, and they are abilities to think, feel, and express ourselves. The second level is culture, it can defined as specific to a group and learning, for example, stores place those small toys or candies right next to the checking desk just to attract kids' attention, and kids like to ask their mothers to buy those stuff by asking hundred times, "can i have this? can i have that? how about this? how about that?", some parents will finally surrender to children and put those small stuff in the shopping car, some parents will slap on kids' faces and tell them to shut up. And this is where children learn how to behave, what's norms and what's not. Another example is parents usually warn kids to behave by a list of Don't, and parents will reward kids or say something good to them if kids behave good. Kids might be taken to cars and sit with parents when they are not behaved. Finally, the third level is personality, this is what you were born with and being unique from others. This is what no one can change because it was given by parent's gens, yes, you can learn how to change your personality, such as being a spy or actor/actress who needs to change personality not to show this on their faces just to do their jobs.
~from xiao mei
So, this training is to train people to control it and stop it, before we attribute meanings, think of it and then react it.
This also has the relationship with human mental programming, Hofstede illustrated three levels of uniqueness in human mental programming. The first level is Human Nature which could be divided into universal or inherited, in inherited level which means the nature of we were born with, and they are abilities to think, feel, and express ourselves. The second level is culture, it can defined as specific to a group and learning, for example, stores place those small toys or candies right next to the checking desk just to attract kids' attention, and kids like to ask their mothers to buy those stuff by asking hundred times, "can i have this? can i have that? how about this? how about that?", some parents will finally surrender to children and put those small stuff in the shopping car, some parents will slap on kids' faces and tell them to shut up. And this is where children learn how to behave, what's norms and what's not. Another example is parents usually warn kids to behave by a list of Don't, and parents will reward kids or say something good to them if kids behave good. Kids might be taken to cars and sit with parents when they are not behaved. Finally, the third level is personality, this is what you were born with and being unique from others. This is what no one can change because it was given by parent's gens, yes, you can learn how to change your personality, such as being a spy or actor/actress who needs to change personality not to show this on their faces just to do their jobs.
~from xiao mei
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
F-word missing from a model workplace
Years of theorizing and experimentation by for great thinkers do not seem to have given fear its proper place in the motivational armory.
Why do we work?Is it the money? Is it because we love our jobs? Or does it have something to do with fear? In eight years of looking at this issue, I have read plenty of motivational theories that associate work with people's needs or wants but very few that mention fear.
Yet it seems to me that fear remains a significant source of motivation. Fear of failure, fear of getting fired, or missing a deadline or of losing face: are these not all powerful emotions that tie people to their regular jobs? How many people are prepared to endure tyrannical bosses, harassment and miserable working conditions simply so that they can hold on to a job?
It seems extraordinary to be considering these questions today, after so many years of theorizing from the likes of Elton Mayo, Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg and Douglas McGregor-the "big four" of motivational theory. But for all their ideas that did so much to advance our thinking on motivation, they failed to create a satisfactory theory of work.
Mayo was inspired by perhaps the most famous of all experiments in motivation, those carried out at the Hawthorne factory of Western Electric in Chicago. I went there a few years ago in a kind of industrial tour of the Mid-west. Those at Midvale and Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, where Frederick Taylor carried out his work on scientific management are derelict although the old Bethlehem Steel plant is being made into an industrial museum.
The empty factory floors of the Hawthorne works were awaiting redevelopment at the time I called. The factory had hosted a series of experiments between 1924 and 1932. These had two distinct phases. The first was designed to discover whether electric lighting -then a new development for factories - could improve productivity.
The small "test" team of women assembly workers did indeed improve its output when the lighting was increased. What really threw the investigators was that when the lighting was dimmed to the level of moonlight, production rose again.
