Introductory level
INTRODUCTION
Being a leader means being able to take the initiative, motivate others, help others to take the next step and finally be able to inspire participants learning in the working environment, to change their habits to become better advocates and to act confidently. To achieve this, you need to be very aware of your own actions in the group, your role and the ability to cooperate. Today there are many areas and professions where there is a need for people who are effective in action, inspiring, motivating and leading. You can become such a leader – not to be worshipped, but to inspire people to act and to mobilise them. The aim of this WebQuest is to guide you through activities that will help you develop leadership skills through communication, persuasion and mobilising others.
TASKS
You would very much like to start your own business in the future. You even write down your ideas in your free time and read interviews with individuals who have already started their own business. Your friends, seeing how interested you are in this, have decided to take you on a course of mobilisation and promotion in social media. At first, you do not understand the link between this and your future plans, but after a while of reflection, you realized that in the media world good promotion is one of the essence of success. When you look at the agenda of this course, you discover that the participants will be asked to promote a solution to a social issue that will be previously found through online research. This task will require knowledge about persuasion, and the importance of mobilizing others. which you will gain from the following steps. So let’s do it!
PROCESS
Step 1: What is mobilization, and why is it so important?
The Collins dictionary describes the concept of mobilisation as : “If you mobilize support or mobilize people to do something, you succeed in encouraging people to take action, especially political action. If people mobilize, they prepare to take action.”
How to mobilize others
Mobilizing others is the art of motivating people and getting them on board with your idea. It is one of the skills of being a good leader – an entrepreneurial trait, helpful in both professional and private life. But how to effectively mobilize others? Here are some steps that might help you:
- You must make your audience aware that change is a good thing, highlight change and why things cannot always stay as they are.
- Make sure your audience understands that they can help, and how. It is very motivating to know that your actions can really make a difference!
- Engage people by giving them a sense of understanding and being heard.
- Show that you are all in this together, and you pursue a shared goal.
- Appreciate everyone’s commitment, and celebrate all the little successes together!
For more information on mobilisation and leadership, please visit the following articles:
Step 2: Choose your topic
Select a topic or issue of your choice. Remember that your task will be to promote a solution to this problem and to mobilize others to do so, so it is important that this topic is close to your heart. For example think about – What kind of issue exists in your local community that you would like to raise awareness about and help change it for the better? Discuss your ideas in groups. If several people come up with the same topic then don’t worry. The rest of the task will be mostly done individually, so the final results are likely to be different and you will be able to see the solution and the way to mobilise for the same topic from a different perspective!
In the following link you will find issues you could address:
Step 3: Online research
You have chosen your topic and now it is time to research this topic and to generate ideas for a solution that you will promote in the next steps! This solution can be a service, a product, or an action. Conduct a thorough online research on the subject, write down the ideas that you think are the most appropriate and that can help you express interest and motivation while you research your topic. Then discuss your results with your partners, listen to their perspectives and together help each other to select the best solutions and actions to which you can encourage others in this field.
During the discussion, remember about mutual respect and principles of good communication. Let everyone speak up so that everyone can feel heard. The final decision on the solution to the issue you have chosen will still be yours, but it is good to listen to other people`s opinions in order to have a better understanding!
Here are a few links that will help you with your research and refresh your knowledge of the principles of good communication:
https://www.managementstudyguide.com/role-of-communication-in-group-discussion.htm
Step 4: Persuasion skills
Persuasion is actually exploited by each and every one of us on a daily basis – it is used by parents when they try to persuade their children to do something, but also by various salesmen or advertisers. At its simplest, persuasion is about convincing. In this task we will learn more and try to use one of the many persuasion skills – the what-how-why approach.
What is the What-How-Why approach?
The What-How-Why approach is a persuasion method based on the Golden Circle model developed by the leadership expert – Simon Sinek. There are three parts of The Golden Circle: Why, How, and What.
The idea behind this method is to always start with the “Why” in order to persuade someone – That is the purpose. “Why are you doing this?” “What do you believe in?” – What are the core values of your idea, solution, product, company etc.?
Then we move on to answering the question “How? – “How are you going to do it?” This is a description of the process.
And finally the “what” – the thing that many organisations and companies wrongly start with – ‘What do you do? That is, a description of the product, solution, service etc. In this method, the “what” is supposed to be the result of the need -the “why”.
