Managing Motivation

by Suzanne Deakins, PhD, Causeit, Inc. Contributing Author

“Even God himself can talk to a hungry man only in terms of bread”

Mahatma Gandhi

We’ve seen it; we’ve heard about it; we all know about it. The mysterious life force called motivation: the essence of leadership. The force that moves people, moves mountains, moves organizations. The impulses that make a new world—a better world—a more productive world.

Motivation. What is it? Many things—all of them related to interpersonal relationships; all of them very, very responsive to effective leadership, to back-to-basics management, where the individual is pre-eminent and not the task.

I see motivation as an aspect of applied behavioral science—the science that studies the how and why of human interactions, either on a one-to-one basis or in groups. The behavioral scientist is interested in the same kind of things a back-to-basics manager is concerned with–how attitudes and opinions are formed (and changed;) how creativity is stimulated; how motivation helps people learn and develop; how human conflict can be managed productively—and a host of other topics concerned with effective human interaction and leadership.

The point of all this research is very clear. Motivation can be managed. Understanding interpersonal behavior; understanding individual needs understand that each person is unique, although their behavior falls into consistent, recognizable patterns are the keys to effective motivational management.

As a manager-leader, your performance will be judged on the accomplishment and productivity of others. That is what managing is all about. It is important that you put your managerial duties in perspective. I want to motive you so you’ll free yourself from detail and from task-defined roles, and move on to the real challenge of leadership-managing and motivating people as individuals and in groups.

Motivation Defined

Motivation is usually defined as “the drive to achieve a goal.” It is primarily a mental process, a mental attitude that incites or produces a physical action leading to the accomplishment of some practical results.  What gives people this drive? Why does someone want to accomplish something? Very simply…to derive a benefit from the result.

The benefit is the reward.  A reward is anything that helps and individual fulfill one or more of his or her tangible or intangible needs. The reward for each individual must be as he or she, not your, defines it. The fact that you consider it a benefit doesn’t make it a real benefit to the employee.

We are all motivated all the time, in that we tend to do the things we feel will be rewarding and avoid those activities that don’t give us satisfaction. The problem is that, being as complex as we are, human beings rarely agree on what is rewarding and what is not!  So the job of the manager is to make the fit—to help the employee feel that the goals of the group, department, organization, are the same or parallel to his or her own personal goals. That, perhaps more than anything else is the art of the effective leader-manager.

An employees job behavior is always motivated by the benefits he or she seeks. Thus you already have the motivation mechanisms in place in every individual. Find out what his or her needs are, convert them into benefits and you get motivation. As a leader-manager you should analyze your employee’s behavior as a function of his or her desire to fulfill two types of needs and meet two types of goals.

Tangible needs: The substantive payoffs the person doing the job wants from the job.

Intangible needs: The reasons why people wan the rewards they do from their jobs, achievement, belonging, security, and ego.

Business job goals: Fairly specific goals usually measurable and dealing with objective matters.

Behavioral job goals:Less easily measured, dealing with changes in behavior or interpersonal skills that will help achieve a business job goal.

G =goal (business or behavior)

N = needs (tangible and intangible)

R = rewards (what’s in it for me?)

PP = productive performance (performance that is highly motivated, enthusiastic effortful, determined, vigorous, sustained and constructive)

Linking work goals (G) with needs (N) leads to rewards (R) this produces commitment – the desire to achieve the goal that leads to highly motivated and productive performance (PP).

©2008 Suzanne Deakins and Causeit, Inc. All rights reserved. We are open to re-posting and publication; inquire here.

Posted 21 January 2008.