Camaraderie

Motivation via Association

Ideas and relationships can not be supressed by force.

Coming back to the 5As of Motivation  (1) Appreciation, (2) Authority, (3) Avoiding Pain (internal to self) (4) Affluence and (5) Association. And the 9 tactics around the 5As that lead to self / others motivation. The nine tactics being (1) Recognition, (2) Trust, (3) Challenge, (4) Direction and Communication, (5) Opportunity, (6) Personal Stake, (7) Freedom of Choice, (8) Incentive and (9) Association with a team or group.

We have discussed recognition, and how it is used to tame killer whales http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/rrecognition-can-tame-killer-whale-why.html

Trust and the behaviors that help build trust http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/people-respond-to-trust-by-upholding-it.html

Challenge http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/life-challenges-help-us-discover.html

And Direction and Communication http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/efforts-and-courage-are-not-enough.html

Today lets shed light on motivation via Association with a group. Everybody knows that Camaraderie helps bring the best out of people. We forget the divide of religion, gender, sect, country etc when we are feel the camaraderie. Living examples being English Premiership teams, where supporters of Manchester United are distributed all across the world, even in rival countries, but as soon as the MAN U match starts, they get together all across the globe and are motivated to support MAN U. Similar examples are seen in school, where children of different classes and ages are associated into “houses” for extra circular completion. And these boys/girls forget all their differences and are motivated to be one to support their house during competition. Other examples being your offices, where people associated to a specific department, sense a connection amongst themselves. One of my friend used to summarize this via saying

“It me in opposition with my boss in a meeting amongst ourselves, but its me and my boss against the GM when we go and present to the GM and its me, my boss and GM as one team motivated to sell our ideas against our Group Vice president.”

Building association is very easy. If you let people socialize they will (with in) a few days build association with each other. It is as simple as putting people in a room together all day, day after day, and within no time you will realize that they are comfortable with each other, chatting and joking and helping etc etc. If you are meeting outside the office, than association building is more quicker, that is the reason team building exercises are conducted outside the office.  Another example is a plane ride, where, strangers sit together and within a few hours they are talking to each other and trying to make that connection / association. At the base, we as humans want to be in our comfort zone, and if people around us are unknown, we try to know them find common ground and build that association.

To see how companies have motivated people via building association, we refer to the Fortune magazine, 100 best companies to work for 2011 and 2010 .http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2011/full_list/   This will give us some practical insight in how companies build association amongst its employees. We see four themes popping out (A) Company cares about the employee, (b) Diversity in people is appreciated, (c) Employees are consider stakeholders and are treated as such and (d) Fun events with employees are arranged.

§    The company has created an environment, that i dont want to leave.

As the saying goes in villages, Contentd cows give more milk.  The top 100 companies to work for create an atmosphere, where everything is taken care of, and the only problem that workers have is excelling in their work.

 

Lets take example of SAS (Ranked # 1 in 2010). Here there are two subsidized day-care centers for 600 children and a facility for summer camp for older children.  There is drycleaning, care detailing, a UPS depot, book exchange, mediation garden, in-season tax-prep vendor. Free snacks including Krispy Kremes and M&Ms. Extensive on-site sports leagues, SPAs and health care centers.

 

Locally, i have seen smaller companies having pool table, fuzeball, Wii, Playstataion. And employees have developed a Camaraderie around these activities, and they end up spending more time in /around the office. Because "My friends are here"

•       The company cares about me– sense of belonging.

If you take care of the employees, they will take care of their communities and investors. Dont think the employees are criminals.

Nustar Energy (Ranked 30^th) apart from giving good compensation and benefit. Focuses on keeping the spirit of its employees sky high via showing them that the company cares about them. Examples being : On Christmas eve, an employee on medical leave- had her house burn down. The company sent $3000 immediately to help her enjoy Christmas and find a place to live.

Another example being, Hurricane damaged houses of some of the employees.  Nustar sent other employees from  across the country to help repair the homes of their colleagues, cook meals and distribute free stuff.

Spouse of the store manager of  Aero (ranked 94) got sick, the chairman asked the store manager to go to his wife and stay with her as long as it takes with out and deductions.

§         The company recognizes employee differences, and accept them on who they are.

Management mantra goes, that if you are supportive of employees and their families, they will reciprocate, especially during the down turn. 

Nustar Energy Chairman once fired a talented senor executive because he continually berated his subordinates. These companies honors personal choices, if the employee says that the job is not safe and he/she will not undertake it,  the company honors this and find something else for the employee.

Another small but impactful example being, that Flexible working hours are arranged for employees who have some personal committments.

§         The company considers each employee as a stakeholder.

Its all about US and not about US vs. THEM.

At Nustar Energy everybody gets a bonus – or no body does. Lay offs are few and far between.  Aero (ranked 94) gives 30% discount to its employees on all of company products, on the spot bear hugs on exceptional performance.  Employees here can grow as high as they are capable of,  it like “from cleaning bathroom to boardroom”

§         Fun events

As mentioned previously, associations build quicker outside the office. These companies recognizes this and once a while, the company makes the employee forget all the stresses of the office and decides to have fun.

Summer parties or family days out are arranged, safely celebrations are undertaken. Management goes around the offices, strap on aprons and serve up barbecue.

If I miss anything about my office, it's the camaraderie of my teammates

Association or Camraderie make people like their place of work or area of association. It makes them spend more time at office or even after office hours they like to spend time together (again discussing office) and aperantly working 24/7/365.  High association, makes people give 100+% to what ever they do, this passion is in support to the people they are associated with, its not the job responsibility they are trying to uphold, but  they are trying to uphold the relationship and trust with other associate.


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