Motivation or Being Lost In Jungle

“Hope for the worst and prepare your best” 

“Don’t struggle so much, best things happen when not expected”, says Gabriel García Márquez in his 13 phrases for living. Despite the things coming quite unexpectedly  in the logic of the Márquez’s phrases, it’s ok if really good things come. But it’s reasonable to consider that bad things which may also come are 50/50 per with good things. What to do and how to prevent these bad things? Planning and your own work, probably. That’s why I can’t but agree with practical proverb “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst”.

And in fact, it turns out too often that in practice outstanding works in business come as logic result of strategic thinking and planning. The same thing concerns human relations when working in the project team.

No doubt, it’s breathtakingly cool to wait for these best things in your life, because surely they will come, but how to compel yourself to work on planning in the way to approach their coming, on the one hand, and catch, enlarge and keep after their have coming, on the other one?

Recently I started reflecting on how to increase your own motivation being a manager, and motivation in the team the manager works with. It seems to be hardly possible to motivate your team with real things and get it working out the result you model in your head. While motivating you can be honest and sincere, concerning the potential spice cake waiting each team member in result of his work. But, anyway, at long last it depends only on the very member itself – if this cake will be the right thing he waits for in result.

In general, motivation theme provokes a reasonable question: are there some practical and useful things of how to motivate correctly and effectively your project team, or it represents one more pseudo-science? Let’s try to make some kind of project model in symbolic language, to sort out the matter.

So, close your eyes and imagine – you are hopelessly lost in the jungle. You feel very uncomfortable and need to struggle out for your surviving and get on the right road. What is natural to do here?

What we understand clearly is that we have to struggle out of this inconvenient place. That’s your objective. So, you need to get on the right road from the wild wood. The path could be your salvatory plan. The star could be your salvatory guide. But paths are too entangled, and stars are very numerous. That’s, probably, exactly what impedes to start going.

Ok, the second requirement, to complete successfully this extremely important project, is direction: you have to find out where the right direction is. What can help in such situation among huge diversity of different stars is the North Star – let it be your guide. On the other hand, you may intuitively follow the nearest stream by going to a bottom land, because water is your vital resource here, and settlements are usually located in immediate proximity to water.

Now I guess we are in need of some concrete plan: how to choose the optimal way or paths’ combinations to get out of the jungle, how much time will it take, who or what can help us here, what are potential risks etc. For the purpose to make up more realistic plan, you may find the biggest tree in nearby, to clamber up on it and study the outskirts.

So, You have the objective, guide and direction… Oops! Have you recognized? No word was said about motivation! I guess you haven’t even thought on the question in this jungle situation told like “Oh, at this stage there must be something motivating me…”. Exactly. Being in hardly hospitable wild wood, I guess you need no motivation. Because motivation here is your life: you die, if you don’t struggle for surviving.

Surviving is great motivation – beyond dispute. It can be said in other words: when nothing threatens you – nothing is done to prevent it. May be, one should paint oneself into a corner, and only after – start the project in such a way gaining much of real motivation?.. May be one should motivate project members with making their work to be struggle for surviving?

Fear gives birth to very powerful motivation, as well as to the hormone game which in result can pour out in creativity.

Being mostly afraid of nothing, you get nothing to enjoy. Be afraid, but use it in the way to intensify your willing and forces to struggle with your problems. If it’s done without being noticed – voila, this is a reasonable sketch of a modern successful manager.

Finally, let me reconsider the above-mentioned proverb I liked in the following way: “Hope for the worst and prepare your best”J.

Do what you believe in, even if it kills you.

Hie or die.