For a better understanding on the subject please visit the following links:
Step 5: Presenting your solutions and mobilising your team
It is time to present your solutions to the whole group. Your mission is to mobilise the rest of the group to get involved in the issue and motivate them to work together for the benefit of the cause. Remember to apply the what-how-why approach while presenting. If this is your first group presentation – don’t stress out, here are a few articles with advice to help you make a great presentation!
Step 6: Promoting your solutions in social media
The promotion of your ideas and solutions is very important. You have already mobilised your team and now it is time to find out how you can promote your ideas in the social media to persuade others to act for the common good.
Many aspects of social media promotion can be simplified or improved by using appropriate solutions such as:
- Create a schedule for posting publication
- Attach photos to the content. ( you can use free stock photo websites such as pixabay or unsplash)
- Involve your audience in what you have to say and answer their questions.
- Optimise the publication of posts with available statistical and analytical tools.
- Use appropriate platforms – facebook, twitter, blog, instagram, youtube, etc.
Focusing on the last point – which platform to promote?
Here are some information to help you make your choice.
Whether you want to reach out to your audience with useful content, promote your products or your image, a consistent social media campaign should be part and parcel of the overall web marketing effort.
Here is a set of the most popular platforms and their specificity as well some advantages:
Facebook- The most popular channel – Which can mean very high popularity. Its advertising platform can be very well suited to a very specific audience.- but unfortunately, when you start, you will probably have to take into account the cost of promoting and sponsoring your posts.
Instagram- The fastest growing social channel. Instagram is primarily about photos, which is an excellent medium for promoting visually attractive products and services. If your target group consists of young people, you will find a great deal of them there.
Twitter – The great benefits of using Twitter can be sought by people and industries for which a very fast flow of information is important, as well as those related to new technologies and marketing, where the number of users is growing fastest here. The rotation of information on the timelines of this medium can be really intense, but the limited length of these messages and very efficient navigation according to lists, trends and hashtags make it much easier to reach the target group, especially with good quality information.
LinkedIn – Another one worth noting is LinkedIn, a business portal based mainly on professional contacts. With almost 200 million active users and very dynamic growth, LinkedIn is an interesting complement to the other channels. Companies from the B2B (Business to business) sector will find great opportunities for promotion here, while image promotion based on involvement in theme groups and a system of recommendations and referrals may bring benefits here.How would you choose to promote your ideas?
EVALUATION
| Knowledge | Skills | Attitudes |
|---|---|---|
| • Factual knowledge about certain methods and techniques for spreading and promoting ideas on various social media platforms | • Persuade others by providing evidence for my arguments and by appealing to their emotions | • Awareness of the importance to “talk” about people’s feelings for promoting ideas |
| • Factual knowledge about the methods and techniques used for developing audiences’ profiles for promoting ideas | • Use various methods, including social media, to communicate value-creating ideas effectively | • Appreciation of the various online communication methods for promoting ideas |
| • Factual knowledge about persuading others using the “Why-How-What” approach | • Use media appropriately, showing that I am aware of my audience and purpose | • Awareness of how I can influence people and situations for the better |
CONCLUSION
Congratulations! You have just contributed to making the community aware of an important issue! Mobilising people to act for the good of society is a very important part of leadership.. And remember- don’t be too hard on yourself, especially if you’re a beginner – as Ronald Reagan once said “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”
Advanced level
INTRODUCTION
Being engaged at work these days is a tough task. A recent Gallup report shows that only 12.5% of European employees are engaged in their work, and this is lower than the worldwide average which is 13%. So how can you engage people, workers, etc.? Through Mobilizing! People need to be mobilized so that they can take action. Impulses can be delivered at many levels, using different techniques. The aim of this WebQuest is to guide you through an activity, where you will learn about the different types of mobilization, and what impact mobilization, or lack of mobilization, can have on people’s actions and level of productivity in work.