Mayo, the Harvard professor brought in to comment on a further set of experiments, this time looking for the real reasons behind the increased output, concluded that it had everything to do with employee morale. The women, he said, felt special because they had been separated from others and given much more managerial attention than their colleagues. People were talking an interest in them. The conclusions may well have been correct but the absence of a proper control experiment meant that other possibilities could not be discounted. Western Electric's personnel manager, for example, believed that money had been the biggest factor in the production improvements, since those in the test room had been given a better rate of pay. But Mayo chose to ignore this point. He also ignored the idea that motivation can vary in strength and direction depending on circumstances.
Maslow pursued this line of thinking in developing his theoretical hieracrchy of needs that explains how people's desires change as respective needs are fulfilled. Frederick Herzberg turned the problem of motivation on its head by looking at sources of dissatisfaction at work and found that the things that demotivated people differed from those that inspired them.
The conditions that needed to be right if people were not to become dissatisfied with their jobs he called "hygiene factors". In various studies, he found that the most important of these involved the culture of the company and the way that people were supervised. Work conditions and salary were important but less so. What he called the "intrinsic motivators" were the sense of achievement from a job were done, recognition, the work itself and responsibility, together with, to a lesser extent, potential for advancement and learning.
Curiously, although Herzberg considered what he called "kick in the pants" motivation, he did not associate this with fear. Rather he reflected that motivation was attached to the supervisor who was issuing the threat. There was motivational push - the kick - and there was an alternative "pull" that could be exerted through reward. This stick-and-carrot approach, he concluded was not intrinsic motivation, because people were doing things in response to some stimulus and not because it was something they really wanted to do. With this kind of stimulus, he noted, it was necessary constantly to up the ante.
In an experiment that did include control groups to avoid the distorting "Hawthorne effect", Herzberg's list of leading motivators such as recognition and added responsibility were introduced gradually at the rate of one a week among one of the groups. Subject matter experts were appointed in each group, supervision and the inspection of work were reduced and work quotas were dropped. Within six months the group was outperforming the control groups where no such changes had been introduced. The achieving group's members were enjoying their jobs more and experiencing less absenteeism than the other groups.
Unlike the Hawthorne results, Herzberg's studies had established beyond doubt the productivity that could be achieved by investing greater responsibility among work teams. So, why in spite of all that has been demonstrated about the advantages of investing responsibility in workers - so-called empowerment - do we still see so little of it in the workplace?
Why instead do so many managements feel that it is acceptable, even desirable, to maintain a climate of fear? Sally-Ann Huson, knowledge and intellectual property director at TMI, a UK training and development company, points out that a degree of fear can be helpful in some activities.
"Fear of falling off a cliff when you are skiing will keep you focused on what you are doing; but I don't experience the same fear when I am running a training program. It's less of an issue", she says. You could argue that it can be linked to your reputation or a worry of experiencing rejection.
" A lot of people don't realize that motivation is about the circumstances that exist at any given moment when a task needs to be accomplished. I love what I do and find it inspiring. But there are days when my energy isn't there and the "to do" list is as long at the end as it was at the beginning. We have to accept that motivation is a complex issue."
There's the rub. It helps to explain why Peter Drucker, the management writer, once remarked: "We know nothing about motivation. All we can do is write books about it."
by Richard Donkin
richard.donkin@ft.com
Why do we work?Is it the money? Is it because we love our jobs? Or does it have something to do with fear? In eight years of looking at this issue, I have read plenty of motivational theories that associate work with people's needs or wants but very few that mention fear.
Yet it seems to me that fear remains a significant source of motivation. Fear of failure, fear of getting fired, or missing a deadline or of losing face: are these not all powerful emotions that tie people to their regular jobs? How many people are prepared to endure tyrannical bosses, harassment and miserable working conditions simply so that they can hold on to a job?
It seems extraordinary to be considering these questions today, after so many years of theorizing from the likes of Elton Mayo, Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg and Douglas McGregor-the "big four" of motivational theory. But for all their ideas that did so much to advance our thinking on motivation, they failed to create a satisfactory theory of work.
