Motivation

Today I went to a training on how to motivate your employees to be top performers. I’m actually not even really supervising anyone right now, but I thought maybe I could learn how to motivate myself. My friend JoLynn was doing the training and listening to her always makes me to want to be better. I want to be a person like that, who motivates people just by entering the room, but I have a loooong way to go! In fact, I think I might be more of a demotivator most of the time. Which reminds me….www.despairwear.com has a new shirt that says “more people have read this shirt than your blog”.

We talked about what motivates employees, and as usual, I felt as though I might be from another planet. This usually happens to me during marketing discussions. As the marketing professionals talk about how to reach people most effectively, I always disagree and when I express my opinion, everyone rolls their eyes and says “that’s just you Kelly, nobody else thinks that way”. It also happens to me when I attend conferences. There is usually some main speaker whose purpose is to loosen everyone up and get them laughing. Now you would think I would like this since I enjoy good humor, but no. While everyone around me will go on and on about how great the speaker was, I will feel annoyed because it usually feels like a big waste of my time to have organized laughing when I would rather go to a session where someone shares useful facts and strategies. I also hate workshops where the speaker makes me interact with others. I just want to sit and take notes and learn new information. Which they tell me, is the opposite learning style from the vast majority of people, who like interaction.

Today my alien feeling came when we talked about what motivates employees. Apparently employees like to get praise and recognition and have the ability to celebrate their successes. I appreciate the occasional “good job” from my boss, but when it comes frequently it just annoys me, although I’m not sure why. I’m much more comfortable focusing on what isn’t going well and how we can improve it. That motivates me to want to do better! I’ve brought this up to various bosses, but what I’ve been told is that while that may motivate me, most people like praise and recognition. So once again, I’m the odd man out. Good thing I’m used to that feeling!