APPLIED MOTIVATION 

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON MOTIVATION 

  

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"Motivation" is one of the most important aspects in the life of a working professional, students, and every second person. Why students fail exams? Why employee turnover is high? It becomes important to understand especially when someone does not  feel connectivity and liveliness in their work. Most people on the internet say that "motivation is a short term feeling or the upliftment of temporary curiosity to complete a task and it only occurs when someone feels that the task is a necessity". I believe it is true, But I also believe “Motivation” is something that gives us a complete excitement to submerge into that task/work completely for a duration of time and helps to build an unwavering focus to complete that task without getting distracted. Is that something which comes easily just like turning on and off the lights or there are specific reasons that give an upliftment to Motivation? Lets, explore how motivation is important to thrive at a workplace.

TEAM DESCRIPTION 

Best Buy Portal.com

Since the course “Management and Leadership” gives us a clear direction on how to become an effective leader in the society, I think mentioning of my part-time work as a Sales Advisor at Best Buy would be a great example of talking workplace motivation.

Belonging to the team of Computer Sales Advisors at Best Buy, I am responsible to sell computers, printers and electronics to the customers and prospects. Being a team of 8 people in the department (excluding sales manager and assistant sales manager). Some of the daily responsibilities and tasks that me and my sales team execute are:

1. Providing a warm-friendly and energetic customer service.

2. Helping the customers get the most suitable product according to their needs.

3. Engage in a friendly and meaningful conversation, proactively listening to the doubts and concerns of the customers.

4. Reach out the customers and ask them the questions to simplify their choice over product selection.

5. Giving the appropriate product information, mentioning of the current deals, offers and cross-selling various products and tools to supplement product compatibility and helping to achieve departmental sales goals.

Performing these responsibilities/ tasks has helped me a lot to communicate effectively with the people and know more about the consumer behaviour and satisfaction in general.

SIX MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES 

KQED.com

 Four motivational theories from the textbook, that helped me to create a motivational action plan are:

1. Two factor theory

2. Acquired needs theory 

3. Expectancy theory

4. Goal setting theory

Because, I work in Sales and the environment changes every other second there, I believe the above theories become the best fit to create a plan in the form of motivational actions, that consistently helps my team to get motivated :

a. Job security, salary increment and friendly working conditions (hygiene factors) : Firstly, when and where we work, we always look for these three elements and especially in field like sales where client interaction and environment becomes very frustrating. Job Security, Salary increment with commission and positive support from managers, employees and other leaders motivates an individual to give more input and work with utmost teamwork.

b. Interesting work, responsibilites, recognition and growth (Motivators) : Being an enthusiast to help others in every possible manner, when me and my sales team meet to help our clients and prospects, it ignites us to put smile on everyone's face and that's how the purpose makes our work very interesting, responsible and new every single time. Because, it provides us reward after making every customer happy, it becomes automatically linked with career recognition and motivates us to grow.

c. Achievement, Affiliation based relationships: Salespeople feel super-motivated when they build long term relationships , therefore the achievements through strong closing, affiliation value relationships, and getting positive feeback makes a salesperson work with longevity, effectiveness and utmost passion. These factors under acquired needs theory is one of the prime factors why salespeople feel energized and motivated all the time.

d. High Expectancy, Instrumentality, Valence: These three components of expectancy theory play a great role in refining the belief system of a salesperson because, higher the mark of a salesperson in these factors, higher the motivation and higher the outcomes will be achieved. So, the job training and the corresponding environment of a salesperson should be rich in expectancy, instrumentality and valence.

e. Specificity, Commitment, Challenge and Feedback : I remember these terms when I started working at Best Buy in December, because we all were told to follow a specific goal of making $1 million in sales on Boxing day. This is how SMART goals came into implementation, so me and my team members made a commitment of segregating ourselves into different divisions within computer department such as Printers, Speakers, Gaming laptops etc, and took the challenge to close one sale within 15 minutes. That's how we reached our goal of $1 million in store sales ($435000 computer department) and hence, got positive feeback from customers, department manager and store manager. So, definetely goal setting is important for excelling at team-based work.

f. Constant Encouragement, Respect, Care and strong learning: I believe not only salespeople but every other professional feels motivated and inclusive when they are encouraged to perform better and constantly put into the zone of learning on how to improve? how to make others in our team work harder and better?. Respect and Care for the others in a team is actually found to be one of the most important reasons why employees do not leave an organization and for sure motivation and productivity comes along when these values are highly considered. 

CONCLUSION 

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In conclusion, I will say that motivation is an important factor in the success of an individual. We sometimes tend to ignore motivation and decide to work even harder when we feel mentally, physically and emotionally distressed. In the long run, it can become hazardous because, it could be an indication  that we might be burned out and need a little vacation time to recharge ourselves and get back to work. Otherwise, motivation when combined with discpline is the single ingredient found in the most successful people and we all should be very observative of our working environment, and try to become a source of motivation through appreciating others of their contributions , especially when they are not in their highest sense and needs care.

REFERENCE 

Lumen Learning. (n.d.). Principles of Management Module 5 Motivation.