There are a number of ways to instill confidence and promote cooperation and innovation among team members. In some cases, a memorable saying or slogan can be the focal point of that motivation. Why don’t we give up using trite, worn-out and meaningless cliché driven jargon when their usefulness expiration date has passed? In some cases, it may be because it once meant something special and there is an outside chance that it may rekindle a spark of an old “Ah ha!†moment. In a nutshell, there is a tendency to sloganize any motivational challenge and then beat workers over the head until they are screaming for us to stop. There are literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of these tired and shallow messages that never seem to go away. This week we looked at five of the worst of these and pointed out some secondary positive meanings as well as the danger of diving into the shallow motivational space.
Feb 25 – The Comfort Zone – Shallow Motivational Tip 1 – There are many ways to represent the popular buzz word phrase that people need to get outside of their comfort zone in order to be productive. One popular motivational graph shows two circles that do not intersect… the small circle is labeled “Comfort Zone†and the larger one is labeled “Where the Magic Happens.†Anything that can be graphed implies some sort of scientific believability that it must be true. – more –
Feb 26 – No “I†in Team – Shallow Motivational Tip 2 – Most motivational sayings do have some foundation in fact and an element of truth if taken at face value. Accepting pithy platitudes as gospel is shallow at best and dangerous if taken to be an all encompassing truism. We have all seen various posters proclaiming that “There’s no ‘I’ in Team†that has an obvious reference to someone bringing an overinflated ego into a group situation and destroying the cohesiveness of the effort.   – more –
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 Feb 27 – Failure Is Not an Option – Shallow Motivational Tip 3 - The thrilling movie “Apollo 13†gave us a vivid depiction of the real life drama of rescuing a team of astronauts when everything was against them. Fortunately, the people on the ground tasked with problem solving did not accept failure as an option… but realistically it was in fact the most likely option and that fact loomed large in their minds. It was the value of human life and passion for their mission that motivated them, not some cheesy cliché spouted by their leader. – more –
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Feb 28 – Thinking Outside the Box – Shallow Motivational Tip 4 – Apparently the shelf life of a mind puzzle is some number approaching infinity. Over 40 years ago a brain teaser composed of nine dots in a 3 x 3 matrix on a page was first published by that famous author Anonymous. The trick was to connect all nine dots with four continuous straight lines without lifting the pen from the page or tracing over another line. – more –
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Mar 1 – There Are No Stupid Questions – Shallow Motivational Tip 5 – The essence of brainstorming is to facilitate free flowing ideas with no barriers to innovative thinking. Behind closed doors, everybody has a voice, nobody is allowed to criticize anyone else, and there is no evaluation of the conversation while the session is alive. There are no stupid questions or dumb ideas because inside that room there is supposed to be an air of freedom to say anything at anytime. Adjourn the meeting, open the door, and all bets are off as soon as everyone leaves the room. – more –
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