Perception
about an individual’s personality impacts on motivation at work and the airs
surrounding the staff at an organization. Perception about an individual is
mostly driven by individual perceptions that people around the individual
generate, and the viewpoint of the beholder. Whilst a very vibrant
and positive personality leads to positive energy around the workspace and acts
as an inspiration to co-workers, a closed, pessimistic personality leads to
hate and negative energy in work areas where team interaction is the key. It
cannot be absolutely said that positive personalities are always
successful. Their success and goodwill in the organization is driven by
people who have influence on the overall aspects of the organization. Politics,
backbiting, spreading negative vibes out of jealousy and professional
competition drive perceptions about an individual. Man is an animal and rarely
reaches a state of complete satisfaction except for a short time, as one desire
is satisfied another pops up to take its place.
These
desires lead to all kind of issues among people in a workplace.
The
paper in discussion has highlighted a situation that is very close to the one I
had been involved with, and I would be throwing some light on the incidents
that occurred. Ours was a team of 12 with a very diverse range of backgrounds.
The project was one that revolved around the time and money model and the
resources we had were critical to the completion of the project on time. While
technical disturbances are commonplace to any workplace, the dependencies the
issues create on the functioning of the project are not to be overlooked. Deb,
a team member was on the verge of his appraisal for promotion and was going
overboard in the project to project him as a very competitive. While the fact
that he was very talented and a resource critical to the project were true, the
behavior was one that was caustic and belligerent. The module that he was
handling was one that depended on a database which was handled by an external
organization. Another team member, Bob who had a similar dependency
was working on creating views for the business aspects of the project, and
unknowingly had caused the database to crash. Deb was apprised of this thing
and he turned violent, as though it was a personal issue and would destroy his
life in the next instant. He raised an incident with the higher authorities and
demanded an action against Bob. The issue was one that could be internally
handled without any intervention from the higher authorities, the feeling if
insecurity that the issue could hamper his performance and he held responsible
for it was the reason for his extreme behavior. A meeting was called
for with the local HR and upon discussion, Deb had to be taken off
the allocation, and put into a position that was less critical and demanded
less involvement with the teammates.
There
are in fact many theories of motivation that are used within business
organizations, which all have been designed for one purpose, to identify what
motivates and enhances the performance of employees. It is important for a
business to identify factors relating to motivation that could affect its
competitiveness in the market, and implement ways to enhance the business
performance. However the importance of perception and personality factors
should not be overlooked, when introducing any method of motivation, as these
are likely to determine whether employees will react effectively to any change
in motivational style. I believe professional and personal motives must have
clear a bridge between them and should be completely isolated from each other.
