Motivation and Demotivation Situations

Introduction:
Motivation plays a huge role in an Organization’s growth and it can be regarded as one of the dimensions for Sustainable Organizational growth. Having a constant motivation level in an individual in an Organization is not possible, however, with better Organization Culture it is possible to instill maximum motivation in an individual for better performance leading to Organization’s sustained success. In this paper the author analyzes his motivation and demotivation situations and how the author was able to motivate a demotivated person in the Organization and mapping the variables to various popular motivational model thought during the Course and other sources of reference.
Literature Review:
Motivation is a process that accounts for an individual’s intensity, direction and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal in an Organization. There are several theories formulated on Motivation and each has its pros and cons. Some of the early theories formulated are:
• Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which comprises physiology, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization in which, as each need is substantially satisfied the next need becomes dominant. These five needs are separated into higher and lower order needs with physiology and safety part of lower order needs and social, esteem and self-actualization part of higher order needs.
• Theory X and Theory Y, proposed by Douglas McGregor is a classification of two distinct views of human beings. Theory X is labeled negative and Theory Y is labeled positive.
• Two Factor Theory, also called motivation-hygiene theory relates intrinsic factors to job satisfaction and associated extrinsic factors with dissatisfaction. Factors such as company policy and administration, supervision and salary are hygiene factors and when these factors are adequate individuals are not dissatisfied.
• McClelland’s Theory of Needs, states that achievement, power and affiliation are three important needs that help explain motivation. Need for achievement relates to driving for excellence and always striving hard to succeed. The need for power relates to making others behave in a way in which they would not have behaved otherwise. Need for Affiliation relates to friendly and close interpersonal relationships.
The above theories of motivation either have not held up under close examination or have fallen out of favor. In contrast contemporary theories have better empirical support, which however, does not discount the fact that they can be questioned. Some of the contemporary theories are:
Self Determination Theory, relates to beneficial effects of intrinsic motivation and the harmful effects of extrinsic motivation.
Cognitive Evaluation Theory, a version of self-determination theory, which holds that allocating extrinsic rewards for behavior that had been previously intrinsically rewarding, tends to decrease the overall level of motivation if the rewards are seen as controlling.
Goal-Setting Theory, says that specific and difficult goals, with feedback, lead to higher performance.
Self-Efficacy Theory, also known as social cognitive theory or social learning theory refers to an individual belief that he or she is capable of performing a task.
Reinforcement Theory, sates that behavior is a function of its consequences.
Adam’s Equity Theory, says that individuals compare their job inputs and outcomes with those of others and then respond to eliminate any inequities. There are different perceptions an individual in an Organization can have based on ratio comparisons with other individuals – Inequity due to being under rewarded, Equity and Inequity due to being over rewarded.
Vroom’s Expectancy Theory says that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual.
Job Characteristics Model, says that any job can be described in terms of five core job dimension: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. Skill variety.
Motivational Potential Score (MPS) is given by: Skill Variety + Task Identity + Task Significance ------------------------------------------------------------ X Autonomy X Feedback 3 The above motivational models lead to the following research questions in an Organization.
Research Questions:
1) Identify a situation when you felt highly motivated,
2) Identify a situation when you felt demotivated
3) Situation where you were able to motivate a demotivated person and describe / explain what happened in terms of the variables and models used in motivation chapters.
Analysis:
Situation and Mapping of Variables:
Identify a situation when you felt highly motivated
The description here refers to authors long tenure with a products and solutions company called Teleca AB (now, Symphony Teleca), a Swedish based Organization and his experience in being motivated on a long term. The Author got an opportunity to work with Teleca in South Korea where the Author was based and started performing well which gave way for better performance appraisals and this eventually led to Author’s Organizational reward where the Author was promoted, transferred to international locations and paid better salaries. This also led to achieving Author’s personal goals of growing organically in an organization and working in USA permanently. In this context Vroom’s expectancy theory fits in reasonably well where in every stage of Vroom’s expectancy thoery the situation described by Author falls in place for each variable.
Identify a situation when you felt demotivated
This was during a situation when the Author was working as consultant with one of the largest Device Manufacturing Company in Taiwan. The Author worked as consultant in Taiwan for three months. The Author (then based in USA) was asked by the Employer to go and address the product issues at the customer place. All went well during the tenure, the initial tenure being only two and half months. During the end of two and half months all the deadlines were met and when the Author was ready to pack up after sign off by the customer, the CEO of the the customer company came knocking requesting Author to stay for two weeks more to fix some more issues that were not part of the travel programe. The entire situation was under the Author’s discretion to stay or not stay as the Employer of the Author had given the freedom to decide either ways. Although, the Author had made up the mind to stay and was about to communicate, the CEO of the customer company called up on the Author and offered some gifts in the form of gift voucher or cash which was very strange to Author and, dissappointed the Author to the extent of being demotivated to solve the issues. Although, the Author did stay for 2 more weeks and accomplished the additional tasks, it was not a motivating situation. The Author also learnt that in Taiwan it is culture thing to offer gifts in such situations. In this context, Cognitive Evaluation Theory, fits the situation as the works accomplished during the two and half month tenure of the Author was through intrinsic motivation after the offer of an extrinsic reward the Author was demotivated.
Situation where you were able to motivate a demotivated person
This was a situation when the Author’s company had hired an individual on rolls of the organization for working on an International Contract. During the first month of the individual’s work completion, there was no real impression created by the individual and was kind of more or less still stuck with previous employer’s Organizational Culture and other preset notions. When the Author summoned the individual, he had a list of issues, which demotivated him, such as Working culture issues, very immature environment, no live project still assigned and other factors. The Author had to give a practical viewpoint of how to be adaptable in new situations and the Author even asked the individual to set an example. After couple of rounds of further discussion, the individual was motivated and it was shown in his results in the subsequent months. This situation fairly follows Job Characteristics Model where there was enough feedback and autonomy to the employee and also the employee performed various tasks that had variety, identity and significance.
Conclusion:
As per Author’s understanding any motivational situation can be modeled to the above theories. And it is Author’s understanding for successful organization, motivation of each individual takes center stage and that a situation has to be handled with enough common sense not just through a text book of regulations/policies.