We have all worked in some capacity or other, sometimes with enthusiasm, sometimes with resignation (double entendre maybe).
Now I was once reminded by a (cough) Hun that getting a salary every month should be motivation enough. So with that in mind I’m always amazed that team coaches claim that a key part of their jobs is geeing up their charges. Sporting types being paid zillions of bucks need to be motivated to perform? How’s about their contracts including a clause like ‘perform commensurately with your rewards or butt out’.
Btw, Morten Olsen has just resigned from coaching the Danish footie team after 15 years. Did he ever motivate them to great success? Not noticeably, but maybe he knew all about silk purses and sows’ ears.
Boadicea's Chariot 
we watched a super kitsch movie yesterday, called the intern with Robert de Niro, but there is certainly a bit of truth in it and yes money was not his motivation of the age of 70, but rather survival in style….
I enjoyed his stuff thirty years ago but he’s made too many poor films more recently. Pls give us the title. Thanks.
the intern, it is very new
I was never paid a salary since my mid twenties. I always worked for myself and never motivated by money. More just doing my own thing, rising and falling by my own hand and never having any other son of a bitch, generally male, telling me how to do whatever it was I was doing at the time!
I suspect motivation is a very complicated subject sometimes. In professional sports I could see that the modern nature of inter-racial teams and bullying in the locker room might well be great de-motivating stimuli.
After all, most of them have the acumen of a frozen pea and behave like children on and off the pitch. Substance abuse seems to be a great de-motivator also.
I think you credit the whole sports industry with too much ability to think especially below the boardroom level. Kicking a ball hardly needs much IQ now does it?
Nope
this was never the case, the german football team nevertheless was composed of highly intelligent and mostly stupid guys. I guess this is true all over the world. The same is true for a boardroom in a big company. What is intelligence? There are many forms and it is hard to measure emotional intelligence, which is very critical for a succesful life. IQ is not everything.
But IQ sure helps for knowing which side one’s bread is buttered.
Seemingly not a lot of footballers do!
Please God preserve me from emotional intelligence!
Had quite enough of that for a while. We have a gardening dining circle of foodies. I had 12 to dinner on Sunday night, including a couple of the sandalwearing, envirobollock, vegetarian, anti booze and welcome all refugees contingent. Fortunately there was enough wine to provide sufficient anesthetic for the rest of us!
Interestingly they all ate Coq au Vin quite happily, I expect their emotional intelligence thought ‘frog hen’ didn’t count. I got dead unlucky, normally they are away ‘doing good’ in Mexico/Haiti or whatever, but they were all home on this occasion!
Note to self, pick summer date next year!
How do you quantify emotional intelligence?
Thanks for the film info, FoE.
Emotional intelligence cannot be quantified. Certainly the DO-GOODER’s do not seem to have a lot, otherwise they wouldn’t feel the need to justify their existence over and over again. They could instead use their brain and time to think what being empathetic is and listen and sometimes rather re-iterate the opinions of others and help them instead of being so self-centered around their own mindsets. Therefore I can understand your frustration and that you needed a lot of wine to keep yourself sane from these people….