Motivation and motivational theories

This post looks at CONTENT THEORIES of motivation.

What is motivation?

My favourite definition is from Mullins (2008) who describes motivation as ‘a driving force’ through which people strive to achieve their goals and fulfil a need or uphold a value.

Another relevant definition comes from Bloisi et al (2003) who identify 3 elements of motivation:

  • Some NEED, MOTIVE or GOAL that triggers action
  • A process that DIRECTS the choice of action
  • A level of effort intensity that is applied to the chosen vocation.

To be motivated, you must have a need or reason for acting a certain way.  For example, you have a need for food (NEED), or you like a band (MOTIVE) or you want to be a homeowner (GOAL).  There must be some process, something that leads you to conclude what you will do about your need, motive or goal.  Finally, there will be a level of effort which will largely depend how motivated you are!

There are various theories of motivation.

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is presented in a pyramid because needs form a hierarchy and people must satisfy their lower level needs first.  Needs are divided into FIVE levels.

  • SELF ACTUALISATION – personal growth, fulfilment – TOP
  • ESTEEM NEEDS – achievements, status, respectability, reputation
  • SOCIAL NEEDS  – family, relationships, affection etc
  • SAFETY NEEDS – protection, security etc
  • PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS – such as air food drink shelter and sleep etc – BOTTOM

So we work from bottom to top of the pyramid, first satisfying our basic needs and then working towards higher needs of esteem and self actualisation.

A critisism, or caution, of this model is that it is a generalisation.  How would you explain someone on a hunger strike in relation to this pyramid?

It is however useful to explain the behaviour of people, especially in the workplace, and to show that people have multiple motives.

MCGREGOR’S X AND Y THEORY

McGregor believed that a manager’s perspectives about people affected how they attempted to manage them.  Theory X and theory Y are two alternative sets of managerial assumptions about people.

Theory X says:

  • Management is responsible for organising the elements of productive enterprise – e.g. money, materials, equipment, people – in the interest of economic ends.
  • So far as people are concerned, this is a process of directing their efforts, motivating them, controlling their actions and modifying their behaviour to fit the needs of the organisation.
  • Without active intervention from management, people would be passive or resistant to organisational needs.  Therefore, they must be persuaded, punished, rewarded, controlled – in order to direct their activities.

Theory Y says:

  • Management is responsible for organising the elements of productive enterprise – e.g. money, materials, equipment, people – in the interest of economic ends. (e.g. same as Theory X)
  • People aren’t naturally passive or resistant to organisational needs and only become this way as a result of their experience in organisations.
  • The motivation, the potential for development, the capacity to assume responsibility and the readiness to direct behaviour towards orgaisational goals are all present in people – those things are not put there by management.  It is management’s responsibility to make it possible for people to recognise and develop those characteristics for themselves.
  • The essential task of management is therefore to arrange organisational conditions and operations so that people can achieve their own goals BEST by directing their OWN efforts towards organisational objectives.

Theory Y was, in McGregor’s view, based on more accurate assumptions about human nature and motivation.  Simply, it looks to align the goals of the employee with that of the organisation.  Let’s say for example that the employee in question was hugely driven by money (perhaps due to financial circumstances) and the organisational objective was to achieve a monetary target.  Rather than assuming the employee would rather not work hard to achieve the target and indeed, punish the employee for not achieving the target (Theory Y), Theory X might give the employee incentives that allowed them to make more money with more effort.  Suddenly, their goal and the organisation’s goal are aligned and this is a win-win.  McGregor’s theory doesn’t look at what motivates though, so it can be beneficial to look at it alongside other theories like Maslow’s and Herzberg’s (below).

HERZBERG’S DUAL FACTOR THEORY

A person who says low pay is a source of dissatisfaction will not necessarily agree that high pay is a source of motivation.

The key point to Herzberg’s dual factor theory is that what demotivates is not the same as what motivates.

Herzberg believed that:

  • HYGIENE FACTORS – including supervision, working conditions, interpersonal relationships, pay, job security and company policies – can trigger DISSATISFACTION
  • MOTIVATOR FACTORS – including things that originate from the nature of the job itself such as achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement and growth – can create JOB SATISFACTION. This are the motivating factors.

So factors like PAY, if satisfied, lead to a state of no dissatisfaction but they don’t actually motivate.  This contradicts (the perhaps more widely hold view of) Taylor’s Scientific Management Approach which holds that workers are primarily motivated by monetary incentives.

A caveat to Herzberg’s work is that the study he carried out was on a limited range of people, ie professional engineers and managerial staff.  So it is fair to say that this theory might not be widely applicable.

Another thing to note is that the terms satisfaction and motivation are used interchangeably.  E.g. the motivating factors achieve job satisfaction.  But they don’t necessarily mean the same thing – Maslow for example said that a satisfied need no longer motivates.  This seems to make sense – if you had all the food you needed, or all the clothes you wanted, would you go out of your way to take action to get more?  But if you didn’t have enough food or were lacking clothes, you probably would.  Similarly, what if everyone at work thought you were the bee’s knees on a particular topic?  You wouldn’t need to modify your behaviour to do anything to get any further recognition.

Another issue is that people aren’t necessarily motivated by the same thing.  For example, I happen to know someone at work who would quit if we gave him any additional responsibility.

Herzberg’s 7 principles of job enrichment

Herzberg offers 7 principles to increase the motivation and well-being of employees at work.

These include:

  • Removing CONTROLS while retaining ACCOUNTABILITY
  • Increasing ACCOUNTABILITY of individuals for their own work
  • Giving people a COMPLETE NATURAL UNIT of work
  • Granting ADDITIONAL AUTHORITY (job freedom)
  • Making PERIODIC REPORTS directly available to the worker in person rather than the supervisor
  • Introduce NEW TASKS not previously handled
  • Assign NICHE TASKS enabling individuals to become experts

Each principle gives elements of  responsibility, personal achievement, recognition, growth and learning – i.e. Herzberg’s motivators for job satisfaction.

Looking at the flip side, poorly designed jobs that lack these elements can lead to:

  • A decrease in performance
  • Low satisfaction
  • Absenteeism
  • Increased staff turnover
  • Stress, anxiety and depression with a higher risk of heart disease
  • Increased accidents

Whilst the benefits seem clear, the most common failure of job enrichment schemes is lack of commitment of those implementing them. It needs to be a long term strategy and a small pilot may be beneficial, especially if the results are positive as you can gain buy in on a wider scale from this.

The above theories of motivation are known as CONTENT theories.  Because these have limitations, this has lead to some focus on the PROCESSES involved in motivation, or process theories. Read my post on process theories of motivation to find out about these.

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