Key to Motivation: Using Time As A Resource

Ramiz Allawala, Founder, Avista Training International, and a Senior Consultant/Motivational Trainer with Octara, a Business Information Management Unit of Tranzum Group of Companies, stopped by CIO Web Studio on his tour to Pakistan. In a few minutes or so spent at CIO Web Studio, Ramiz Allawala took us through a journey of understanding consultancy/motivational training in practice. Better put, we understood how an efficient organization stands different from an inefficient organization.

Dos and Don’ts

In an attempt to make the workforce more effective, what is the ultimate rule of thumb? Stop firefighting and start creative and logical problem-solving identifying future challenges ahead of time. Despite the fact that it is a supreme state of being, it is not entirely fictional. That is where motivational training and Ramiz Allawala’s line of work into play.

The best practice is a relevant one and when it comes to workforce, timeouts and pull-backs from routine work, other than holding workshops is often what gets the workforce untied and exhilarated. Obviously this requires commitment of time, and using it to one’s advantage by investing in it as a resource instead of racing with it. Unlike a generalized perception, it is not the top-level, nor the bottom-level workforce that has an issue investing time or being creative with their work. Instead, it is mid-level workforce that has to be convinced to invest time into problem-solving and creating a better working environment.

Another problem area that has to be fixed is expert filtering which is practiced to sustain a ‘feel good’ atmosphere within the organization. A huge fall-back of this practice is avoidance of seriousness to critical issues that become apparent much later when they have already magnified.  So in a nutshell, purpose of motivational training for an organization according to Ramiz Allawala, is to bring quality to work via intrinsic commitment, by adapting and familiarizing oneself with out-of-the-box thinking.

Moving from External to Internal Control

When choosing client organizations, process-driven structured organizations are preferable to work with as compared to unstructured organizations that are often smaller set-ups simply due to presence of benchmarks and a feedback channel. Smaller set-ups also have training needs for which, Oktara facilitates 2-step process that includes putting into place an informal process that can be used to track post-training developments with respect to resource utilization within an organization.

Process is often used in conjunction with ‘discipline’ which in practice emanates control. Control being a dichotomous word, can be discouraging and rebellion-causing when it is only external but truly progressive and solution-oriented when it is internal. Part of motivational training is to facilitate internal control in step-wise manner by without ‘robbing people of their autonomy’ as Ramiz Allahwala puts it.

Pakistan – The Ideas Hub

Based in Houston, having worked in Far East and earlier in Pakistan, Ramiz Allahwala considers himself, quite lucky to have found the three hubs with Hawaii being the Spiritual Hub, Far East being the Commercial Hub and Pakistan being the Ideas Hub.

Although States and the Far East might have a larger vote of recognition amongst the masses, but Pakistan according to Ramiz, is where the craziest ideas are borne due to the level of hassle and unexpected developments of daily life that have to be coped with, without much of a choice. This sort of restraint gets one to be creative and innovative without much of a realization.

To tune into the interview, visit the CIO Webstudio at http://bit.ly/oUbBkG!