Newsletter 22 - 21 April 2005

Your Motivational Survival Guide This is the newsletter for www.mindtools.com. You have received this newsletter because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. This newsletter is published by James Manktelow of Mind Tools Ltd, Hardwick House, Prospect Place, Swindon, SN1 3LJ, United Kingdom. To contact us, please email newsletter@mindtools.com.

Contents: In This Issue... Motivational Survival Guide Mind Tools Store SQ3R Enthusiastic Employee Emails That Work A Final Note

In this issue of the Mind Tools newsletter, we wrap up our three-part series on motivation by taking a look at motivation from a leader's perspective. In doing so, we provide important information that will help you as you work to keep your team and co-workers motivated, thereby increasing both their overall job satisfaction and their performance. And, if you are not currently in a formal leadership position, worry not: You can rely on the information we provide to motivate yourself, or you can even share it with your co-workers!

We take an in-depth look at a book we already told you about, "The Enthusiastic Employee." The book's premise is based on the belief that by giving employees more of what they want (and need), your business gets more of what it needs to be successful. If you're trying to increase performance within your organization, this book is for you. Written by David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind and Michael Irwin Meltzer, this book truly is a definitive motivational (and inspirational) guide that is as valuable for the new manager as it is for the seasoned CEO.

Overcoming Information Overload
And, considering the volume of information to which we're all now exposed, we thought it beneficial to look at a reading strategy that allows you to get the most from written text in the shortest time possible. A personal favorite, SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recall, Review) is sure to improve both your reading efficiency and your recall of information, making it a valuable mind tool.

We close the newsletter with a refresher on how to compose an effective email. Sure, we know this seems somewhat basic; however, we also know how important it is (especially in this age of technology and global communication) to write an email that is both easy to understand and effective.

Finally, I’m very pleased to announce the winner of our Career Coaching Survey Prize Draw. Thank you to all readers who took part in this survey: Your feedback has already helped us make some valuable changes to the service, and we greatly value all your comments and suggestions. Congratulations go to Tracy Vezina, the winner of the survey prize draw. Tracy wins a free coaching session or a Mind Tools product of her choice. for more on Mind Tools Career Coaching, go to http://www.mindtools.com/rs/CoachingNL, or sign up for our coaching fact sheets at

http://www.mindtools.com/php/coaching/CoachingForm.htm#Factsheets.

As always, we hope you enjoy this issue of the Mind Tools newsletter and encourage you to continue to send us your thoughts, suggestions and comments. And as ever, if you find these articles useful, please share the newsletter with friends, your co-workers and your team.

Best wishes, and enjoy this issue!

James & Rachel

Your Motivational Survival Guide
Part 3 of a 3-part series on Motivation
By: Kellie Fowler

In the last issue of this newsletter, we looked at the key theories behind motivation. Among other points, we saw the importance for motivation of treating people fairly, providing a good working environment, recognizing achievement and helping people grow. Unfortunately, getting this right is no simple task!

As we learned in the first two articles, both the psychology of motivating and the history of motivational ideas are quite complex. Yet, as varied as they are complex, they serve as a catalyst for motivational success, when applied appropriately and with the right knowledge.

But, to say that this motivational success can be achieved by applying just one theory, or just one approach, is a mistake: Different people in different situations in different cultures think and behave in different ways. For when it comes to motivating, what leads to success can be as wide-ranging as the theories that make up this important managerial tool.

The Simple Answer for Motivational Success
So how can you better motivate your team members to achieve the success you desire? As simple as it may seem, the answer may lie in talking with them.

The importance of this cannot be overstated: If you don’t make a point of listening to your team, you can miss huge opportunities both for removing demotivators and for motivation. Team members may be upset by tiny points of bureaucracy of which you’re not even aware. Or there may be simple actions that you could take that would have a huge impact on people’s morale.

But what questions should you ask?

Ask questions that will help you learn more about their individual goals and their views as they pertain to their job. (For large groups, gather everyone and distribute a questionnaire that asks these questions in the simplest, most direct way possible).

