Suppose you often fail to reach your targets, though you begin your project enthusiastically. If this happens often, it is time for you to check your intrinsic motivational levels. An internally-motivated person shows a lot of positive attitude towards his goals. He often finds ways to rejuvenate and keep himself on track in the face of adversity. This is how he makes himself a winner. However, motivation can fade away at a single instance of adversity. But it will no longer do so when you make it a habit. You need to make building self-motivation a habit rather than a “once-a-while” activity.

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Positive reinforcement, in general, occurs when a certain type of incentive is offered after an action or behavior and that behavior is further encouraged, as a result. It has many forms that are both tangible and intangible.

• Concrete Reinforcer: This is tangible i.e. a gift in the form of a thing
• Social Reinforcer: This is a responsive gesture or action e.g. a shrug, nod or hug
• Activity Reinforcer: This is a chance to engage oneself in an interactive and fun activity.

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“Emotional Intelligence is the clever use of one’s emotions.” The way or means by which an individual intentionally makes emotions work is by using them to help guide his behavior, mannerism and thought process in his or her favor. The work or corporate environment has always scrutinized and tested an individual’s Intelligence Quotient (IQ) Level, as it believes that the success rate of a Company depends on the IQ level of the employees who work there.

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Before analyzing EQ and IQ, let us familiarize ourselves with what exactly these terms mean. Emotional Quotient (EQ) refers to an employee’s ability and understanding of his or her emotions along with his or her colleagues’ emotions at the workplace to create better work coordination and environment.

In contrast, Intelligence Quotient (IQ) defines the level of intelligence an employee possesses to understand, interpret and implement one’s knowledge in varied situations leading to his or her growth as well as the Company’s.

IQ is mainly used to measure one’s cognitive capabilities, such as the capacity to learn or understand new situations; reasoning through a given predicament or setting and the ability to apply one’s knowledge in current circumstances. Emotional Intelligence (EI) skills do not limit themselves to sympathy, intuition, imagination, flexibility, stress management, management, truthfulness, genuineness, intrapersonal skills and interpersonal skills but extend far beyond these.

When working in an organization, an employee with higher EI than others can convince his or her colleague(s) about a certain argument by appealing to their emotions rather than presenting facts and figures. While judging an individual’s EI, keep in mind these few points:

• An employee’s ability to comprehend and apply his or her personal emotions
• An employee’s ability to express his or her feelings, beliefs and thoughts
• An employee’s ability to recognize and appreciate his or her own potential
• An employee’s ability to manage his or her personal and professional life under stress and pressure
• An employee’s ability to adapt to different work environments and handle varied challenges that come his or her way
• An employee’s ability to possess self-confidence
• An employee’s ability to not only work towards the growth of the Company but also towards the growth of his or her co-workers

For best results, employees must develop communication and organizational skills for good decision-making as well as good inter-personal relations with co-workers. An individual’s success rate at work depends on his or her EQ as well as IQ in the ratio of 80:20.

Why 80:20? Well, because, EQ help individuals build and maintain relations with peers and superiors, increases productivity and opens up doors for clarity in communication (good listening habit is integral to EQ).

While hiring, corporates look at an individual’s EQ rather than IQ. Having a high IQ will help build interpersonal and intrapersonal skills to a certain extent, unlike EQ, which talks about one’s character based on the way he or she writes or replies to mail, collaborates and networks with peers and subordinates and works towards attaining Company goals.

Do share your thoughts on the same.

Those of us whose education included management science and those of us who learnt more and better about human motivation doing our masters in the University of Life have realized that motivation, either positive or negative, doesn’t work on everybody in the same manner.

Way back in 1960s itself, Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Y enlightened us about the two contrasting assumptions of human motivation, leaving us to choose between the carrot and the stick and we now have Stephen Covey who talks about the wisdom of migrating from an industrial age (Theory X) to that of an Information Age (Theory Y) to get the best of people.

I am sure all of us, as seasoned managers, have our own experiences and opinions about what works in motivating our people and what doesn’t. We know that monetary rewards are necessary but so are the small little trinkets that even battle-scarred and war-weary generals and soldiers love to receive in recognition of their services.

As a first generation entrepreneur most of my working life, I have always used non-monetary motivation copiously (for an excellent reason that I couldn’t afford too much of monetary rewards!). It worked very well for me, cutting across levels, departments, gender and education/ experience.

A small example – In the beginning of this year, when we conducted a climate/ morale survey, we found that the team felt that they do not have enough freedom when it comes to taking leaves. We decided to give total freedom to avail eligible leave – a person need not take anybody’s approval before taking leave; they need to only inform in advance that they are availing leave. We had our usual share of Doubting Thomas’ apprehensions that this freedom is bound to get abused and will result to utter chaos. It is 2 months since we announced the new leave policy and there isn’t a single case where a person has not behaved responsibly when availing leave, keeping the company’s interest very much in mind.

A number of visitors – business associates, customers, suppliers – who visited our facility and came to know about our initiates toward making ‘Happy Employees’ have commented that “too much of a good thing is bad”; too much of praise, recognition and freedom is bound to bring about negative returns.

We don’t think so. What would you say? I would love to hear your comments, advice and experiences.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you are interested in the subject of motivation, you will find our free online course on ‘POSTIVE REINFORCEMENT’ quite interesting. Click on the link to access it: http://www.commlabindia.com/elearning-gurus/elearning-freecourses.php?course=C1

RK PRASAD
CEO