Back in the early 1980s, when Pacman ruled the roost and a condition known as Rubik's thumb was keeping people off work, nobody watched television while getting ready for work or school. The radio was a far better option because the only thing you were likely to see on television at that time of day back then was an Open University programme featuring a long-haired, bespectacled lecturer with splendid sideburns and a jacket with leather patches at the elbows, who'd quite possibly be talking about sine and cosine, before going off at a tangent. It was enough to put a person off their sugar puffs.

Then in 1983, breakfast television burst onto the scene; bright, chatty and colourful, it transformed the way the nation prepared for the day ahead. This new breed of television allowed us to digest visual news stories with our toast, and this was padded out with sport, features, interviews with the stars and a good dose of exercise to wake us all up.

As far as the last of these went, we now had our own personal trainers right in our living rooms to guide us through a regime that would keep us in tip-top shape. The BBC had the Green Goddess, while over at ITV 'Mad' Lizzie was keeping us all on our toes and shaking out our wrists like we were sitting on the washing machine during the spin cycle. But probably the best known of these mentors of the morning is Mr. Motivator, the lycra-clad dynamo whose infectious style saw his many followers start their day with a healthy combination of aerobics and Weetabix. Mr. Motivator lived up to his name to such an extent that it was reported that an undertaker had to stop watching because he was going about his work with a spring in his step and a cheery whistle, such is the power of motivation. And this power is taken very seriously these days - we've all seen the captain of a football team giving his men a last minute dose of motivation as they go into a pre-kick off huddle.

But motivating your colleagues involves far more than uttering encouraging words, particularly in the workplace. And a good way to improve your motivational skills is to look first at what de-motivates a worker or a team and then take steps to reverse that situation. Here are some examples.

Be Realistic
If you have set goals that are difficult to reach then this can have a de-motivating effect on those whose job it is to achieve those goals. Targets that are challenging yet achievable are far more motivational than those that appear beyond reach. Setting more difficult targets may seem like a good way to extract maximum effort from the workforce, but in reality this can have a de-motivating effect, causing them to go about their work with little interest and a greater likelihood to cut corners, so really it is a false economy.

Play to Your Strengths
We all have particular jobs we like to do, and some we don't like. The worker who is unhappy at his or her task is not motivated at all. We can't always have the plum jobs all of the time, but designating the more unpopular ones in a fair manner makes for less resentment from those who have to carry them out. Having said that, if you know that Bill is a wizard on Excel, and that Ben is a hot-shot at creating PowerPoint presentations, then it makes sense to play to their strengths and allocate them work in their respective fields of expertise whenever possible. This has the 'double whammy' effect of motivating them because a) 'I enjoy doing this,' and b) 'I'm good at this'.

Reap the Rewards
Outside influences can motivate people to varying degrees, and cash incentives or other forms of reward are a common form of motivation that seeks to gain more output. This is fine, but it has to be done with care as it could lead to the situation of the same person, or group of people receiving all the rewards. This can lead to resentment by others, who feel their input has less value and thus de-motivation sets in, and so what was gained by offering the inducements has been lost by causing de-motivation among others.

And Finally...
No matter what kind of work a person is doing, it is difficult to be properly motivated if it is too cold or unbearably hot. A comfortable working environment is the first step towards a motivated worker.

There is a whole lot more to motivation in the workplace, and firms are always keen to employ those who can stir their team into action, so it is definitely a subject worthy of further study. After all, you may not have half the nation performing bleary-eyed stretches and star jumps, but if you can move even a small team towards gaining recognition for their efforts, well that is a motivation in itself.