On eagles wings: our recovery from coronavirus (X) Let´s be corona-free!
Important Correction Note- 28/May/2020: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines warning that antibody test results can have high false-positive rates and should not be used to make decisions about returning people to work, schools, dorms or other places where people congregate”. Given the CDC’s last advice, it is clear for Eleonora Escalante Strategy that serological testing can´t be used when it comes to planning for economic-educational recovery. Please take notice. Serological testing can´t be used because it is inaccurate, and I am correcting all my episodes related to Coronavirus testing accordingly.
Have a beautiful week. We are almost finishing the month of May 2020. Blessed for it.
“Mom is protecting me”. A petit aquarelle by Eleonora Escalante. Handmade in watercolor paper Fabriano 5. Size: 5″ x 7″(inches). If you wish to buy it please click here: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/eleonora-escalante
The Coronavirus still keeps us in lockdown in El Salvador. Quietly in my hometown, we have over-passed more than 60 days of quarantine. Only essential businesses have continuously being omnipresent since March 11th, such as supermarkets, grocery stores, pharmacies, hospitals, Coronavirus contention centers, hospitals, logistics enterprises that import fruit, grains, and vegetables from Guatemala and Honduras, and trade companies of basic essential inputs from and out other Central American neighbors. I also wish to state, that just “certain” specific companies (with government permission) have not stopped to work, but around 80% of the total economic active labor force has been put in quarantine. The private sector (particularly entrepreneurs, informal commerce, small and medium enterprises have stopped to produce). El Salvador is well integrated in Central America. Many economists and consulting experts have been trying to figure out what to do, in order to re-start our productive rhythm. Some academic entities have already shown their proposals, such as local universities and INCAE Business School from Costa Rica. Eleonora Escalante Strategy has also been working without any stop (under a WFH or Work From Home format). I have already introduced the temporary regional economic dome strategy which can help us to survive. If you wish to refresh this material, please click the following 4 URL links from Eleonora Escalante Strategy production below:
Let´s make a Central America “Corona Free”: As soon as the WHO health authorities in conjunction with each government of a Central American country: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panamá; determine that the number of Coronavirus cases has consistently and steadily diminished over time (all together in each of the 5 nations); and we don´t show any number of Corona deaths per day, then Central America can start to work and trade as a whole region, under a dome economic strategy.
If you wish to download the last slide in PDF, please click here: On eagles wings Our Salvadoran COVID19 cure
Eleonora Escalante´s “dome economic strategy” is summarized as follows: Once we all as a region reach the point in which the WHO may concede us the Corona-free stamp of approval, then we will reach liberty to trade and to do commerce internally (just in between Central American neighbors), only inside the Central American region. The purpose of the temporary economic dome strategy is to create a protective barrier from external international corona cases (asymptomatic cases are the most dangerous). Such will be a platform to begin to ignite our economic activities in our region. No flights or land entrance from other countries to Central America will be allowed, but corona-free internal domestic flights may start, including regional tourism, food-drinks, and hospitality activities. If you wish to read about my proposal of the dome economic strategy (concept) and the general guidelines to start our economies petit a petit (gradually), please refresh your mind by visiting the four URL WordPress posts that I already provided above.
Once more, I must repeat it, again and again. I am not against doing business globally, but at the moment we can´t do it. We have a global virus around us. The Central American regional dome economic strategy will be temporary. It may work only if the region is declared Corona-free, and it has to be in place only for the weeks that are required. After we find the cure or the vaccine against the Coronavirus, Central America can wide-open its frontiers anew with México and Colombia and unlock its skies to and from international flights from all over the world.
Motivation to succeed. This week we will explore why human beings are motivated to do what they do. As usual, Eleonora Escalante Strategy will start with the basics. The reason why the Coronavirus has affected our economies goes beyond the fact that we have not been able to generate the cash flows (money) that we all need to survive. It goes deeper than the fact that our GDP projection growth has sunk between 4% to 8% for this year. The reason why the Coronavirus has punched us so badly, is because our human motivations have been shaken at its original roots, origins that we will explore in our today´s episode.
Basics. First things first. We have to revisit the psychologist Abraham Maslow’s discoveries. Around 60 years ago, Maslow observed that humans are ultimately motivated to grow and reach their potential because we have needs and wants inside us.
Maslow´s ladder hierarchy of needs.
Maslow designed a hierarchy of wants and needs that people were searching for. These needs and wants are categorized in different levels. At the bottom of the ladder, our most primitive needs are to calm our hunger, to calm our thirst, to feed ourselves. Our bottom first step needs are biological for survival. On the grounds of Maslow’s scale, our vital needs are the foundation for anything else. Then we begin to search for higher grounds. The next step in the ladder is our need for safety and security. The next level is our needs for love, affection knowledge, and a sense of belonging; and little by little step by step, at the very top, are the self-actualization and spiritual needs that allow us to identify with all of mankind. The reason why I wish to share with you the Maslow hierarchy system of needs and wants rest in the premise that our motivations to think, act, and create are different at an individual level. Each of us has its own personal motivation. But our work and job activities are strongly linked to that motivation.
