Obligatory 2nd weekly post

Ok, once again, we have a case study due, so we don't have anything else to read. Also, I already wrote a post on self-managing teams, so that would just be redundant, and you'd all report me to the Department of Redundancy Department (get it?). So that leaves me in the precarious position of having to write a second post to get the credit, but to not just blather on incessantly in a way that is neither helpful nor related to operations management. Wait, I'm doing it right now, aren't I? I know, let's talk about motivation! It's applicable since I spent a majority of yesterday unable to motivate myself to do any work, and just spent it listening to Deadmau5 songs and playing FIFA10. My god, that sounds like the first 20 minutes of a stoner movie...

Motivation. Another of those ideas that seems like it needs to be tailored to each individual that you have working for you. The employees in the Treadway Tire case seemed to be motivated by the fact that failure to meet these deadlines would lead to their termination. That led to burnout and the high turnover rate that we spent two hours talking about in class a few weeks ago. These self-managing teams seem like they would work well as self-motivating teams as well, but as I said in my previous post, these groups could also get easily distracted/off topic, and then it would be difficult to reign them back in. I, personally, am more motivated by keeping the status quo and not getting in trouble to failing than I am to gain advancement, which is probably bad, but I'm a deadline kind of guy. A lot of my co-workers, who are more "motivated", as least in the pop culture definition, are the kinds of people who want to do everything, learn everything, be everything, and then go home for dinner. Those are all admirable qualities, but when I've tried that, I found it exhausting. So, as I like to say, "To each their own", which leads us back to the point I made at the beginning, that it's an individual approach that works for each person, specifically, and perhaps for no one else.

OK, that's enough of that, and I'd like to congratulate the freaking Yankees for getting to watch Cliff Lee and David Price pitch a Game 5 in the ALDS, meaning that they'd only see these aces twice in the ALCS as opposed to 3 times. Because if there's anything that the Yankees need in this world, it's luck...Go Phillies!