Mayo was inspired by perhaps the most famous of all experiments in motivation, those carried out at the Hawthorne factory of Western Electric in Chicago. I went there a few years ago in a kind of industrial tour of the Mid-west. Those at Midvale and Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, where Frederick Taylor carried out his work on scientific management are derelict although the old Bethlehem Steel plant is being made into an industrial museum.
The empty factory floors of the Hawthorne works were awaiting redevelopment at the time I called. The factory had hosted a series of experiments between 1924 and 1932. These had two distinct phases. The first was designed to discover whether electric lighting -then a new development for factories - could improve productivity.
The small "test" team of women assembly workers did indeed improve its output when the lighting was increased. What really threw the investigators was that when the lighting was dimmed to the level of moonlight, production rose again.
Mayo, the Harvard professor brought in to comment on a further set of experiments, this time looking for the real reasons behind the increased output, concluded that it had everything to do with employee morale. The women, he said, felt special because they had been separated from others and given much more managerial attention than their colleagues. People were talking an interest in them. The conclusions may well have been correct but the absence of a proper control experiment meant that other possibilities could not be discounted. Western Electric's personnel manager, for example, believed that money had been the biggest factor in the production improvements, since those in the test room had been given a better rate of pay. But Mayo chose to ignore this point. He also ignored the idea that motivation can vary in strength and direction depending on circumstances.
Maslow pursued this line of thinking in developing his theoretical hieracrchy of needs that explains how people's desires change as respective needs are fulfilled. Frederick Herzberg turned the problem of motivation on its head by looking at sources of dissatisfaction at work and found that the things that demotivated people differed from those that inspired them.
The conditions that needed to be right if people were not to become dissatisfied with their jobs he called "hygiene factors". In various studies, he found that the most important of these involved the culture of the company and the way that people were supervised. Work conditions and salary were important but less so. What he called the "intrinsic motivators" were the sense of achievement from a job were done, recognition, the work itself and responsibility, together with, to a lesser extent, potential for advancement and learning.
Curiously, although Herzberg considered what he called "kick in the pants" motivation, he did not associate this with fear. Rather he reflected that motivation was attached to the supervisor who was issuing the threat. There was motivational push - the kick - and there was an alternative "pull" that could be exerted through reward. This stick-and-carrot approach, he concluded was not intrinsic motivation, because people were doing things in response to some stimulus and not because it was something they really wanted to do. With this kind of stimulus, he noted, it was necessary constantly to up the ante.
In an experiment that did include control groups to avoid the distorting "Hawthorne effect", Herzberg's list of leading motivators such as recognition and added responsibility were introduced gradually at the rate of one a week among one of the groups. Subject matter experts were appointed in each group, supervision and the inspection of work were reduced and work quotas were dropped. Within six months the group was outperforming the control groups where no such changes had been introduced. The achieving group's members were enjoying their jobs more and experiencing less absenteeism than the other groups.
Unlike the Hawthorne results, Herzberg's studies had established beyond doubt the productivity that could be achieved by investing greater responsibility among work teams. So, why in spite of all that has been demonstrated about the advantages of investing responsibility in workers - so-called empowerment - do we still see so little of it in the workplace?
Why instead do so many managements feel that it is acceptable, even desirable, to maintain a climate of fear? Sally-Ann Huson, knowledge and intellectual property director at TMI, a UK training and development company, points out that a degree of fear can be helpful in some activities.
"Fear of falling off a cliff when you are skiing will keep you focused on what you are doing; but I don't experience the same fear when I am running a training program. It's less of an issue", she says. You could argue that it can be linked to your reputation or a worry of experiencing rejection.
" A lot of people don't realize that motivation is about the circumstances that exist at any given moment when a task needs to be accomplished. I love what I do and find it inspiring. But there are days when my energy isn't there and the "to do" list is as long at the end as it was at the beginning. We have to accept that motivation is a complex issue."
