Organizational Motivation

Summary

For a manager, motivation should be one of the priorities when dealing with his employees, because motivation helps to reach the goal proposed, it creates a real and direct interest in the activity they have to do.

Motivation can be separated into three main kinds:

Internal motivation is the willingness of the subject to do the activity proposed to him to reach an own personal goal.

Process motivation is the motivation the individual has when interacting with the environment that surrounds him.

External motivation is the one that only deals with the elements of the environment and how they affect the individual’s motivation.

All human being is always needing something and that need is the one that makes the individual to move towards that specific outcome.

    Image retrieved on March 2011 from http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/carrot1.gif

Managers must motivate their employees though incentives and recognition in order for the employee to feel more motivation if he achieves the goal planned by the organization, some of these incentives could be economic, material and special distinctions like the recognition of being the employee of the month.

There are several theories that explain how motivation works in organizations, here are some:

·         Theory X and Theory Y: Managers must recognize if the employee is more motivated from things of low order where workers becomes a cost (Theory X) or from high order where workers becomes an assests (Theory Y).

·         ERG Theory: All employees have multiple needs expressed in three groups Existence (Physiological needs – Physical security), Relatedness (Interpersonal security – Belongingness – Social esteem) and Growth (Self esteem – Self actualization).

·         McClelland’s needs theory: Explains the different needs and the motivators for the manager to fulfill those needs for his employees. Need of achievement and the motivator are challenging projects with reachable goals where money is not a motivator. Need of Power, the motivator is a cooperative and harmonious environment. Need of affiliation which motivator is the opportunity to manage others.

Always remember that your two cent worth something, you will always have the right to have an opinion in things that affects you in some way.

Take the 20 min this videos last... good to apply for own's life

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtxANzN2Woo (part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4um8qubQh0&feature=related (part 2)

Topic Question

In multicultural organization context, what could be a good strategy to keep people towards a common task?

-Being a manager within a multicultural organization I think the best and most simple strategy to keep your people working well towards a common task is getting to know well all your employees and what kind of motivator drives them better towards the common goal, but because there are  a lot of individuals who are different from each other try to find something that works for everyone, but if you are going to do it for only one employee is always good to know him and know his needs to know how to motivate him properly. 

Image retrieved on March 2011 from http://www.paoloruggeri.net/public/foto/p104.motivation.jpg