Motivation

Motivation is the force that energizes behaviour, gives direction to behaviour, and underlines the tendency to persist. This definition of motivation recognizes that in order to achieve goals, individuals must be sufficiently stimulated and energetic, must have a clear focus or end in mind, and must be willing and able to commit their energy for a long enough period of time to realize their aim. Since the leading function of management involves influencing others to work toward organizational goals, motivation is an important aspect of that function.

Because motivation is an internal force, we cannot measure the motivation of others directly. Instead, we typically infer whether or not other individuals are motivated by watching their behaviour. For example, we might conclude that an employee who works late every evening, goes to the office on weekends, and incessantly reads the latest journals is highly motivated to do well. Conversely, we might suspect that another employee who is usually the first one out the door at quitting time, rarely puts in extra hours, and generally spends little time reading up on new developments in the field is not very motivated to excel.

How successful the two employees actually are with their respective projects is likely to depend not only on their ability to handle the subject matter. Environmental conditions, such as numerous interruptions when they are working, extra work assignments, or cramped office space, also may negatively influence respective performance. On the other hand, a quiet place to work, the help of assistants, and simple support resources, such as equipment, may have a positive effect on project performance. Thus actual project performance is likely to be a function of ability, motivation and environmental conditions. As a result, it is important that managers hire individuals who have ability to do what required. Then the management challenge is providing environmental conditions that nurture and support individual motivation to work towards organizational goals.

Perspectives differ on what managers need to do to encourage motivation. One of the first individuals to address worker motivation explicitly was Frederick Taylor. Because Taylor believed that people are motivated mainly by economic factors, he advocated a wage incentive system to encourage workers. However, money didn’t seem to have the desired effect. So it wasn’t considered as a sole motivational tool. Other researchers argued for devoting greater attention to the social aspects of the job. According to their prescriptions, managers should make workers feel important, increase vertical communication, allow some decision making on very routine matters related to a job. These efforts also met with a limited success in motivating workers’ behaviour. These early efforts laid the groundwork for more sophisticated approaches.

Management scholars have developed a number of different theories that help understand what motivates people at work.