There's the rub. It helps to explain why Peter Drucker, the management writer, once remarked: "We know nothing about motivation. All we can do is write books about it."
by Richard Donkin
richard.donkin@ft.com
Monday, April 21, 2008
A common silly statment among Taiwan job seekers
It is no doubt that most people look for jobs before, back to my parents' generation, people first needed to fill out a resume, then mailed it to the company they applied for, finally they have to wait for couple days after to be informed. Then, companies might call you to arrange time or mail you back before you go job interview. Thanks to the Internet, people can now research jobs on line, it saves more time and resume can be sent to many companies at the same time in one day. And companies can email you back to let you know if they want to interview or not.
In Taiwan, having English speaking, reading, and writing will gain chances to have a job, as long as you have the ability, you are likely to have a further talking with companies' department head or top management. About 3 years ago, I came across a real situation on reading people's on-line resume as a secretary. Yes, it is hard for people to compete with others as people's education are getting higher and higher, for those who don't have enough money to study oversea, they usually lie on their resume or being silly when they fill out the Language column. It is obvious to see and tell this person having a ability to use English or not by looking at their previous workplaces, experiences, and education. It is funny that people don't actually have the ability to use English as a tool but they still want to show they might have a potential ability to use their native language for applying a job. Here is a typical silly statement what i saw on hundred on-line resumes.
Language:
From above, it can be seen that some Taiwanese are funny, it is understandable that having an language skill is helpful but for native speakers, good at speaking in Chinese is radical since we were born with and speak along with.
And YES!!! Good at listening, speaking, reading and writing in Chinese is good but that is impossible for anyone, even for the foreigners to master their mother tongues.
And NO!!! We will not consider to hire you first.
In Taiwan, having English speaking, reading, and writing will gain chances to have a job, as long as you have the ability, you are likely to have a further talking with companies' department head or top management. About 3 years ago, I came across a real situation on reading people's on-line resume as a secretary. Yes, it is hard for people to compete with others as people's education are getting higher and higher, for those who don't have enough money to study oversea, they usually lie on their resume or being silly when they fill out the Language column. It is obvious to see and tell this person having a ability to use English or not by looking at their previous workplaces, experiences, and education. It is funny that people don't actually have the ability to use English as a tool but they still want to show they might have a potential ability to use their native language for applying a job. Here is a typical silly statement what i saw on hundred on-line resumes.
Language:
| English very good good average bad |
| Listening |
| Speaking |
| Reading |
| Writing |
| Japanese very good good average bad |
| Listening |
| Speaking |
| Reading |
| Writing |
| Chinese very good good average bad |
| Listening v |
| Speaking v |
| Reading v |
| Writing v |
From above, it can be seen that some Taiwanese are funny, it is understandable that having an language skill is helpful but for native speakers, good at speaking in Chinese is radical since we were born with and speak along with.
And YES!!! Good at listening, speaking, reading and writing in Chinese is good but that is impossible for anyone, even for the foreigners to master their mother tongues.
And NO!!! We will not consider to hire you first.
How do Chinese learn English?
It is hard for Chinese and Taiwanese to learn English, especially for adults. As English is still the most common required language in the world, learning English is essential in Asia countries. In Taiwan, if you are able speak, read, and write in English, it will benefit people for getting a better job and a better salary. However, it is hard for people to pick up English because majority speak mandarin every day. Besides, the main purpose for students to learn English is to pass the examination. Therefore, someone come up with a creative way to help students memorize vocabularies which English sound associates with similar Taiwanese phonetic nation. Also, separating the vocabularies into several parts will also help students to memorize the spelling. The following example will be shown as followed which is the most funny one for foreigners to understand what i am talking about.
Teacher: what's "Hero"?
Student: I don't know.
Teacher: Hero is "her" + "O", which means you make your girlfriend go OOOOOOOO, that's called Hero, understand?!
Teacher: what's "Hero"?
Student: I don't know.
