:AACE CERTIFICATION 2009-2010:

Continue on the pre-sales activities that I was involved in for the past 2 weeks, realizing there is a truth and good Way of Working (WoW) in our organization. In any new opportunity or pre-sales activity, it is a practice, in fact is a mandatory practice to identify 3 key personal from different fields and units to form the initial team to work together, example, for a tender response. Aligning to this practice as Graicunas cited General Sir Ian Hamilton wrote in his book "The Soul and Body of an Army" Arnold, London, 1922 p.229:
"The nearer we approach the supreme head of the whole organization, the more we ought to work towards group of three; the closer we get to the foot of the whole organization, the more we work towards groups of six."

It is from there that the 3 key personnel will build its own competence group to assist him/her to achieve his/her target. Working on tender proposal is always a nightmare. No single tender and same as another, thus solution, timeline, scope of work, costing, risk, etc need to be closely tied to the tender documentation and its Statement of Compliance (SoC). Therefore, it takes a highly motivated team and personnel to spend long hours and effort to produce a good proposal, which is so crucial as it will directly affect the business result; whether the organization can win the tender or not.

So what exactly motivates the team ? In Motivation Theories, it consists of Content motivation theories; Theories that focus on the factors or needs that motivate people. And Process motivation theories; Theories that look at why and how people is motivated.

Some of the known content theories includes:
- Murray's Manifest Needs Theory,
- Mazlow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory,
- McClelland's Learned Needs Theory,
- Herzberg's Motivator-Hygiene Therory, and others

Looking at the Hierarchy of Needs Theory; it is stated that in a hierarchy of needs, only when the lower order needs are satisfied that higher order need will then become manifest.


Source: Based on A. H. Maslow. 1943. A theory of human motivation.

How this applies to me I think it matches very well. To support myself, my family, I need a job and in this current job role that I'm in now, it is my duty to fulfill my responsibility. Therefore in return of my earning to pay for food, clothes, housing, I am in a way motivated to do my job. And in order to keep my job stable, job security is important, in protection of my position not to be replaced by someone else better and/or "cheaper", I need not only to accomplish my task, but to do it well and more then what it is required. When these base items are not in doubts provided to me, I look higher as stated in the hierarchy; Social Needs. I know that by producing quality results, proving my capability to work mates, I will be appreciated and start receiving love and affection from others as people tends to like to work with team that can perform and process quality results. With this love, I know I have also earn the respect of others as this is something that needs hard work to earn and not given or asked to be given. And last but not least, of all the needs that I gets from the mentioned 4 needs, I gets satisfaction and self-fulfillment out of it.

Many time motivations can push someone to achieve what needs to be achieve, but one will also have decision to make to reach the end of the road, whether to walk the long road or to cut through a shorter path, legally or illegally. Its ethical that we talks about. In this week's SUPPLEMENTAL assignment (http://blogs.bnet.com/mba/?p=1330&tag=nl.e713), regardless of what the situation could be, unethical approach will never be the solution, and as a junior or new position holder, to help fight against any unethical player, one will have to get to the higher authority for approval of the action to be taken. One need to get support from another manager, higher authority even to the highest authority to do the right thing.