In an organization, changing the environment is a more feasible option than changing people’s behavior.
1.WD-40 is the trademark name of a penetrating oil and water-displacing spray. The spray is manufactured by the San Diego, California based WD-40 Company. The CEO, Garry Ridge, wanted to encourage people to talk about their failuresso that the company coulfd learn from them and take steps to avoid them.
He offered prizes to the people who shared their “learning moments” through e-mails and the respondents had a chance to win fully paid vacations. This was an implementation of positive reinforcement by encouraging people to follow a particular behavior by rewarding them for it.
Apart from this the company’s “blame free” policy, motivates people to keep sharing their ideas so they are not made to shut themselves out due to the fear of negative enforcements. This helped WD-40 to learn and grow.
2.Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory
It is the best known motivation theory proposed by Abraham Maslow which involves the needs in term of:
- Physiological: Food, drink shelter, sex, and other physical requirements.Apple Inc. provides reasonable refreshment breaks, work hours, and physical comfort for their employees to work.
- Safety: Security and protection from physical emotional harm.Apple Inc. has done a great job in giving for these needs, such as base compensation, safe working conditions and benefits. They could still have improvement in job security, which is to get rid of the threat that a lot of workers afraid of losing their jobs because of their performance.
- Social: Affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship.Apple Inc. has tried to improve the environment between managers and employees. This could help the individuals to consider that the sense of belonging to be of vital importance.
- Esteem: Internal esteem factors such as status, recognition and attention.Apple Inc. satisfy their employees esteem needs by proving them responsibility for important jobs, giving chances for promotion to higher job status, and recognition from Steve Jobs. They always ensure their workers know that their contribution can help in achieving the organizational goals.
- Self-actualization: Growth, achieving one’s potential, and self-fulfillment.Apple Inc. has always provided creative and challenging work to their employees through the products they develop. If the challenging work is done perfectly, this could make their employees to feel that they are already in the place they want where their self- actualization is satisfied.
3. Positive Reinforecement
At LDF Sales and distributing, leaders came up with a program called “the Snowy slots”. This was developed by management professor Brooks Mitchell, to cut inventory costs.
In this, the workers used to receive tokens, each time they double checked the quantity of the shipments. Since LDF started using this particular model of reinforcement the costs reduced by more than 50%.
Apart from using positive reinforcements like tokens, they could have also opted negative reinforcement. It has been proven by many researchers, that negatively enforcing behavior does create a tendency of cautious behavior which drastically improves performance in most of the cases. The firm could have temporarily opted for the model, by increasing number of hours of an employee if he wrongly assesses the costs for more than once in a week.
4. Expectancy theory Vroom’s expectancy theory assumes that behavior results from conscious choices among alternatives whose purpose it is to maximize pleasure and to minimize pain. Vroom realized that an employee’s performance is based on individual factors such as personality, skills, knowledge, experience and abilities.
Theory X- is a negative perspective of people which assumes that workers lack of ambition, dislike work, run away from responsibility, and have to be closely directed to work effectively (DJ Ware, 2011).
Theory Y- is a positive perspective which assumes workers enjoy work, self-motivation, responsible and apply self-discipline.
In X Theory, workers have to be driven to involve in carrot and stick management.
Steve Jobs applied both X and Y.
Carrot and stick management was applied by Steve Jobs to develop worker’s potential. For example, when people do not stand for the Macintosh project, he fired those that stand against him and hired other great workers. In fact, he kept those who can work with him tend to be loyal such as his A team programmer, executives and designers.
Steve Job used the McGregor Y Theory. This is because he would motivate the team as a whole instead of just managing his staff. He believed that his workers would work to their full potential if given the right push which is sometimes why he treated them harshly. He believed his employees could be great and he wanted to see them succeed. For example, Ratzlaff, a creative director of Apple Inc., had created an excellent design for iMac. This new design was not supported until Steve felt impressed with his design. Steve Jobs praise Ratzlaff and he felt happy as Steve Jobs is a person with high expectation which almost no people could give him what he wanted.
But due to implementation of Y, Steve Jobs has a negative reputation for treating his employees harshly.
5.Goal Setting Theory at Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation has a long tradition of emphasizing individual goals in its performance management system to support its performance- based culture.
each year employees draft performance goals and have them approved by their managers. At the end of the year, these goals form the basis of the per- formance review documentation and discussion process
Goal-setting training stipulates the use of “SMART” criteria or attributes (i.e., Specific, Mea- surable, Achievable, Results-based, and Time-spe- cific) in writing goals.
As this theory has been proven to work well, in a company like Microsoft, it has not been very effective, and has actually failed. The main reasons of failure of this theory are - The rate of change in the company makes it difficult to set specific goals that actually fit the business needs for an entire year.
- We need a consistent process for goal align- ment/cascading. Some groups are setting up their own processes to do this.
- Managers need more training in setting SMART goals.
- Managers and employees need to meet more regularly to update progress toward achieving goals.
- In some groups, goals are assigned from the top, with little or no discussion or explanation by managers.To make it more effective, following measures can be taken by Microsoft :
- Discuss and document the commitments of all employees;
- Revisit and refresh commitments over time;
- Agree to success metrics for each commitment, including the “How?” behind execution.
- Align commitments across the company by cascading commitments, beginning with Microsoft’s commitments and connecting to organizational, team, and ultimately individual commitments;
- Drive management team calibration discussions so interdependencies and metrics are examined across individuals.6.Theory of motivation
Performance is a function of the interaction between an individual’s motivation, ability, and environment.
