Motivation Is Critical to Success

Motivation is critical to success and good performance. Many theories of motivation explain how it influences performance and the outcomes. In many organizations today, motivation is considered a pre-requisite when recruiting a candidate because it is believed that a self-motivated person will be able to establish his own goals, set targets for himself and basically perform on his peak. However not everyone is self-motivated and this is where managers step in. Vast literature on the subject of management will repeatedly say the same thing: a manager who can motivate others is the one who can get the best out of people and give the best possible results. In this regard, there are many theories of motivation as well. These theories are important because they give an insight into the human psyche and behavior and hence make it possible for managers to identity key motivating factors and various essential triggers.

I was working at Fashion Minds for two years when the manager suddenly resigned and I luckily landed his job. It was a big opportunity for me to prove my skills and talent as an organizer but I soon realized that there was more to the job than met the eye at first. I was not only responsible for delegating tasks; I also had to inspire each team member to get things done on time and in the desire manner. Basically I had to constantly motivate them to achieve variety of targets and to perform at their optimum level.

It was easier said than done. Not every employee was self-driven and not everyone had the same dreams and goals. It was not easy to identify what their goals were so I could connect company targets and rewards with their goals and dreams. Sarah was an exceptional tough case. She was a junior staff member for two years before she became part of the design team as creative designer. Her main responsibility was to come up with new and fresh ideas for company's newsletters and monthly magazine. She was relatively young and while she was good at what she did, it took her a long time to accomplish targets and she was usually the only one not meeting critical deadlines. But since her work was always good, it was hard to criticize her. I could see that the only thing missing was motivation. She really had very little motivation to do what she was doing or to meet the deadlines. I knew I had to come up with some new target and reward program in order to inspire her and to get her to perform better.

Some theories actually helped me. For example I was especially inspired by Vroom's expectancy theory. This theory was far better than Maslow's theory even though I must say that all motivation theories borrowed something from Maslow. Expectancy theory creates a connection between effort, performance and outcomes. It states that "people have preferences in outcomes or states of nature. Outcomes, which are strongly preferred, are positively valent while those to be avoided have negative valence. These valences have their roots in relatively stable motives, or needs, the strength of which vary both within and across persons." (Smith, p.239)

This meant that when people exert effort, they expect an outcome that will have positive valence for them. They do not want to exert effort if they do not expect it to lead to their desired outcome. In other words, rewards must match the person's needs and motives instead of a "one size fits all" program. This was indeed an eye-opener. We had a reward program that was based monetary based. Every person who had performed well and met the deadlines was offered a cash bonus at the end of six-month period when performance appraisals were done. However I realized that Sarah was not motivated by this cash reward. She had one child who went to kindergarten and her husband earned well. This meant she needed something other than money to motivate her. This was indeed a challenge since I had no idea how to discover her needs which could enhance her performance and inspire her to meet deadlines.

The first stage was to determine if the job actually suited her aptitude. I spoke to her personally and asked her if she really liked her job. But this was done in a candid manner so she wouldn't know what the real issue was. Sarah talked eagerly about her work and her ideas about the next month's magazine. Studying her resume, I realized she had worked in similar positions in the past and had a brilliant portfolio. There was no doubt in mind that she loved her job and had the aptitude for it.

The next stage was performance. I reviewed her performance appraisals over the last two years and realized she had always been positively appraised. There had been an issue of deadline for some time but otherwise her work had been par excellence. I could see that the effort she was putting in was producing the kind of performance the company expected of her.