Leading Motivation • Motivation – A general term applying to the entire class of drives, desires, needs, wishes, and similar forces. • Content Theories – “What” Motivates Individuals • Hierarchy of needs • Herzberg’s two factor theories • Alderfer’s ERG theory • McClelland’s needs theory • Process Theories – “how” motivation occurs • Expectancy theory (vroom) • Equity Theory • Goal-setting theory • Reinforcement theory Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory Maslow’s needs theory – When one set of needs is satisfied, this kind of need ceases to be a motivator. • Psychological needs – needs for sustaining human life, such as food, water, warmth, shelter, sleep. Until these needs are satisfied to a degree necessary to maintain life, other needs will not motivate people. • Security and Safety needs – People want to be free of physical danger and fear of losing a job, property, food, or shelter. • Affiliation or acceptance needs – since people are social beings, they need to belong, to be accepted by others. • Esteem needs – Once people begin to satisfy their need to belong, they tend to want to be held in esteem both by themselves and by others. This kind of need produces satisfactions such as power, prestige, status, and selfconfidence. • Need for Self-actualization – Maslow regards this as the highest need in his hierarchy. It is the desire to become what one is capable of becoming – to maximize one’s potential and to accomplish something. Alderfer’s ERG theory Alderfer’s ERG theory – people are motivated by existence, relatedness, and growth needs. • Existence needs – similar to Maslow’s basic needs. • Relatedness needs – pertaining to satisfactorily relating to others. • Growth needs – referring to self-development, creativity, growth, and competence. Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory • Their research purports to find a two-factor theory of motivation. In one group of needs are things such as company policy and administration, supervision, working conditions, interpersonal relations, salary, status, job security, and personal life. These were found by Herzberg to be dissatisfiers and not motivators. If they exist in a work environment in high quantity and quality, they yield no dissatisfaction. Their existence does not motivate in the sense of yielding satisfaction; their lack of existence would, however, result in dissatisfaction. Herzberg calls them maintenance, hygiene, or job context factors. • Herzberg’s two-factor theory – • Dissatisfiers, also called maintenance, hygiene, or job context factors, are not motivators. If they exist in a work environment in high quantity and quality, they yield no dissatisfaction - things such as company policy and administration, supervision, working conditions, interpersonal relations, salary, status, job security, and personal life. • Satisfiers – and therefore motivators – all related to job content. They include achievement, recognition, challenging work, advancement, and growth in the job. Their existence will yield feelings of satisfaction or no satisfaction (not dissatisfaction). Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Herzberg’s Two-factor Theory Self-actualization Esteem and Status Motivators Challenging work, growth in job, achievement, responsibility, advancement, recognition Affiliation or acceptance Security or safety Psychological needs Hygiene factors Status, interpersonal relations, quality of supervision, company policy and administration, working conditions, job security, salary. • The first group of factors (the dissatisfiers) will not motivate people in an organization; yet they must be present or dissatisfaction will arise. • The second job content factors were found to be the real motivators because they have the potential of yielding a satisfaction. • The tendency of people to attribute good results to their own efforts and to blame others for poor results is thought to have prejudiced Herzberg’s findings – “attribution bias.” The expectancy theory of motivation • Vroom’s expectancy theory – People will be motivated to do things to reach a goal if they believe in the worth of that goal and if they can see that what they do will help them in achieving it. • People’s motivation towards doing anything will be determined by the value they place on the outcome of their effort (whether positive or negative) multiplied by the confidence they have that their effort will materially aid in achieving a goal. • Force = Valence X Expectancy Force – strength of a person’s motivation. Valence – strength of an individual’s preference for an outcome. Expectancy – probability that a particular action will lead to a desired outcome. Equity Theory • Equity theory – motivation is influenced by an individual’s subjective judgement about the fairness of the reward he or she gets relative to the inputs, compared with the rewards of others. • (outcomes by a person)/(Inputs by a person) = (outcomes by another person)/(Inputs by another person) • If people feel they are inequitably rewarded, they may be dissatisfied, they may reduce the quantity or quality of output, or they may even leave the organization. • If people perceive the rewards as equitable, they probably will continue at the same level of output. • If people think the rewards are greater than what is considered equitable, they may work harder. It is also possible that some may discount the rewards. Goal Setting Theory of Motivation • Motivated from the MBO ideology • For objectives to be meaningful, they must be clear, attainable, and verifiable. • Clear goals, if accepted are motivating. • People want to know what is expected of them. • However, several conditions must be met, including that the objectives must be verifiable, which means that at the end of the period one must able to measure whether the objectives have been achieved and to what extent. Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory • Positive reinforcement or behaviour modification – Individuals can be motivated by proper design of their work environment and by praise for their performance, while punishment for poor performance produces negative results. • Skinner and his followers do far more than praise good performance. They analyse the work situation to determine what causes workers to act the way they do, and then they initiate changes to eliminate troublesome areas and obstructions to performance. • Specific goals are then set with workers participation and assistance, prompt and regular feedback of results is made available, and performance improvements are rewarded with recognition and praise. • Even when performance does not equal goals, ways are found to help people and praise them for the good things they do. • It has also been found useful and motivating to give people full information on a company’s problems, especially those in which they are involved. McClelland’s Needs Theory of Motivation McClelland’s needs theory – the basic motivating needs are the need for power, the need for affiliation, and the need for achievement. • Need for power – people with high need for power have a great concern with exercising influence and control. Such individuals generally are seeking positions of leadership; they are frequently good conversationalists, though often argumentative; they are forceful, outspoken, hardheaded, and demanding; and they enjoy teaching and public speaking. • Need for affiliation – these people usually derive pleasure from being loved and tend to avoid the pain of being rejected by a social group. As individuals, they are likely to be concerned with maintaining pleasant social relationships, they enjoy a sense of intimacy and understanding, to be ready to console and help others in trouble, and to enjoy in friendly interactions with others. • Need for achievement – these people have an intense desire for success and an equal intense fear of failure. They want to be challenged and they set moderately difficult (but not impossible) goals for themselves. They take a realistic approach to risk; they are not likely to be gamblers, but rather prefer to analyze and assess problems, assume personal responsibility for getting a job done, and like specific and prompt feedback on how they are doing. They tend to be restless, like to work long hours, do not worry unduly about failure if it does occur, and tend to like to run their own shows. Special Motivational Techniques What motivational techniques can managers use? Money • Money in the form of wages, piecework, incentive pay, bonuses, stock options, company-paid insurance, or any other thing given to people for performance, is important. • Money is often more than monetary value; it can also mean status or power or other things. • Money is more important to people who are raising a family, than to people who have “arrived.” • In organizations, money is used as a means of keeping an organization adequately staffed and not primarily as a motivator. • Money as a motivator tends to be dulled somewhat by the practice of making the salaries of the various managers in a company reasonably similar. • Money to be effective motivator, people in various positions, even though at a similar level, must be given salaries and bonuses that reflect their individual performance. • Money can motivate only when the prospective payment is large relative to a person’s income. Many wage and salary increases are not large enough to motivate the receiver. Other Rewards Considerations Implicit in most motivation theories are intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. • Intrinsic rewards – may include a feeling of accomplishment and self-actualization. • Extrinsic rewards – include benefits, recognition, status symbols, and money. • Pay based solely on individual performance will lead to competition among each other. • Pay based on group performance leads to some individuals not contributing to the effort. • Pay based on organizational performance is based on the notion that employees contribute to outstanding performance, and therefore should be rewarded.