TASKS
A new manager is hired in your company, his task is to coordinate what people do their job properly and increase their productivity. The previous manager decided to make financial incentives (bonuses, game rooms, free meals), hoping to guarantee their employees’ satisfaction. Are such ways and methods effective for motivating employees? Although appreciated, these measures do not impact and shape employee well-being in the long term. Despite these luxuries, the employees do not have such good results, they are distracted, and they are not sufficiently involved in their work. Why is this so? It is known that the previous manager, who retired, was an honest and good person, but he wasn’t much of a talker, and the employees knew very little about him. His conversations with the employees were short and informative, and were only and exclusively about the job. But he provided the employees with material comfort. So, what is the cause of the lack of the employee involvement? The new manager is open minded and expresses a sincere desire to improve the situation. Try to put yourself in their employees’ shoes – Think about what would engage, mobilize and motivate you the most. Think about your needs, your expectations, what would motivate you specifically, and under which conditions you would work best. After that, work in groups of 3-4 and share your answers with the group. Are the answers exactly the same? Probably not.
How to find then the “perfect” compromise, to engage and mobilize every single employee?
What type of mobilization did the previous manager use and why wasn’t it effective?
Your task is to think about the strategy of how to mobilize employees to act and to reflect on why, despite such favourable working conditions provided by the previous manager, employees still do not engage properly in the work and their level of output was unsatisfactory.
Remember: “leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations” – Kouzes and Posner
PROCESS
tep 1: Why is mobilization so important?
How can you effectively mobilize others? How can you be a good leader? Discuss this with your partners, be open minded and try to see the issue from different perspectives- What motivates you? How would you describe a good leader? What do you think is the key feature of mobilization? Is it money or extra perks? Or maybe understanding and communication? Mobilizing others isn’t important only at work. It is also very important, for instance, in school. Do you remember what features your favourite teacher had, how this teacher motivated you to learn? Or maybe it was their attitude that made you so interested in the subject? In what other areas is mobilizing others such a crucial factor? Try to answer these questions and discuss them with your partners.
The following links may help you to answer some of these questions and to appreciate why it is important to mobilize others:
Step 2: Understanding and categorizing different types of mobilization and motivation
While thinking about the right way of mobilization, it is worthwhile to get acquainted with the types of motivation. Basically, there are two different types of motivation:
Extrinsic motivation is the motivation built through a system of rewards. In the context of the labour market you can mention positive motivation (increase, bonuses, allowances, promotion) and negative motivation (penalties, job demotion, salary reduction).
Intrinsic motivation is an action resulting from the very need for action. Someone performs a given task because they want to – it makes them happy and gives them a sense of fulfillment. Carrying out one task, motivates him or her to start another one. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of the employees should take place both in the perspective of the whole group and each of its members individually.
Here are some links that contain more types of mobilization and motivation:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02678379408259986
Step 3: Online research
What qualities should a good leader have? Which behaviours are better to avoid because they could demotivate people? As a group, you will do further research to better understand the importance of mobilization, its impact on leadership and its effectiveness in a work context. Remember, the more features you find, the better! Try to use different browsers and search engines, and also don’t stop your research on the first link that pops up after conducting a topic search, compare the results from different sites and articles, and also discuss with your partners what you think about it, and which of these features in your opinion are most important. Communicate! Remember – Effective communication plays a major role in almost every field! As Hellen Keller once said: “alone we can do so little. Together, we can do so much. “
Also keep in mind, that the end of the task you will be reading the results to the whole group, so take clear notes with your partners.
Step 4: One perfect way to mobilize others, or maybe a lot of good options?
From the previous steps, you know that there are a lot of ways to motivate and mobilize people. But is there one perfect way to mobilize others, while other methods are just not good enough or simply ineffective? Well let’s look at it from different angles. First of all – the leaders. The ones that should mobilize. But they are not just leaders/ manager/teachers. They are also human beings, with different personalities, with a different story, different expectations just like everyone else. So, there could not possibly be one perfect method to mobilize other people because everyone is different and unique. Second of all – in this situation – you need to consider the employees. They also have different expectations, problems and goals in life. How do we handle this, then? Successful normalization will address different personality needs. It’s obvious that in many situations it is practically impossible to find the perfect balance, but with the effective communication, a good compromise is absolutely achievable.
Try to achieve a compromise in your small group, listen to the expectations they demand and share your opinions. It may help your group to role play this activity, where you take it in turns playing the part of the leader and the employee, for example.
Links to further explore this subject:
https://blog.hubspot.com/agency/motivate-employee-personality-types-infographic
Step 5: Effective persuasion
Persuasion is an art of influencing the mind of the listener and hence it should be done with great care. Persuasion may therefore be defined as “an effort to influence the attitudes, feelings or beliefs of others or to influence action based on those attitudes, feeling or beliefs.” Persuasion is a communicative skill. It enables a persuader to present his point of view from the receiver’s point of view and induce the receiver to act accordingly. Persuasion is very useful in internal management within an organisation. Persuasion as a skill requires:
- Knowledge about the receiver.
