Theories of motivation

A couple of topics about the theory of motivation X and Y led me to writing.



As a preface

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The problem of labor motivation is one of the most acute problems facing the modern Russian enterprise. As a rule, domestic managers consider the system of motivation as a tool based on personal payments to the employee.

According to the adopted motivation systems in domestic enterprises, the employee receives:

• Base salary depending on the hierarchical level of management;

• Awards and bonuses based on the performance of the division during the reporting period;

• Awards and bonuses based on the employee’s personal activities (personal bonuses and co-payments for project execution, commissions, student support, etc.);

• Awards and bonuses for the results of the organization as a whole (annual bonuses);

But such schemes lose their effectiveness. This is due to the following factors:



First, with regular payment of bonuses, commissions and bonuses, the value and motivating effect decreases sharply - the employee gets used to them, regards them as a form of wages, and any reduction of such essentially additional payments is perceived as humiliation by the employer.



Secondly, the initial motivating effect of the variable part of the remuneration, as a rule, motivates the creative beginning of the worker. But, in practice, active work by an employer is almost never required. Creativity is perceived as an annoying misunderstanding that interferes with the current regular work. From the point of view of the modern Russian owner-manager, either the owner himself or the top manager can show creativity, because they and only they “know and bear responsibility better”. A conflict arises on the basis of mutual misunderstanding, the motivating effect is compensated by a negative attitude to creative impulses.



Well, and when the “kinetic energy” of material motivation ends, the leaders start looking for other ways, i.e. “Moral encouragement”. In 85% of cases, they amount to personal praise and in 10% of cases - to praise (literacy, thanks, and so on) in the face of colleagues.



No matter how banal personal communication may seem, but it works, and here's why:

• The factor of attention and protection on the part of the top manager - there is someone to talk to, there is someone to check their ideas on, there is someone to “cry on the waistcoat” and ask for protection;

• The factor of “your boyfriend” - you want to work with such a leader, you want to support him and it is indecent to deceive him;

• The factor of involvement - proximity to the decision-making center, leading information and the possession of confidential information significantly raise the status of the employee;

• Influence factor - close contacts with the decision-making center provoke an “advisor syndrome”, in which the employee seeks to exert an emotional or intellectual influence on the decisions made. If this succeeds, the employee begins to influence the leader in order to strengthen his status, giving himself weight as the leader of an informal group, perhaps not yet formed.



Praise in the face of colleagues - in other words, a call for public recognition of the employee’s merits, is beginning to become increasingly popular with domestic managers.



This is due to the fact that this type of promotion carries several factors that can be used in management:

• The status factor - if the employee is publicly praised, it means that this worker becomes closer to the leader, gets the moral right to a certain leading position;

• The team factor - the one who has been encouraged publicly, begins to feel himself a member of the “team”, he has a sense of responsibility for the overall result;

• Allocation factor - praising someone, the manager destroys the informal connections of such an employee, especially if the employee was identified against the background of a negative attitude towards the rest of the group;

• The goal setting factor - public praise, in fact, is a reflection of the goals of the head, shows the workers “the line of the party and the government”.



Various theories of motivation



To solve the “problem of a hungry artist,” many researchers applied a different allocation of needs (motivating factors) into isolated groups. Known basic theories include:

• “Theory of SVR” by Alderfera, who divided needs into needs for the existence of “C”, needs of interrelationship “B” and growth requirements “P”. Movement between needs can occur both “up” and “down”. In this way, a “hungry artist” can be described, but in order to build a unified system applicable to a real group of people, the values ​​of each of them should be described, which is very laborious. In addition, a person’s value system changes throughout life, and such descriptions should be repeated;

• “Theory of Acquired Needs” by McKelland, who identified three groups of needs acquired by a person with experience - the need for belonging, the need for success, and the need for power. These are the needs of the highest level, existing in parallel and independently from each other. Due to their parallelism and independence, “detuning” from the hierarchy is achieved, i.e. consistency, but the disadvantage of this theory is its applicability exclusively to the highest management level of the organization;

• “Motivational and hygienic theory” of Herzberg, who identified two groups of factors - “hygienic” and “motivating”, which practically repeats the hierarchy of needs. In addition, the effects of hygienic and motivating factors are different for different individuals, the boundaries between them are blurred. Despite a significant contribution to the understanding of motivation, the “hygienic theory” remained a purely theoretical contribution to the understanding of the fundamentals of management by specialists. In fairness it should be noted that the theory of Herzberg became the basis for a large number of other motivational theories, which can be summarized by the term “hygienic”.

The list of theories can be continued, but one way or another, the overwhelming majority of authors (Adams, Porter, Lawrence, Vroom, Locke, Griffin, Hackman, Oldham, etc.) conclude that motivating factors, needs and expectations exist in parallel, not contradicting each other, but being a mutual complement, and for each individual the combination of motivation factors and needs is unique.

But the most interesting in the opinion of the majority of managers are the following two theories: Maslow's hierarchical system of needs and personnel motivation theory according to L. R. Hubbard.



Maslow's Theory



It is quite deeply described in almost all textbooks on management, so I will describe briefly.

Maslow himself identifies 5 levels of needs. Here they are:

1. Physiological: hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.

2. Existential: safety of existence, comfort, constancy of living conditions.

3. Social: social connections, communication, affection, caring for others and attention to themselves, joint activities.