How do societies evolve to have better integral individuals? Our societies evolve to be better if we have a life in which our motivations to do what we do are ignited and aligned with the proper goals. Societies with the highest inequalities can´t make better individuals as a whole, because the needs of the majority (which are the poorest of the poor) are simply at the bottom level of satisfaction (biological); meanwhile, the needs of the top 1% are in a completely different direction. Look at it this way, if the majority of society is starving, then its demands are linked to the rumbles of its hungry tummies. Of course, nothing else matters for them, nothing is more relevant than that. Let´s face it harshly: if people are hungry and thirsty, the main motivation is to work to fill those needs or to steal to others who have them. At that level, no one cares for the environment, no one concerns respecting the other´s assets by not throwing garbage to the streets. No one is worried about the future or legacies. At that level, there is no obligation to cultivate our brains to develop higher-ground motivations. When the majority of societies are hungry of food and water or shelter, the motivations are to replenish for survival. “It is impossible to climb to higher steps when we´are stuck at the bottom of the ladder”.
Moving on up. Societies evolve to procure better integral individuals when extreme poverty disappears and when inequality is reduced. When the gap between the rich and the poor is reduced, that means that the middle class starts to become stronger and ampler. As soon as the poor start to leave their scarcity conditions, they begin to see other horizons. Their needs and wants begin to evolve. Societies emerge triumphantly when their requirements are not just to cover the bottom line hierarchy of Maslow, but when they identify new needs for achievement. The need for achievement (defined by David Murray, a Harvard psychologist) refers to the differences between individuals in their drive to meet a variety of goals. “When your need for achievement is high, you are energized and focused toward success and motivated to continually evaluate and improve your performance”. The needs of achievement have to be channeled properly. Because these achievement calls can be an organizing force of society by connecting the thoughts, feelings, and actions of individuals in the same direction.
Integral success comes to those who have needs for achievement. Have you noticed that desire and perseverance exceed talents or brains? Societies that have been able to leave the poverty behind, are those who crave for the ambition to do well through hard work. Low-need achiever societies are those which satisfy themselves to pass the easy tasks, those which are used to receive from “government papa” rather than to give and create for themselves. The most successful societies are those with higher entrepreneurial drives mixed with talent and education to fulfill their goals and challenges.
All of us work better when our jobs match our personal motivation. This is extremely crucial to digest now that we have the time in the middle of the Corona lockdown. Since we are little children, we must discover what makes us satisfied and thriving. We usually discover it when we play with other kids. When we educate at school. When we have teachers who are masters of recognizing our potential. The fastest way to turn the children play into a satisfactory call for life, or into a job that we like is by discovering what is our most enjoyable thing to do. Teachers and parents must observe their children because to discover that inner motivation, is the key to ignite our internal fire; and it is a journey that starts since the infancy. During childhood, kids are honest with what they do. For kids, it is not an external incentive or reward that matters, it is inside each of them. Children and their parents must find out what really motivates them. With time, when kids grow, school education MUST reinforce that specific motivation in each kid, so they don´t lose their call in life. We all have to find what really makes us to dream higher, regardless if the economic reward exists or not during childhood and school.
Achievement in action is inside of us. When we find the job that motivates us to do well, and we are all the time daydreaming about to do it with more immeasurable quality, how to improve and advance our knowledge, how can we overcome the obstacles that we face, and how to deliver (without a supervisor observing you). Then we have found our inner motivation to achieve. Then and only then we have found a satisfactory path for future a job or work activities that capture our need for personal achievement. For example, have you met people that are extremely happy and joyful with their work, even if they don´t make a salary of 100,000 dollars per year? Have you met people who earn a vast amount of money, but are internally miserable and they are angry and exploit with their families, creating to them a hell of domestic violence and abuse daily? The first individual has found his motivation to achieve, meanwhile, the rich one is destroying himself and others forever.
Mc Clelland Theory of Needs. Source: https://toggl.com/blog/mcclellands-theory-of-needs
The need for power and the need for affiliation. I will explain what is the need for power first. Some of us are born with the need to raise to a status of authority. Usually, these needs are always interconnected with feelings about rank, prestige, and recognition. These esteem needs are connected with their inner satisfaction, which only comes when these individuals reach a position of leadership, by following office politics (regardless of the type of bureau, if public or private). The need for affiliation is usually connected to “people souls”. These are team players who are ignited with the motivations for other people’s integral development and well-being. We can immediately notice their excellent social skills, the enjoyment they feel when working within a group, their loyalty to social functions, establishing friendships, and caring for the rest, sometimes at expense of themselves.
Each of us has the duty to find which is our primary motivation need during the journey that we call life. It is a pity to find out what you were meant to be when you lack the health and the years to make it happen. Many of us have been trapped by the wrong motivations for work which were not suitable for our own identity. That is why parenting and school years are pivotal to understand each child-student motivation before they become adults. Once parents and teachers understand how to help children to find their call in life, the educational system debates won´t be about traditional or digital. It will be about how to help people to find their true motivations for action (need for achievement, need for power, need for affiliation, or a mix of them). Our societies are in desperate need of an educational system that can help us to find our achievement motivation. It is easier to find the right career to pursue at the university, which later could transform their daydream passions into their job endeavors.
Let´s be corona-free. The goal at the moment should be “let´s be corona free”. That should be our motto, our most devoted urgent motivation must be to heal our societies from this virus. At the moment we must work harder all together in every single nation to be “corona-free”, otherwise, we are delaying our economic repair. I will continue my next publication about why do we need to return to work differently after the pandemic. Why do we need a different school-university mindset (not related to technology, but to find achievement motivations in students? In parallel I will begin by introducing the eco-cities concept, petit a petit, and gradually. Our economies will re-start after we obtain our Corona-free stamp. Let´s work all together to achieve it.
Stay tuned, thank you for reading to me.
Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY. Nevertheless, the majority of the pictures, images, or videos shown on this blog are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated
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