- Intellectual appeals to arouse the receiver’s interest.
- Presentation of once interest from the receiver’s point of view.
Once you know the opinion of every group member one after another try to convince the rest why your compromise is the most reasonable, use the appropriate arguments and be confident, but also understanding. By finishing this step your group of 3-4 members should already have agreed to a specific compromise.
The following links might be helpful to support you to complete this check:
https://www.inc.com/young-entrepreneur-council/why-persuasion-is-so-important-for-entrepreneurs.html
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/242681
https://www.wikihow.com/Be-Convincing
Step 6: Group discussion to share ideas and negotiate.
At this point, it is time for you to meet with your group to discuss the compromise you came up with. If this is your first group discussion, it may be worthwhile to review these links first:
https://www.managementstudyguide.com/tips-for-successful-group-discussion.htm
Remember about the importance of teamwork and active listening. It’s crucial that every person in the group are listened out and have enough time to express their opinion without being interrupted or judged.
Remember! There are many good answers!
During this discussion, make sure that everyone has shared their opinion and that each group answers the following questions:
- What is the best strategy to mobilize a number of people with different personalities?
- What do you understand about being a good leader?
- Why is persuasion an important feature in mobilizing others?
- What compromise did you achieve in your small group, and what did it cost?
After everyone has their say, and each small group presents their ideas and compromises to improve the situation of demotivated employees, it is time to vote on which compromise you would use in this situation. The one rule is that you cannot vote on the compromise your group came up with. This may take several rounds and may require you to practice your negotiation skills which are also a key feature of both motivating and mobilizing others! Remember to be nice and understanding and objective.
Step 7: Analysing the decision Now that you have completed all the steps above and the group has chosen a compromise, it’s time to analyse it. What are the possible outcomes, and compare it to the rest of the group’s ideas. Maybe some of them were the same, or were just slightly different? As we already know, there is no one perfect answer so all of the compromises could have (and we are sure they would have) worked! But the bigger group is, the more opinions are involved and the harder it might be to make a decision. But hey, remember, with great teamwork and effective communication nothing is impossible.
EVALUATION
Now, that we have finished all the steps above and discussed your ideas it is time to think about your work and progress on this WebQuest. Write out an answer to the following questions and give it to the facilitator.
- Did I learn more about how to be a good leader?
- Did I learn any techniques for generating solutions or compromises?
- Did I gain any knowledge about persuasion skills?
- I found this WebQuest easy or hard because…
By completing this activity, you will acquire the following knowledge, skills and attitudes:
Knowledge
- Factual knowledge about goal setting
- Theoretical knowledge about the psychology of failure
- Theoretical knowledge about the Need of Achievement
- Factual knowledge about finding inspiration
- Factual knowledge about motivation and mobilization
Skills
- Translate individual needs, wants, interests and aspirations into goals and help somebody reach them
- Help others to reflect on their needs, wants, interests and aspirations and to determine how they can turn these into goals.
- Team up with others to compensate for our weaknesses and add to our strengths as a team.
- Discuss how a realistic understanding and evaluation of my personal attitudes, skills and knowledge can influence my decision-making, relationships with other people and quality of life.
Attitudes
- Awareness of my ability to carry out what I have imagined and planned, despite obstacles, limited resources and resistance from others.
- Awareness of my ability to understand and take the good out of experiences that others may label as failures.
- Perseverance in the face of adversities when trying to achieve my goals.
- Acknowledge the importance of coaching in my life
- Acknowledge the need for overcoming resistance from those who will be affected by my vision, innovative approach, and value-creating activity
And finally please complete this self assessment quiz which you can find at:
https://forms.gle/yCb4d56GhYoKcF3m8
CONCLUSION
Mobilizing individuals is one of the key factors in the success of a company. It is important to create an environment that both motivates and mobilizes teams – applying only one of these factors is not enough. As Nido R Qubein once said “Motivation without mobilization means only frustration.” Moreover, these skills are also important on an everyday basis. With great teamwork, negotiation skills and motivation there’s nothing you can’t do!
