The Surprising Truth about What Motivates People - Essay Example

Taking RSA Animate- Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates people. Is it true that if you reward somethingyou get more of what you want and when you punish you get less? Results are dependent on the type of skills. In mechanical skills, the better the reward the greater the person. when a task involves rudimentary skills, then the higher the reward the poor the performance The reason for the above is that the reward is not really the motivating factor. Different scenarios gave similar results: higher incentives resulted in poor performance. The reward system can work for small tasks and result in great performance but when it comes to tasks that require more work including involving the mind, the reward is not the motivating factor. So what is the motivating factor? Money is a factor but not in a straight forward way. Paying people enough money takes the issue of money out their minds and they can then focus on the tasks in a better way. The three factors that lead to better performance are: autonomy, mastery and purpose People prefer to be autonomous as they focus on more complicated things today at work. people will work better if they are allowed to direct themselves rather than being supervised. For example in Attlasian, when the management gave people the freedom to chose what to do, the way to do it and whoever they prefer to work so long as they recorded positive results, the developers came up with amazing innovations. A day of autonomy changes a lot of systems and records good performance Mastery which is the urge to get better at what one does gives good results. People get better at whatever they do with time. When one has mastered an art or skill, they may not get any reward from it but they feel satisfied with themselves There are instances when qualified people who have the option of getting paid for their skill opt to give their services free to others. The reason they do it is because through the opportunity to work for free, they are able to master the skills involved in doing that which they do. It is satisfying when one masters a skill. Achieving the goals and purposes that one sets for themselves is also a motivating factor for many people. People should be driven by purpose and not profits. Profits can result to unethical behavior. People look at what they want to achieve and then work towards achieving it. Purpose keeps the people in an organization focused so as not to get negative results. Essentially people maximize on purpose and not profit There is a duty for the organizations to treat people in a better way like humans and not horses The mastery of a skill or way of doing things is important for people and it is even better when they are allowed to be autonomous. Self drive is essential for all people and with the purpose in mind, there is great performance. Work and organizations should make the lives of the people better and promote the person. There is the duty to make the world a better place (purpose) Hans Rosling: Insights on HIV in stunning data visuals AIDS was discovered in 1981 and the virus was discovered in 1983. The data analysis involved adults and compared the number of people infected to the dollar representation per person, in 1983 In the USA in 1983, there were fewer people infected with the virus. In Uganda, which is a small country, the number of people infected with the virus was big. It had the greatest number of infections. Afterwards, Uganda and Zimbabwe recorded a rise but the numbers in Uganda started to come down while in South Africa the numbers rose. In Russia, the number went up for quite some time then eventually came to a steady state. The fact that the state became steady, it is not to mean that the situation had became better. It just means that the situation was no longer deteriorating or getting worse. It is not poverty that is the reason that African countries record the highest number of HIV infections. Botswana for example, is a middle income country that has a good economy. Despite these facts, the numbers of HIV infections in the country skyrocketed in 2003. After this, the levels went down. It does not mean that people are no longer infected but with the good economy the countries can manage to buy the drugs to treat their people. With good treatment the people can survive with the virus for a long time even more than ten years. In countries where people have low rates of income, the levels fall because people are not able to access treatment and they eventually die. Not all people are able to get constant access to drugs and in two years the situation changes. Prevention is the only solution left when it comes to dealing with the AIDS pandemic in all countries. Stopping the transmission of the disease is less costly. Treating the disease is expensive especially when it comes to the drugs and inaccessible AIDS vaccine. It is the treatment and care of patients suffering from AIDS that is expensive. People should not say that the number of HIV infections in Africa is higher instead; Rosling feels that the situation in Africa is just different. For example, Senegal which is in Africa has similar rates as USA which is doing fairly well. The number of HIV infections in some countries in Africa is even lower than in western countries. Saying that HIV infections in Africa are high is just a stereotype. Congo which is a war torn country has lower levels of infections whereas Zambia a peaceful country has more infections at the rate of 15%. It is not poverty, in fact, the more the money the higher the rates of HIV. Going by the statistics in Tanzania, the people with better income rates, record the largest number of HIV infections. The reason for the spread is that there is less condom use and age disparity sex where more young women are infected. Irresponsible drunken behavior has also led to many infections. Global problems should be dealt with soberly by using the mind, besides putting the money and heart into dealing with the situation. Work Cited Dartmouth. Classes: Notetaking, Listening, Participation. (n.d.). Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/success/notes.html Read More