Zappos is known as much for its 365-day return policy and free shipping as it is for its innovative corporate culture. Zappos managed to move from number 23 in 2009 on Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list to 15 in 2010.
It is company with a 5-week training course and an offer of $2,000 to quit anytime during that 5 weeks if you feel the company is not a good fit.
CEO Tony Hsieh believes that the secret to customer loyalty is to make a corporate culture of caring a priority. This is reflected in the company’s 10 core values and its emphasis on building a team and a family.
During the interview process, applicants are asked questions relating to the company’s values, such as gauging their own weirdness, open-mindedness, and sense of family. Although the offer to be paid to quit during the training process has increased from its original number of $400, only 1% of trainees take the offer. Work is structured differently at Zappos as well. For example, there is no limit to the time customer service representatives spend on a phone call, and they are encouraged to make personal connections with the individuals on the other end rather than try to get rid of them.
Although Zappos has over 1,300 employees, the company has been able to maintain a relatively flat organizational structure and prides itself on its extreme transparency.
Although Zappos pays its employees well and offers attractive benefits such as employees receiving full health-care coverage and a compressed workweek, the desire to work at Zappos seems to go beyond that. Whether your goals are for achievement, affiliation, or simply to find an enjoyable environment in which to work, Zappos strives to address these needs.
7.Equity Theory :
The story of the founder and CEO of the Seattle-based credit card processor Gravity Payments drastically cutting his own salary in order to raise the standard of living of even his lowest paid employees was written about just about everywhere, from liberal bloggers to conservative radio hosts.
Dan Price announced that he was raising the minimum salary in his company to $70,000, it made a lot of headlines.
Inside the company itself, the reaction was generally positive. “Everyone started screaming and cheering and just going crazy,” Price told Business Insider shortly after the announcement.
Price and Gravity Payments made headlines again, after a New York Times article revealed that the company is struggling to deal with the implications of Price’s plan.
But the most damaging blow to the company was internal, as some of the most valuable employees at Gravity Payments started to leave the company.
One told the paper she was initially excited about the new policy, but as she thought about the details she began to get dismayed. “He gave raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job, and the ones who were taking on the most didn’t get much of a bump.”
This implies that, if people feel their output to benefit ratio does not match to others working in the same condition, they tend to get indifferent towards the firm.
Ways to make it work - Focus on avoiding favoritism from the start.
- Speak to employees who appear to feel that they have been treated unfairly
- Praise those who appear to lack motivation. Give employees who are struggling a little extra attention
- Change job requirements to allow for all employees to succeed. If some of your employees8.Motivation
With each new generation bringing their own quirks and eccentricities to the workforce, a slightly modified approach is required to engage employees and motivate them to perform at their peak levels.
While that tends to work well enough, the famous George Carlin quote rings true: “Most people work just hard enough not to get fired, and get paid just enough not to quit.” If the goal is to motivate people to do just enough, then a standard motivation system will be just fine. But some leaders are beginning to recognize that there has to be a better way.
Money and power will keep people at a job, but they won’t inspire the best employees to do their best work.
So, what can business leaders do? It starts by recognizing that motivation is a far more complex and individualistic ideal, involving a number of variables such as: - Doing meaningful work
- Innovating and creating things that haven’t existed previously
- Developing strong relationships with others
- Challenging oneself and overcoming obstaclesOr if another segment of employees wants to be challenged in their work, allowing them to participate in an extracurricular project internally might mean more than an automatic title jump after two years of service.
9.Disney’s Best Ever Example of Motivating Employees
The best examples of things that motivate others over the short-term almost always involve surprise and delight. Of course, long-term motivation is internally driven and is all about commitment to the cause. Nevertheless, a million years ago I heard this story from Mike Vance about his boss at the time, Walt Disney.
Walt told Mike, “My brother won’t give me money to make movies. Can you help get more money out of the park (Disneyland)?”
Mike pulled together a team of seven people. One of the women on the team put up a calendar of what happened in the park day by day. At that time, the park was open Wednesday through Sunday.
“Let’s open the park on Mondays and Tuesdays,” she suggested.
“No one will come.”
“We’ll form a “Magic Kingdom Club” and let corporate members give their employees discounted admissions on those days.”
The plan worked beyond expectations as the families that got discounted tickets spent more in the park on toys for their children.
Christmas day the doorbell rang at the homes of each of the seven team members. They each opened their door to find Mickey Mouse standing there with an envelope. Inside it were 100 shares of Disney stock, 25 $1,000 bills and a hand-written note from Walt: “It’s fantastic. You’re fantastic. Do it again.”
10.The role of leadership
Leadership is not merely about words, or simply giving incentives.
Being an effective leader year-round will also encourage employees to do their best work, whether the weather is delightfully warm or bitterly cold. You can motivate employees by combining inspiration, knowledge and rewards, said Jan Bruce, CEO and co-founder of meQuilibrium, a workforce resilience training company.
“For leaders, it’s not enough to tell employees they’re doing a good job,” Bruce said. “It’s more important to lead by example, which is inspiring; to share knowledge, so others might use it; and to reward people who do well, to let them know that they’re valued. For an employee, feeling valued is one of the most important things.”
The second employees question their purpose, there will likely be a loss of motivation and excitement to continue producing, and good work will also drop off, Bruce said.
Hence, as seen during the course of subject, leadership is not as simple as words, it requires a series of actions to be followed