Send to KindleThis is the first of a three part series on motivating workers.
“How do I motivate my people?” “I need to find ways to motivate the workers.”
These are common laments among leaders stemming from the idea that one person can motivate another. Is that true? Can one person motivate another? Do employees need external motivation or is motivation a force internal to the individual? To answer these questions, we need to examine the true nature of motivation and why people actually feel motivated.
What is motivation? We’ll define motivation simply as that which causes a person to act and meet a need. So, to motivate a person is to enable them to act in a certain way. Motivation is sometimes thought of as either external or internal. Is there really any external motivation? What’s thought of as external motivation is often a form of coercion which may or may not produce the intended results. For instance, if I meet you at night on a dark street and present myself to you in a very threatening way, demanding you give me your valuables, you might be likely to comply and I will believe I’ve motivated you to do what I wanted. But if, unknown to me, you are actually an off-duty police officer in the same situation, I may quickly come to believe that I’ve motivated you to do something completely different than what I intended. Frederick Herzberg calls this KITA (Kick in the Ass) and points out that the one doing the kicking is really the one motivated. The receiver of the KITA action is not really motivated, but just takes an action in response to the doer’s motivation.
Leaders and managers can also use external motivation to cause subordinates to respond in a certain way. Of course threats of violence are not allowed in today’s workplace, so these external motivators will be of a more peaceful, though perhaps not less threatening nature. For instance, I might tell a factory worker that he must produce 20 more widgets by tomorrow or I’ll reduce his pay by 5%. Or, I might say that if he produced 20 extra widgets by tomorrow I’ll give him a 5% bonus. This type of motivation looks a lot like coercion. That’s because it is! So, it appears that external forces aren’t really motivators!
Internal motivation is a force within the person that causes that person to do something. Let’s say you are happily employed but don’t see a lot of opportunity to learn new skills or advance in the company. You are offered another job at the same pay and benefits but this job would allow you to broaden your knowledge and have opportunities for advancement; exactly what you’re looking for. If you take the new job you are acting on an internal motivator. But, isn’t the promise of the opportunities in the new position really an external motivator? No and here’s why. The motivation to change jobs comes from an internal desire to better yourself. The new job simply provides an avenue to accomplish that. The motivation to take the action of changing jobs comes completely from within you.
In the next installment of this series, we’ll discuss satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
What do you think? Please leave a comment. I’d really like to hear from you.
