What Is Motivation?

What Is Motivation?

Motivation refers to forces that energise, direct, and sustain a person's efforts. All behaviour, except involuntary reflexes, is motivated. A motivated employee works hard, shows up consistently, and directs their effort toward organisational goals. Managers must motivate people to: join and remain in the organisation, perform assigned tasks reliably, and engage in creative, spontaneous, and innovative behaviour.

Setting Goals to Motivate Performance

Goal-setting theory states that people have conscious goals that energise them and direct their thoughts and behaviours toward a particular end. Well-designed goals motivate through four mechanisms: they direct attention toward goal-relevant activities, energise effort, increase persistence, and motivate strategy development.

Effective goals follow the SMART framework:

• Specific — Precisely defined (not "do your best")
• Measurable — Progress can be tracked objectively
• Achievable — Challenging yet attainable
• Results-based — Focused on outcomes, not activities
• Time-specific — Deadline clearly stated

Stretch goals are targets that are particularly demanding — sometimes even thought to be impossible — but which can inspire exceptional performance.

Limitations of goal-setting: Goals fail when people lack relevant ability, when individual goals damage group performance, when they encourage game-playing or unethical behaviour, or when they are seen as unfair.

Reinforcing Performance

The law of effect (Thorndike, 1911) states that behaviour followed by positive consequences will likely be repeated; behaviour followed by negative consequences will not. Four potential consequences of behaviour:

• Positive reinforcement — Applying a pleasant consequence that increases the likelihood of the behaviour recurring (e.g. praise, bonus).
• Negative reinforcement — Removing an unpleasant consequence when the desired behaviour occurs (e.g. removing a mandatory task when targets are met).
• Punishment — Applying an unpleasant consequence to reduce an unwanted behaviour. Appropriate when people violate laws, ethical standards, or safety rules. Overuse creates a climate of fear.
• Extinction — Withholding reinforcement, causing a behaviour to diminish (e.g. ignoring minor complaints to stop complaint behaviour).

Reward systems should support the firm's strategy. Innovative managers use non-monetary rewards such as intellectual challenge, meaningful responsibilities, autonomy, recognition, and greater influence over decisions.

Expectancy Theory

Expectancy theory (Vroom) proposes that people will behave based on: (1) their perceived likelihood that their effort will lead to performance (expectancy), (2) the likelihood that performance will lead to a reward (instrumentality), and (3) the value of that reward (valence).

Motivation = Expectancy × Instrumentality × Valence. If any factor is zero, overall motivation collapses. Managers can boost motivation by increasing expectancies (provide training and support), offering rewards employees actually want (valence), and ensuring performance is rewarded (instrumentality).

Understanding People's Needs

Need theories propose that motivation arises from the desire to satisfy internal needs. Three major frameworks:

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs — Five levels arranged from most to least pressing:

1. Physiological — Food, water, warmth, shelter (basic survival)
2. Safety — Physical safety, economic security, freedom from threats
3. Social (Love/Belonging) — Friendship, affection, belonging to groups
4. Esteem — Achievement, recognition, status, prestige
5. Self-actualisation — Realising one's full potential; creativity, purpose

People satisfy lower-level needs before being motivated by higher-level ones. In a secure job, social and esteem needs may be more motivating than physiological needs.

Alderfer's ERG Theory — Simplifies Maslow into three categories: Existence (physiological and safety), Relatedness (social and external esteem), and Growth (self-esteem and self-actualisation). Unlike Maslow, multiple needs can be active simultaneously, and frustration at a higher level can cause regression to a lower level.

McClelland's Acquired Needs — Three needs that are learned through experience:

• Need for Achievement (nAch) — Drive to accomplish things and excel. High achievers prefer moderate challenges, personal responsibility, and clear feedback.
• Need for Affiliation (nAff) — Desire for friendly, close interpersonal relationships and to be liked. High-affiliation people cooperate well but may be poor at giving negative feedback.
• Need for Power (nPow) — Desire to influence others and control one's environment. Effective managers tend to have high power needs combined with low affiliation needs and high self-control.

Job Design and Motivation

Jobs can be redesigned to be intrinsically motivating. The job characteristics model identifies five core dimensions:

• Skill variety — The extent to which a job requires different activities and skills
• Task identity — Degree to which the job involves completing a whole, identifiable piece of work
• Task significance — Degree to which the job has an impact on others
• Autonomy — Degree of freedom, independence, and discretion in doing the job
• Feedback — Degree to which employees receive clear information about performance

Fairness and Satisfaction

Equity theory states that employees compare their input/outcome ratio to that of referent others. If ratios are unequal, employees feel inequity and are motivated to restore balance — by reducing effort, seeking higher rewards, or changing their comparison person.

Employee satisfaction produces: higher retention, better customer service, lower absenteeism, and often better performance. The relationship between satisfaction and performance is complex — some evidence suggests that performance can lead to satisfaction (when rewarded) rather than the reverse.