At a friend’s wedding, I heard about this new approach to one’s job. The man was talking that his employee’s are peace time soldiers, “eh?!?” I went. The idea is that many employees approach their job in a fashion like peace time soldiers … they assemble in formations, they do their drills, they salute to their seniors and when no one is looking, they relax and goof around. Having done this myself, I could not disagree … so what does one do to get out of this rut? The answer is simple … go to war!!
During war, soldiers are willing to give their lives (in this case their jobs) for a particular purpose. Employees should identify the purpose for which they will strive hard and achieve or else give their jobs. That gives them the true drive at work, an achievable goal and also a reality check. If an employee cannot come up with any such purpose, then you can be rest assured that he/she is already looking out for different opportunities and is not really pulling his/her weight around.
I tried this tactic with myself at my office, with wonderful results. Not only am I making goals clearer for myself, but also I am sending out a message to everyone else whom I am working with as to what drives me and what is my top priority.
So what are you willing to die for?
Great! I simply adored the analogy with soldiers. I think for most of the people, the priority is to finish the work and go home. They wait for the monthly salaries and some times the incentives.
You have inspired me. I’m going to write some thing about it.
are we not talking about theory X and theory Y here ?
@Mayur – Please do :-), and give a trackback :-)
@ranjith – theory X and theory Y is used to determine whether i need to use danda. In army, danda is always there … in that sense, you have HR policies :-). but what the analogy determines is for what r u willing to go that extra mile?
kya ..die for..die for” laga rakha hai….!!;)
saari umra hum marr marr ke Jee liye..ab thoda to hame jeene do jeene do…..
the purpose you are mentioning here probably varies with the person’s career life cycle as well.
early stage – high passion, raring to go, looks beyond C&B
middle stage – married, lower hope of following his heart, money becomes important, more liabilities
later stage – what do i say ? beyond point of no return.
But i get what you say. Keeping all other variables out, its a challenge to make the employee who comes everyday give more. Glad if its working.
Btw, can u write a guest blog for btp on ecommerce ?
@aastha – jaa!! ji le apni jindagi!!
@don – talk to arya to see how effective it is (t’was his boss who spoke of this). and yes, I can write a post.
.. and motivation to fight a war???
when I was new to my job., it was very exicitng I enjoyed it all the while ,, until past few days.
I think now I know what i am doing.. and I dont see any motivation(learning), so i dont see any motivation in fighting a battle.. all i do is go-work-come back..
Durga, if you dont feel motivated to fight for anything in your job, then you need to relook at your job.
damn cool post! Every day at work I am looking at the new ‘wow’ factors! no matter how much that client sucks, our aim to make them realise ‘our team is indispensable’ for them and eventually they want to be on our side! In last 7 yrs of my career I have only seen clients coming back to us each time and are ready to wait till we can accommodate their work… war is a team work and wining it needs a strategy. same goes with our work! Its all about the ‘us’ factor!