How to Motivate Me

So, another New Year is here and most likely, you've got some new resolutions. One of mine (surprise, surprise) is to tone up and lose some weight. Not any specific number of pounds or inches - just enough so that I like what I see in the mirror. To help me along, The Motley Fool is starting a wellness contest utilizing Shape Up The Nation's contest. The program will last for 12 weeks and teams will compete on hours of exercise, pedometer steps and weight loss. Teams can compete on any of those areas, some combination of two of them or on all three. My team will be doing all three.

So, what does this have to do with the title of this post? You see, I was always one of those straight A students. If I have to perform publicly, I'll tend to do much better. I've decided to be a team Captain...so I hope I can keep my troops motivated!

We've been thinking about other ways to keep people motivated in the workplace and at least in our environment, the answer that seems to keep coming back is "public recognition." Our tech team takes one day a month to focus on innovation. They give small monetary cash prizes for the best results of innovation day, but top management says that some of those prizes have gone unclaimed. Those Fools are much more motivated by the opportunity to present their work in front of the team than by the prizes that they get for doing it.

Has anyone else tried the Shape Up The Nation program? How were your results?

Is anyone else doing a form of "Innovation Day"? If so, how often? Is it company-wide or only certain groups?