Hello,

For a project (rather large paper actually) at school, I'm doing an exposition on the various theories of human motivation in management. Please, only answer the poll if you are in some sort of supervisory or management position. Please, also, only answer based on your beliefs, and NOT how your place of work seems to be functioning.

Also, if you have any comments or would feel free to discuss, please do so below. I plan on using this thread in the actual paper, so if you wish to be excluded, please make a note in your post (or don't post).

Some insightful information and discussion would also be most welcomed. Thank you guys for your time, and even if you only voted, thank you for participating.

Chad

 

Neither statement is correct.

 

Jeez Steve, you come off so negative sometimes (not a jab just an observation).

I think both are true but on a % scale. I have been in management and seen both types. Some people enjoy work for some odd reason, almost to the point you'd think they would do it for free if asked. Others like myself see work as a chore and want to get it over with asap.

BTW I did not vote as I see both statements as being true.

 

Given just two options for the survey they can't both be true and they can't be partially true. Neither statement is correct. Neither statement is accurate all of the time.

This is not me being negative, just stating the obvious. If you want a valid survey add a none of the above or a fill in your own line.

 

 

Add "some" in front of "people" and you have a more accurate statement.

Everyone is different Chad and this includes their motivators too. Some people are solely motivated by the money, some people respond better to job satisfaction, some like being part of a team and some like to work alone. It goes on and on.If you try to apply one statement to everyone you're going to end up with a portion of workers that are frustrated by their lack of freedom or a portion that are sitting around talking when you're not giving them distinct objectives.

Your post even alludes to this when you say:

So ignore what you observe to be true (i.e data) and use your opinion instead

Either you've missed the point of this paper or you haven't given us all the info. Did they just ask you to choose one and argue it rather than choose the correct one? It's been a year since I completed the organisational behaviour portion of my studies but IIRC there was a substantial amount of work around this and these characteristics were used to classify workers

IMO a better project would be to do a study on what the average proportion of each was and discuss what should be done to optimise their performance and synergise their efforts.

 

no shit. Whoever wrote those two options lives in a fantasy land. You can find someone who hates what he does, and the next guy might love what he does. Give them different jobs, different responsibilities, and different levels of reward, and their attitudes will change. All "work" is not the same, nor are all people.

I have found that in restaurant management, for example, employees respond best to a manager that leads by example, and steps in to pick up the slack whenever and wherever necessary, such as during a dinner rush (wash dishes, cook, seat tables, wait on patrons, etc.).

People have many different theroies of management, and often, these theories work best when surrounded by employees that are compatible with that management style. The people who think "managing" means walking around and making sure everyone is working are typically the worst managers, and certainly do not have the respect of the employees. Managers that spend time making their employees jobs easier and more productive, and give the employees the sense that someone is going to bat for them, tend to have the respect of their employees, and get the most out of them. Treating your employees as reluctant workers who have to be co-erced into being productive is the best way to make your employees reluctant workers. If a person has a job to do, it really helps if they have good direction, with a clear idea of what constitutes a good job, and a confidence that their performance directly affects the rewards.

I worked for UPS for a while, loading trucks. It was hard work, and I didn't always like it while I was doing it, but at the end of the day, I got tremendous satisfaction from the work I did. What made me leave was the realization that the harder I worked, the more work I was given. The best workers were worked hardest, while slackers got easy jobs. Now, UPS needed the hard workers to fill the biggest trailers, and my manager never missed an opportunity to tell me I was doing a good job, but I was never led to believe I could move up in the company based on my hard work loading trucks. I worked hard to motivate my fellow employees, and did my best to change the slackers into good workers, in part at least to lessen my workload, but also to improve the overall morale of my team, but at the end of the day, I was loading two semi-trailers myself, while four or five other people each took four hours to put 100 or so boxes into small trucks, working in teams. I did ten or twenty times the work they did, but got paid the same, got the same benefits. That's a tough place for worker satisfaction. My manager should have had the discretion to raise my reward based on my performance.

My observation would be that to get the best performance out of your employees, you need to make them feel like you are lucky to have them, and their contribution is valuable to the company. If they feel like they are disposable or unrecognized, they just might leave to find other employment, taking your investment in their training with them. At best, they deliver the minimum effort required to keep getting a paycheck. Everyone is different, so the belief that one management philosophy will work for everyone is flawed. I've had employees working for me that needed the law laid down once in a while, while others just needed encouragement and some morale boosting on occasion. Having a repertoire of solutions to address an employee problem is far more productive than trying to pound every shape into the same square hole.

 

no_really, re UPS.... if you become too good at your job you become too difficult/impossible to replace and get stuck there with most management.

I hope this isn't too OT but in regards to stepping in I've found lately that there is a fine line where if you step over it they will take it fo granted and expect too much in the way of helping them.

Im a construction manager and occasionally I'll get a job that needs to be done instantly so rather than bitch that they needed to get another crew I grabbed a shovel and got stuck into it with them. The next day one of the labourers had to do some "not so nice" work" for me and said "why don't you get down there and do it" which put me in a situation that I had to rectify by coming down on him a little about taking my assistance for granted.

Twas a good learning experience

 

I think, as a manager (or business owner), if you have the skills to separate type 1 from type 2 employees, you will be quite successful.

Managing people has it's rewards but the toughest part I run into is managing my own career and managing my direct reports also. Once you identify the employees who may be able to progress from Type 1 to Type 2, it's usually an uphill, time-consuming battle to convert them. In the engineering world it's about a 50% hit rate. Inevitably, there's going to be some wasted time & effort.


Read Jack Welch's latest book.

 

I agree w/ Steve - here are people who like work, but don't like independence - they want to be directed.