Individualism versus collectivism - refers to the degree that people favor their individual against group values.

Power distance – the extent to which people accept the inequality in the distribution of power in a society. The low power distance environment allows participation in the decision making process and most important direct access to your superior. In a high power distance environment is normal to manifest positive emotions to your superiors and negative emotions to your subordinates and everybody accepts this as normal. The last one  is definitely not my favorite.

Uncertainty avoidance – deals degree to which people tolerate or feel threatened ambiguity and uncertainty. Strong uncertainty avoidance means that change is dangerous. Weak uncertainty avoidance environments do not see hard work as virtue. As an individual choice, the truth should be somewhere in between these two.

Masculinity vs. Feminity – the distribution of roles between genders can determine the orientation of a society in the direction of assertiveness and materialism or to focus on human interaction and concern for others.

Long versus short-term orientation – Long-term orientation focuses on the future, on perseverance and persistence. Short-term orientation focuses on the past and present, on respect for tradition and fulfilling social obligations

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Individual performance is important, but a company is not formed from one individual. A company is a team and its strategic needs can be supported by group-oriented pay plans.

Profit sharing is one of the most used incentive systems. Money-wise it might not make a difference in a big company because the impact on profit from one individual is small. But in a small company it matters and in time, when most small companies will become partnerships, and the notion of employee will be history, this will represents the only form of compensation.

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPPs)
An ESOP allows employees to own stock in the company without having to purchase shares. An ESPP allows employees to use after-tax wages to purchase stock in their companies, usually at a discounted price.
Implementation of such incentive plans is not easy. There are taxes implications, private companies are required by law to purchase ESOP share from the employee that leaves the company, and so on.
But as motivational factor, ownership remains in the top of the list. For start-ups, especially in this period of economical crisis, it can also be used as partial replacement for money that constitutes the salary.

Gainsharing incentive schemes have usually as goals: improved productivity, quality performance, customer service, cost reductions, etc. It differs from profit sharing by the fact that is not related to the company’s performance.
The employees participate in the decision-making process and the gains obtained when reaching the goals are shared between the company and the employees. Gainsharing requires a team oriented management style and can lead improvements in performance as well as increased commitment to organizational goals.
Some of the most known schemes are: the Scanlon Plan, the Rucker plan, and Improshare.

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The concern for motivation in the work environment has change the purpose of job design. Job satisfaction, performance, customer satisfaction, and quality of working life are the goals that must be accomplished through job design and the associated techniques: job enlargement, job enrichment, job rotation.

Job scope is defined as a combination of the number of different activities performed by an employee and the level of control that an employee has upon how to perform those activities.

A manager has a high scope job because he performs a large number of activities (see Management – art of controlling processes and outcomes) and has a broader or narrower decision-making power.

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HostGator has 3 things that I like:

1. When you buy a hosting service from them you get access in less then two hours and they require you to call them and confirm before activation. The calling thing makes me feel a little safer. Also their customer service chat option is working well and their people are really helpful
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Bottom line, if you want an affordable hosting service for your WordPress blog and you want to pay only one cent for your first month, use Hostagtor and the Coupon Code: Leadership.

Social learning is a free form of learning based on interaction with and observation of the others. The decision to learn at work is taken if you think that there will be a positive outcome for you. You can imitate the others, act with the conviction that you can, and you can analyze yourself. These processes are:

Modeling - when you “borrow” somebody’s behavior. You will observe and remember the behavior. If you will be motivated by the possible results you will imitate under the condition that you have the ability to mimic that behavior.

Self-efficacy – when you think that you are capable of performing an action based on previous experience. This works better if your “feeling” is associated with persistence and is encouraged by the positive reactions of others.

Self-management - when your actions are determined by your beliefs. You set your standards and goals and you observe, judge and modify accordingly your behavior.

Social learning theory is not just for the scholars. You need to be aware of its processes as a base of your learning and self-development.

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Primacy effect – the first impression, quick to appear but it last long. It is the main people selection tool that you use everyday. Try not to judge employees or employers based on that. You will loose precious time to realize that either you hired somebody that is not good for the job, either you work for somebody you have no respect for and is using you in ways you do not appreciate.

Contrast effect – it is not important how good you, but how good are you next to the other members of your team. People around you influence the way you are perceived. In business is important because an organization will move as fast as the slowest of its employees.

Halo effect – is the long term effect of the primacy bias. If you got it right the first time, you will get away easier with future low performance.

Similar-to-me effect – is the clone effect. The decision maker will hire a person that he perceive as similar with himself. The fact that the decision maker is a high performer does not guarantee the new comer will be the same.

Reliance on Central Traits - you will notice first what is interesting for you. If somebody is too formal you will perceive him as somebody that is hard to talk to. If a person is physically attractive you will perceive him as better professional.

Stereotyping – is the tendency to include people in social categories (lawyers) and ignore other differentiation factors. People are not their profession … or at least this is what we like to believe about ourselves.

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Management by Objectives (MBO) is an elaborate, systematic, ongoing program that helps employees to understand their objectives at organizational and personal level.

MBO principles:

1. Cascading of organizational goals and objectives
2. Specific objectives for each employee
3. Shared decision-making process
4. A predefined time framework
5. Performance evaluation and feedback

Advantages of MBO:

1. Motivation -employees’ involvement in the goal setting process increases job satisfaction and commitment
2. Better communication – the evaluation sessions and feedback are supposed to do that
3. Clarity of goals – SMART
   • Specific
   • Measurable
   • Achievable
   • Realistic
   • Time-related

From my experience with MBO, I can tell you that it did not work for me. Mostly because nowadays the manager that set the objectives often already works in a different company when time for the employee’s evaluation comes.

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The differences of perception between a leader, a successful manager or a simple employee it is in the selection. We all see, hear, touch, smell, and taste the same things.

There is no such thing as a fast good decision. Even if the perception of others is of “fast”, it is only speed of processing and not haste. If you trace back a good decision you will notice that the first reaction was to withhold your judgment. You wait until the information fits into a pattern, gathering in the same time additional information, make a selection and act based on it.

What makes others better than you is the extra effort to understand the other person.

Take in consideration not only your experience, motivation and emotions but all the information you can perceive about the same characteristics in the one whom you judge.

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