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When the Work-Slave Wants to Become the Boss
By
Raven H
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Stuff you probably haven't had
to grapple with before.
You have heard it before, people complaining about the
lack of value in their employer. What do they do? they
say. What good are they? Maybe you have asked these
questions about your own employer, or employers in
general.
The answer - apart from any specific management, technical
or specialist skills they might possess - lies in the
original master-slave and master-servant relationships.
These are what the employer-employee roles are legally
based on.
This master-servant division is based on a belief that the
former knows and has the skills to create and drive the
work required, while the latter carries out the work
required.
This division of roles relates to attributes or character
or class or mental facility or education or evolution -
according to its origin in the past when servants and
slaves were a normal part of the workforce, and when
master-servant relationships reflected principles and
beliefs about superior and inferior humans.
This hierarchical attitude to human capacity is also the
basis of our other major relationships: the parent-child
and the student-teacher relationships.
What your boss does for you
The original master-slave arrangement assumed that the
slave or servant did not possess an inherent desire to do
what the master wanted of them, and so force had to be
applied to ensure the work was carried out. The master
fulfilled the roles of motivator, discipliner,
direction-setter and the creator and maintainer of focus.
Similarly, children, needing to be taught many things
including socially acceptable behavior and school lessons,
also needed the parent and teacher to perform these roles
of motivator, discipliner, direction-setter and the
creator and maintainer of focus.
Your limitations
Now, let me clarify a vital point here. Employees, along
with children, need to motivate themselves to perform
their individual required tasks. They need to say, 'I will
write that report now', or, 'I will wash those pots now',
or 'I will teach that class now'. Yet behind these acts of
self-motivation there is the primary motivator: their
employer keeping task expectation up, continuing to
provide the job, and continuing to provide the pay-check.
Do not confuse secondary task motivation with primary
motivation. Primary motivation becomes easier to see when
you imagine taking the employer out of the equation.
· What then propels you out of bed in the morning
specifically to work, every morning rain, hail, late night
or shine?
· What gets you to the subway on time? or
· Focuses you on that difficult task first thing? or
· Keeps you away from the television during the day? or
· Insists you learn new and difficult skills? or
· Ensures you return calls to unhappy customers while
being nice to them? or
· Entices you to stick with it during the eighth hour
when you are tired and you know the family will be home
any minute.
This belief that children and employees could not or would
not be made responsible for these primary motivational
roles themselves is the basis for enormous problems that
many people experience when they decide to take the big
step of moving from being an employee to running their own
small business or home based business. They may have never
performed this role in their lives before.
The need to avoid disaster
Having been free of the responsibility for these primary
roles, many ex-employees find themselves with all the
necessary skills to do the actual work, such as, massaging
clients, building water-features, cleaning houses, writing
ebooks or building websites. But if they don't go out of
their way to acquire the primary motivating skills they
will find themselves with a failed business.
Do you have what it takes?
Do you have these skills? Do you have the ready ability
to:
· self-motivate everyday, through thick or thin,
· discipline yourself and your workload whether you feel
like it or not;
· set direction, business plans, marketing plans, weekly
and daily goals and tasks and stick to that during every
half-hour block of the day;
· create and maintain focus without there being anyone
looking over your shoulder;
· day in, day out, on and on with no-one knowing whether
you are doing that or not.
Equality of responsibility has only in more recent decades
become something people have considered valuable within
certain, more entrepreneurial fields. And it only works
where the responsibility for self is taught and promoted,
obviously because that is what is needed, yet largely
missing.
Skills you need to acquire to fill your boss's shoes
Generally, the employer-employee relationship is still
largely based on an 'us and them' belief system. So, if
you are moving from employee to owner-manager let's make
sure you will have what it takes to provide your home
business with the basics.
Click here for checklist - http://www.seismicfish.com/selfmotivationchecklist.html
· self-motivation - I want
· self discipline - I will
· pain and pleasure incentives - carrot and stick
· daily and weekly focus
· finding your weak spot: the thing you deny needs to
happen, or be done.
Other resources:
Upgrade your self-directorial skills and knowledge with
this easy-to-use, free, quick-bytes newsletter: Business
Nous for Struggling Achievers. http://www.seismicfish.com/businessnoussubscription.html
Copyright 2005 Seismicfish.com
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