Some thoughts on motivation
Jul. 21st, 2012 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narcasseWithout going into detail, I currently work in an industry that is, entirely, luxury consumer driven. We don't produce something that necessarily makes the world a better place, we don't help less affluent communities, if we imploded tomorrow the lives of millions, outside of our target market and employees, would not change. We are not a force for good or truth or justice or equality in this world. We're here to sell a luxury product, one that, using the example of one of the new variants, costs around the same price as a home in the fashionable countryside. We are not part of anything other than free market consumerism that panders to wealth and a very specific taste. Possibly we do have a sense of national identity going for us and the fact that we do create plenty of jobs, with a focus on traditional skilled manual labour, but the product itself is not exactly saving the world in any conceivable fashion.
Once upon a time all of the above would have bothered me. This isn't, after all, an industry that I deliberately got into nor is this a profession that I'd honestly even been aware of before. I certainly know I would have turned my nose up at most, if not all of this, not so many years ago, based upon my naive moralistic leanings and a complete lack of understanding of my own particular skill set. It's all very well to talk about products and projects that are intended to do great works for communities but, over time, I've found them alarmingly hard to get into. All of which may tally with my particular skill set rather than anything else. I'm not one of those people who gets into things because they like to make other people feel good about themselves: I'm the person who will get the job done, through deploying my people skills against others, as ruthlessly and frequently as required.
Not that people skills are in fact, really anything to do with lying, despite my joking that I am simply a very good liar. It's all detail work, remembering important instances and being able to bring complimentary points together. And if I do favours in the expectation that that person will then remember me, and be able to help at a later date, then that's more equivalent trade than anything else. Remembering the details that other people care about is immensely useful from a tactical point of view, and it also helps to place them in a sensible context, so that I have a matrix of who is most able, and likely willing, to help me achieve my goal on any particular occasion. I do a lot of listening, feigning interest, making note of pertinent points, being complimentary, and being self-depreciating. Of course sometimes I do have to put my foot down and state my case, quite forcefully, but on those occasions it's about the teamwork effect, which involves reminding all parties that we're actually on the same side and seeing what I can do to help them achieve their aims. Gavin De Becker actually lists several of my usual tactical choices and, quite honestly, things like forced teaming, loansharking and typecasting really do go a long way. But, all in all, it is a matter of making the other parties feel good about themselves at the end of the day, not because I'm a genuinely nice person, but because it's the easiest way to get them to do what I want them to. And, with a little bit of well-placed visibility and a reputation for pro-active problem solving, I'm well on the way to paving my own pathway onwards and upwards.
Once upon a time all of the above would have bothered me. This isn't, after all, an industry that I deliberately got into nor is this a profession that I'd honestly even been aware of before. I certainly know I would have turned my nose up at most, if not all of this, not so many years ago, based upon my naive moralistic leanings and a complete lack of understanding of my own particular skill set. It's all very well to talk about products and projects that are intended to do great works for communities but, over time, I've found them alarmingly hard to get into. All of which may tally with my particular skill set rather than anything else. I'm not one of those people who gets into things because they like to make other people feel good about themselves: I'm the person who will get the job done, through deploying my people skills against others, as ruthlessly and frequently as required.
Not that people skills are in fact, really anything to do with lying, despite my joking that I am simply a very good liar. It's all detail work, remembering important instances and being able to bring complimentary points together. And if I do favours in the expectation that that person will then remember me, and be able to help at a later date, then that's more equivalent trade than anything else. Remembering the details that other people care about is immensely useful from a tactical point of view, and it also helps to place them in a sensible context, so that I have a matrix of who is most able, and likely willing, to help me achieve my goal on any particular occasion. I do a lot of listening, feigning interest, making note of pertinent points, being complimentary, and being self-depreciating. Of course sometimes I do have to put my foot down and state my case, quite forcefully, but on those occasions it's about the teamwork effect, which involves reminding all parties that we're actually on the same side and seeing what I can do to help them achieve their aims. Gavin De Becker actually lists several of my usual tactical choices and, quite honestly, things like forced teaming, loansharking and typecasting really do go a long way. But, all in all, it is a matter of making the other parties feel good about themselves at the end of the day, not because I'm a genuinely nice person, but because it's the easiest way to get them to do what I want them to. And, with a little bit of well-placed visibility and a reputation for pro-active problem solving, I'm well on the way to paving my own pathway onwards and upwards.