4. Prestigious: self-esteem, respect from others, recognition, success and appreciation, career growth.

5. Spiritual: cognition, self-activation, self-expression.

The meaning of the pyramid is that when the “basic” needs are satisfied, then the person can be motivated by the next level. In the meantime, I'm sorry ...

Thus, Maslow suggests that managers find out at what level his subordinate is (using questionnaires, tests, etc.) and according to this data, choose which incentive to choose to motivate a particular person.



Hubbard Theory



In some ways, it echoes Maslow's theory, but there are significant differences. Many managers note its great practical applicability. Hubbard identifies four levels of motivation.



The first (lowest) level of motivation is money.

The fact is obvious, it makes no sense to make a secret out of it or to try to disguise it in some way. I think it is worth noting such an interesting point: at higher levels of motivation echoes of lower levels remain, but they cease to be something significant. That is, the person with the highest level of motivation in any case will be, at least a little, interested in money.



Level Two: personal achievements.

Obviously, this is a higher level. A person feels significant, having achieved something, rejoices in victories and experiences self-esteem. This level includes career growth, success in projects, and won competitions. This category also includes the desire to receive status in a group; this is not necessarily a career. Many successful managers motivate employees at this level. For example, some enter ranks in organizations, employees for personal merit were promoted not only in the line of work, they could have been given “stars for epaulets”, etc.



The third level: personal conviction.

This level goes beyond the needs of the person himself and includes involvement in something meaningful for others. A person is sure that his organization, activity, products or services are the best. He is convinced that the goals of his company are excellent and correspond to his personal goals. He is sure that he is right. Such an employee will even work in a low-paid position without growth prospects, and at the same time his motivation will be higher than that of a careerist. And he will be more capable of exploits for the sake of his company. As an example: “I work in a team of Tarantino himself!”



Fourth level: debt.

This is the highest level of motivation. Psychologists could not describe it, although it is obvious, since there is hardly any known psychologist who would be absorbed in a sense of duty. The highest driving force for the psychologist is personal achievements, which is clearly demonstrated by Maslow's pyramid. Worker of science, art, religion, philosopher, business owner, military. Anywhere you can find a manifestation of a genuine sense of duty to others. And you can clearly demonstrate that no one works so hard and does not relate to the difficulties and hardships as high as a person whose level of motivation is a duty. Remember the samurai, with their cult of duty. Or the soldiers of the Red Army who fought for their homeland against the better-off and trained army of Germany.



Encouragement and Non-Encouragement - Hubbard Staff Motivation Methods



The famous Walt Disney, the founder of the concern for the production of cartoons, when he wanted to present his new ideas and projects, gathered all the employees for discussion and began to talk enthusiastically about his designs. Disney so vividly and vividly described the prospects that the staff literally lit up with the idea and made their additions. And for a successful initiative or proposal, employees could expect encouragement. At that time it was an innovation, but the result exceeded all expectations. The result of such discussions was a clear understanding of the employees of what the management expects of them, represented by Walt, and the beginning of work on the project with interest and enthusiasm. Using a system of motivation, and in particular encouragement and punishment, Disney created a cohesive team of like-minded people who remained loyal to the company in its ups and downs.

Encouragement (positive motivation) and punishment (negative motivation) is not quite what will be discussed further. Punishment is, after all, “a measure of influence applied to someone for guilt, offense, crime” (the Big Dictionary of the Russian Language), and non-promotion is the lack of encouragement and deprivation of its employee and a more humane and effective way of motivation. But first things first.

For effective use of the system there are two most important rules.

1) Workers should know the rules of the "game". I think everyone knows that in football there are strict rules about playing time, the number of players, the number of substitutions, etc. Violation of these rules entail punishment - fines, removal from the field, disqualification and more. Same thing in the organization. A company must have a certain organizational policy, i.e. rules and laws on which work is built within the organization. Accordingly, the violation of this policy entails punishment. Employees must clearly know and understand what they will be praised for and what they will “beat” for.

A very important point is the observance and implementation of the rules of the "game" that you set for optimizing the workflow. Otherwise, why are they needed then? My friend told me that at one factory he saw such “funny” inscriptions: “if you don’t turn off the light, we’ll fire”, “if you don’t throw away the garbage, we’ll fire”, “we’ll be late - we’ll fire”. As he left, he asked one of the employees of the plant: “Is it really really dismissed?”, The answer was: “How else!”. At the same time, the enterprise was clean and tidy. Therefore, setting even such “cool” rules they need to follow, otherwise it turns out that one was fired, the other was left for the same mistake. So it will not work and there will be chaos and a game without “rules”.

2) “When you reward falling statistics and punish growing ones, you get falling statistics” - L. Ron Hubbard, a classic of American management. If you punish production and encourage non-production, then we will receive non-production.

The main parameters for rewards and dishonor are the performance indicators of the employee, department, department and the entire company. It is convenient and easy to use to measure these indicators statistics graphs, which reflect the quantitative value of what the employee has performed. If the statistics grow, the employee can expect a reward, if they fall, then the punishment. Encourage and disfavor an employee for his performance can be in cash (bonuses, bonuses, etc.) and non-cash (movie tickets, going to a restaurant, gifts, etc.).



I hope it was interesting.