Performance and motivation. What are the driving forces that motivates us? This video raises questions on the existing practices in the corporate environment.

One of concerns we in corporate world are faced with today is- How to motivate our employees? Various approaches have been made in this scenario. Organizations offer R&R in terms of awards, monetary incentives, points that count towards getting a promotion (Total performance management school of thought) and even distribution of goodies. And the question still stands.

Motivating employees in its true essence isn't only about driving productivity or following best practices that have been established as successful. Rather it focuses on how we can generate ownership. How can an organization ensure that employees identify with and accept the values, embrace the goals and the mission statements as their own, and work positively towards their acheivment. What can we do to ensure that established best practices don't remain so and that new efforts are made with changing socio economic scenarios to develop and employ new ones?

Another question is that does one size fit all? can we afford to have a singular policy for motivation across levels, work profiles and for people involved in different operations across company. Can a policy that motivates a sales guy also motivate those in HR or operations. Further can a single policy motivate and engage people starting from ground level to the senior managerial cadre? This video may not provide the answers but would definitely lead to a change in the direction of our thoughts on the matter. A must watch for all HR professionals.

The following copyrights apply only to the text. For the video please visit http://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg and http://www.thersa.org

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Language as a Window into Human Nature

Uploaded on 10 Feb 2011

In this new RSA Animate, renowned experimental psychologist Steven Pinker shows us how the mind turns the finite building blocks of language into infinite meanings. Taken from the RSA's free public events programme www.thersa.org/events.

The RSA is a 258 year-old charity devoted to driving social progress and spreading world-changing ideas. For more information about the RSA, visit http://www.thersa.org

Changing education Paradigms

This RSA Animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.

The RSA is a 258 year-old charity devoted to driving social progress and spreading world-changing ideas. For more information about the RSA and its work, visit http://www.thersa.org.

Let's not mistake justice with retribution... Let's not forget that judgements are not for us to pass... For we have an uphill struggle before us... As people and as a person... to acknowledge our failure in giving respect and acknowledging their will. There won't any justice if a mere law is changed and death dealt as punishment. There won't be any justice unless women are empowered with choices and the strength to make their own decision... without the fear of their character being judged on the basis of it.

An epiphany of Change...

Knowing and seeing are two different things. I know how the earth looks from the moon, but can that ever compare to actually seeing it from the moon? Could just the knowledge of it elicit similar emotions in me? We all know that people die when shot at with a gun, mostly. Every day in the newspaper we read of similar incidents and we do feel bad. However, does it evoke the same emotions as watching it happen right in front of your eyes or on video? Knowledge doesn't equip me with the experience of it; hence, rendering me incapable of emotions that would be strong enough to result in a behavioral change. Many people appreciatethe protests of the Arab Spring, There many more still who can vouch for the romanticism of the french revolution. The opressed beings of inconsequence standing up against and overthrowing the opressors of great consequence. However, Can we ever experience the same feelings as those actually involved in it. We can't, we may understand as a viewer watching by the sidelines but we are bereft of the pain and loss and have not therefore, the ability to grasp the truth of the situation. 

Looking around us we realize that most of us have the knowledge. Some of us even have the actual experience. Which raises the question on the existence of serials like SMJ? Which makes people ask if it actually made any sense? Whether the hype and news it created  were well deserved? and lastly why people were going gung ho about it?After all what's the point in watching something on TV when you already know it, especially, when we know that Watching something on TV doesn't offer the same experience as going through the events as a part of them does. Hence, keeping true to the spirit of the ever pervasive cynicism that infests our population today we reject SMJ completely. And in the process we forget there may be more to it then we can understand.
               
                What SMJ does, and does well, is to bring to the conscious mind knowledge that otherwise was relegate to the subconscious. It brings people together and reminds them that they have knowledge of these issues, forces them to acknowledge that they exist, and breaks the myths that may exist in some minds. It’s effective because it provides our anesthetized minds with an Aesthetic experience, because it brings those separate incidents together to form a larger picture that includes everyone. It turns a personal experience into social malaise.It's true that the world would change if everyone in it changed. But we don't talk about change, rather the direction of it. And to expect everyone to have an epiphany on their own and for it to result in changes that are similar in nature is a little too much. Yes the world can change if everyone changes, but would everyone change? And so far as individual changes are concerned - It's a great theory. But how does it work? What are the probabilities of 10 % of the population changing themselves without an external influence and on the basis of self-introspection done at an individual level? The problem is that we misinterpret the statement. It doesn't say that society can change only when the individuals that make up the society will change. It says that Everlasting, real change can only be brought about by effecting a change in the individual psyche the variations of which form an existing social psyche as against instituting governance to discourage a persisting behavior. Yes little drops do make an ocean. But not by themselves. Not when they are scattered and need to brought together. Depending on every drop to roll in converging directions is a fantastical thought. Believing they'll do so without a driving force, an incentive or motivation breaks even those bounds.



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I had left him behind...

With resignation i watched him
cling to every drop,
as slowly they filled him,
wetting his breath,
clouding his thoughts,
overcoming his heart,
till there was nothing left
of the once warm embrace,
of the fond fatherly gaze...

The fire must've burnt fierce,
when unfamiliar hands burnt him,
the flames dancing in ecstasy,
as the pyre consumed him,
but these are just thoughts
that now forever torture my mind.
for without a last embrace
I had left him behind
I had left him behind...