Keep in mind that achievement, recognition, growth, meaningful work, equity and camaraderie and likely to be high on most people’s list. This, of course, is aside from the obvious, which is that employees must have a safe working environment, a practical workload, comfortable working conditions, a reasonable degree of job security, satisfactory compensation and benefits, respectful treatment, credible and consistent management, and the opportunity to voice their concerns, to achieve even minimal motivation. After all, these are the basics and should be considered not so much as motivational factors, but as basic necessities.

You should also ask team members if they feel challenged at work and if they feel they are able to use their skills and apply their knowledge. Determine if there is adequate room for growth for your employees? Do they have the opportunity to expand their knowledge and learn new skills?

Do they perceive their job to be important? Do they receive recognition for their performance? And, are they proud to work for the company and proud of their individual contribution?

Also, strive to learn more about their relationships within the workplace. Do your best to ensure your employees have consistently positive interactions with you, as well as with other members of the team. By having regular one-to-one chats with team members, you can quickly pick up and resolve issues before they become significant, as well as taking the opportunity to praise achievement.

From Theory to Successful Practice...
Remember, your goal here is to learn what will build a higher morale, generate enthusiasm, and increase productivity. And just look at companies when they’re performing at their best: What you’ll most often find as a common denominator is the high morale of the workers.

Simply put, to motivate team members, help them be productive and be the best they can be, let them know how they are doing, make an investment in them and help them grow.

Considering that employee enthusiasm is directly related to employee performance, this becomes a never-ending cycle, one that when spun the right way, will yield unmatched results for you, your employees and the organization.

The bottom line is this: When it comes to motivating your team, perhaps you should start by considering what would motivate you. Then talk to your team members to find out what they want and need. And then work diligently to provide them with it.

A Final Note

Let us know what works for you and your team by sending your experiences to Newsletter@mindtools.com . We’ll be pleased to award $25 of Amazon.com vouchers for the best email, which we’ll “print” in the next newsletter. Also, remember that this three-part series on motivation was prompted by a request from a Mind Tools newsletter reader. We look forward to fulfilling more of our reader’s requests – please let us know what you want to know, again at to Newsletter@mindtools.com !

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Tools Reviewed:
SQ3R: Reading More Effectively
In this era in which the number of media outlets is exploding, most of us battle information overload, making it nearly impossible to remember everything we read. Yet, we cannot afford to forget the key points that may help us perform better, increase our knowledge and skills, or help us to reach our goals.

This is where SQ3R comes in. Not only does this technique help you read more quickly, it also significantly increases your retention of written information. And you can even apply this technique to the Mind Tools newsletter.

Because SQ3R helps you to create a good mental framework of a subject, into which you can fit facts correctly, it is particularly useful when it comes to setting study goals. It also prompts you to use the review techniques that will help to “cement” the most important information in your mind for later use.

In summary, by using SQ3R to actively read a document, you can get the maximum benefit from your reading time, making it an invaluable tool for students and busy professionals alike.

SQ3R actually stands for the five sequential techniques you should use to read a non-fiction book:

Survey: Survey the document: scan the contents, introduction, chapter introductions and chapter summaries to pick up a shallow overview of the text. Form an opinion of whether it will be of any help. If it does not give you the information you want, discard it.

Question: Next, make a note of any questions on the subject that come to mind, or particularly interest you following your survey. Perhaps scan the document again to see if any stand out. These questions can be considered almost as study goals - understanding the answers can help you to structure the information in your own mind.

Read: Now read the document. Read through useful sections in detail, taking care to understand all the points that are relevant. In the case of some texts this reading may be very slow. This will particularly be the case if there is a lot of dense and complicated information. While you are reading, it can help to take notes in Mind Map format.

Recall: Once you have read appropriate sections of the document, run through it in your mind several times. Isolate the core facts or the essential processes behind the subject, and then see how other information fits around them.

Review: Once you have run through the exercise of recalling the information, you can move on to the stage of reviewing it. This review can be by rereading the document, by expanding your notes, or by discussing the material with colleagues. A particularly effective method of reviewing information is to have to teach it to someone else!

Click here to find out more about SQ3R. SQ3R is just one of the techniques you can use to overcome information overload. Click here for information on speed reading, and here to find out more about reading strategies.