Teacher: Hero is "her" + "O", which means you make your girlfriend go OOOOOOOO, that's called Hero, understand?!
doing laundry in Swizterland
In England and Ireland, people usually talk about weather everyday because the weather is pretty much the same. But, the “laundry” topic will be talked about each day in Swizterland. The reason people talk about and feel frustrated bout this is doing laundry having a specific timing. Here, every apartment has its laundry hours, some places are Wednesday at 8AM to 12AM, some are Thursday at 9AM to 2PM, unless you own your personal apartment. And this cause people feeling frustrated because some people might need to rush home or teachers cannot schedule any class at the particular time just to do laundry, otherwise, they have to wait till next well when the laundry room will be available again. The other thing about the laundry topic is all washing machines in Switerland will automatically go off in lunch time, so, if you are not a local here, you might think that you break the machine. But since you do not break the machine, how come it goes off when your laundry is in the half way through. That is most people going home or dinning out for lunch everyday, the Swiss government turns off the electricity on washing machines in lunch time just to offer power for restaurants, also they don’t want to overload the power in the whole society.
doing grocery in Swizterland
New residents in Swizterland found shops opening hours are very annoying which caused them feel irritate and anger. All shops close at 12 in noon and re-open at 1.30 PM or 2 PM because everyone goes home for lunch. But this is not the most annoying things brining people anger, to answer this is the Holidays in Swizterland. Many people hurry themselves to do grocery after work, usually stores close at 5 or 5.30PM from Monday to Friday. But when they finally get to the stores, the stores were closed because of the Swiss holiday, and many foreigners don’t know what’s going on, they see a sign saying “holidays closed” posted on the door, they look at the dictionary and finally know what the sign means. The case like this, it’s the worse enough, the most worse case is you rush to stores on Thursday or Friday afternoon, and you realized no shops open on holidays which means you will have no food, no toilet paper…from Thursday / Friday till next Monday. Therefore, people will try to finish doing their groceries whenever they get off from work each day.
Taiwan special culture
A Taiwanese couple travelled to Japan by joining the travel group, the travel guide announced something tourists should be aware of just right after they passed through Japan immigration at the airport. So, what kind of important issuse that taiwanese should be careful about, we thought our culture is similar to Japanese. The answer is "throw the toliet paper into the toliet after it's been used". Most people must laugh out load right now and thinking this sould be the common sense for everybody. In fact, Taiwanese has something exceptional from others culture, and this might be rediculous for others. People who heard this will start to ask themselves about the image of Taiwanese by asking "oh, i thought Taiwanese are well-educated, I can't believe that, i thought only CAVE MEN will do that. Yes, we might be looked like weirdos, and YES, we don't throw used toliet paper into toliet and flush it away along with. We were taught to throw papers to trash can when we were kids.
Complaints have been made by Japanese of seeing Taiwanese used toliet papers in the trash can causes them feel disgusting and unhygienic. Therefore, travel guides will inform Taiwan tourists not to do this just to keep reputation of Taiwan.
Today, learning deciding toliet papers' final destination is something that Taiwanese should be re-educated. It will be the essential etiquette leason for Taiwanese.
Beause of this bad reputation coming from Japanese, the mayor of Taipei city in Taiwan has already broadcast this news onto the TV news, also wants people to be aware of the difference between Toliet Paper (roll) and Tissues (for facial), so, people knows which kind of paper should people use in the proper places, also not to block the toliet and reduce the chances in getting drains too muddy.
~from Ms. Pei Chi
~source: und.com & yahoo news (04.21.2008)
Complaints have been made by Japanese of seeing Taiwanese used toliet papers in the trash can causes them feel disgusting and unhygienic. Therefore, travel guides will inform Taiwan tourists not to do this just to keep reputation of Taiwan.
Today, learning deciding toliet papers' final destination is something that Taiwanese should be re-educated. It will be the essential etiquette leason for Taiwanese.
Beause of this bad reputation coming from Japanese, the mayor of Taipei city in Taiwan has already broadcast this news onto the TV news, also wants people to be aware of the difference between Toliet Paper (roll) and Tissues (for facial), so, people knows which kind of paper should people use in the proper places, also not to block the toliet and reduce the chances in getting drains too muddy.
~from Ms. Pei Chi
~source: und.com & yahoo news (04.21.2008)
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