MANAGERS AND MOTIVATION
The ability to ‘motivate people’ is considered to be a prime task of management. Managers, increasingly, have to act as coaches and guides in order to align the strategic goals of the organization with the demands and needs of individual employees. At the core of this aligning process is the manager’s skill to understand what does ‘motivate’ an individual to reliably and consistently commit their energy and talent to the organizational goal. Motivation theories are routinely drawn on to understand what makes people ‘tick’ and to then be able to successfully manage and control individual behavior. (Tietze)
The Content Theories
In a historical perspective, the content theories tend to be the earliest theories of motivation or later modifications of early theories. Within the work environment they have had the greatest impact on management practice and policy, while within academic circles they are the least accepted (South Western Sydney Institute).
Content theories of motivation place the emphasis on what motivates. They have become part and parcel of every training program, of every syllabus and every leadership seminar devised and conducted for the improvement of management practice. Mainly, when talking to participants afterwards, what they seem to remember is a particular set of theories, which can be summarized under the heading of ‘content theories of motivation’, which reveal the motives, i.e. the content, in our mental make-up. Perhaps most famously is the theory of Abraham Harold Maslow (1908- 1970), an American psychologist, who developed a theory called ‘the hierarchy of needs’. Briefly, it assumes that there are nine human needs (ranging from biological requirements at the bottom to self-actualization needs at the top). Each of the lower needs has to be fully satisfied, before the next need becomes a motivating force. Thus, for example, we need to satisfy our biological requirements, before we care for affiliation needs or become interested in improving
The Content Theories
In a historical perspective, the content theories tend to be the earliest theories of motivation or later modifications of early theories. Within the work environment they have had the greatest impact on management practice and policy, while within academic circles they are the least accepted (South Western Sydney Institute).
Content theories of motivation place the emphasis on what motivates. They have become part and parcel of every training program, of every syllabus and every leadership seminar devised and conducted for the improvement of management practice. Mainly, when talking to participants afterwards, what they seem to remember is a particular set of theories, which can be summarized under the heading of ‘content theories of motivation’, which reveal the motives, i.e. the content, in our mental make-up. Perhaps most famously is the theory of Abraham Harold Maslow (1908- 1970), an American psychologist, who developed a theory called ‘the hierarchy of needs’. Briefly, it assumes that there are nine human needs (ranging from biological requirements at the bottom to self-actualization needs at the top). Each of the lower needs has to be fully satisfied, before the next need becomes a motivating force. Thus, for example, we need to satisfy our biological requirements, before we care for affiliation needs or become interested in improving
References: Adams, J.S. (1965); Inequity and social exchange, in: Berkowith, L. (ed); Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, pp. 2267 – 99, New York: Academic Press. Herzberg, F. (1974) Work and the Nature of Man. Granada Publishing. Kokemuller, N., n.d.; Small Business by Demand Media; The Negatives of a Diverse Workplace; retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/negatives-diverse-workplace-21181.html Maslow, A. (1943); A theory of human motivation Psychological Review, 50: 37 – 96. South Western Sydney Institute (2014); Provide leadership across the organization Tietze, S., n.d.; International Management Journals, Motivation and the Meaning of Work; International Journal of Applied HRM (ISSN: 1742-2604) Volume 1 Issue 1; retrieved from http://www.managementjournals.com/journals/hrm/article19.htm Wade, A., n.d.; Statistics and Research Methodology, Reliability and Validity; retrieved from https://epilab.ich.ucl.ac.uk/coursematerial/statistics/reliability_validity/index.html Vroom (1964); Work and Motivation New York: John Wiley