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Review:
The Enthusiastic Employee
By David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind and Michael Irwin Meltzer
Reviewed by Kellie Fowler

If you’re a manager who’s looking to improve your team’s morale and performance, “The Enthusiastic Employee” is for you. This well-written, useful guide shows you exactly how to ensure your team members are satisfied, enhancing your organization (and your bottom line) one happy, enthusiastic employee at a time.

The book explores what works for well-known, long-lasting companies. It then balances this with the input of everyday workers and managers, who will open your eyes to what they like about their jobs and what they don’t.

The books authors, David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind and Michael Irwin Meltzer expertly bring together years of research and proven common sense to show you how you can increase employee enthusiasm, while better handling the ups and downs every manager faces (including layoffs), making it as practical for the new or small-business manager as it is for the seasoned CEO who heads-up a global company.

Not surprisingly, “The Enthusiastic Employee” points to management as the most likely reason for employee dissatisfaction, then gives a step-by-step guide that shows you how to avoid this pitfall by building a cohesive, productive team that is sure to last for the long-haul.

The book also looks at common business practices that serve to damage employee morale, such as constrained communications, showing how such constraints damage even the best motivational efforts by reinforcing employee’s sense of second-class citizenship within the organization.

And that’s not all. “The Enthusiastic Employee” takes any organization beyond just profits and shows managers how to cultivate pride (and enthusiasm) amongst employees, presenting solid information on what employees want, the important correlation between meeting these wants and business success, job security, compensation, respect, organization purpose, job enablement and job challenge, as well as feedback, recognition and reward, and finally teamwork.

This informative read is a real eye-opener, and a copy should be kept in every manager’s briefcase.

Click here to see “The Enthusiastic Employee” at Amazon.com.

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Writing Emails That Work
Most of us send so many emails a day that we get lazy. We may forget that our emails should be written as any other business correspondence; clear, concise, focused and include a call-to-action when necessary.

To stay on topic, keep your sentences short and to the point, and be careful not to sound harsh or abrupt. This starts with the email’s subject line. Use the subject line to inform the receiver of exactly what the email is about, in an abbreviated manner, of course.

Keep in mind, the subject line should offer a short summary of the email and allows for just a few words. Because everyone gets emails they do not want (SPAM, etc.), appropriate use of the subject line increases the chances your email will be read and not discarded into the deleted email file without so much as a glance.

Because emails have the date and time they were sent, it is not necessary to include this information in your email correspondences. However, the writing used in the email should reflect appropriate business etiquette. Again, emails should be clear and concise, with the purpose of the email detailed in the very first paragraph.

The body of the email should contain all pertinent information and should be direct and informative (see http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/WritingSkills.htm).

Make sure to include any call to action you desire, such as a phone call or follow-up appointment. Then, ensure that you include your contact information, including your name, title, phone and fax numbers, as well as snail-mail address. If you have additional email addresses, you may want to include these, as well.

If you regularly correspond using email, make sure to clean out your email inbox at least once each day. Of course, the exception here may be on days you do not work, such as weekends and holidays.

And return emails in a timely manner. This is a simple at of courtesy and will also serve to encourage senders to return your emails just as promptly.

Internal email should be treated as regular email, following the same rules as outlined above. However, internal email should be checked regularly throughout the working day and returned in a much quicker manner as much of these detail timely projects, immediate updates, meeting notes, etc. Nonetheless, internal emails, just like emails, should not be informal. Remember, these are written forms of communication that can be printed out and viewed by others than those originally intended for.

For more information on this, visit http://www.mindtools.com/email.html, where you will find a great article entitled "10 Tips for Effective Email," written by Ellen Dowling PhD.

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A Final Note...

Developing the theme of SQ3R and speed reading, in our next newsletter we review a CD-based course that will help even the slowest readers dramatically improve reading speed (without sacrificing the amount of information retained).

We'll take a fresh look at Stress Management - Showing what you need to know about it and what you can do to combat it.

And we take a look at "How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You": Mind Tools' soon-to-be launched leadership masterclass, with a brief oversight on some of the tools within it. We're getting quite excited about this course and the huge benefits it will deliver!

And please remember, we’re keen that you share these newsletters with your co-workers and your team – please feel free to forward it to them to stimulate discussion.

Best wishes, and until next time!

James & Kellie

James Manktelow & Kellie Fowler

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