Business Management: Management/Strategic Planning

Business Management: Management/Strategic Planning

Motivation is a critical part of business management, which entails giving the employees reasons for acting in a particular way. The manager of a business needs to engage in motivational activities to improve the employees’ willingness to work towards achieving the objectives and the goals that the business organization has set effectively(Abyad, 2018). It’s about doing what one can to encourage the employees to do the very best in their work. When the employees are motivated, they work better as they care about the business’s success, and thus they work better. This causes an increase in output and, therefore, an increase in the organization’s productivity and success in the goals it has set. This paper seeks to review several motivation theories or ideas in the context of the business environment.

Whether any of the theories are useful in motivating me

There are various theories of motivation, including McClelland’s theory, which is about the need for affiliation, power, and achievement, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which stipulates that a person will only be motivated if their needs get met; Hertzberg’s two-factor theory which is about ensuring that the hygiene factors and the motivating factors have to be met for the employee to be satisfied and factors of motivation to be met for the employees to be both satisfied with their work and motivated to give the best (Abyad, 2018). Vroom’s expectancy theory states that people will be motivated highly are two conditions are met, including people believing that their efforts will lead to success and people believing that they will get rewarded for success. McGregor’s theory X and theory Y is another motivation theory that provides that the workplace comprises people of different natures. Each of them needs to get managed accordingly.

Theory X provides that people at the workplace are inherently lazy, and thus, a strong and top down control style is the most appropriate. Theory Y provides that workers are inherently eager and motivated to work. Thus a manager should focus on creating a work environment that is productive with positive reinforcements and rewards. The theory that will be most effective in motivating me is Maslow’s theory about the hierarchy of needs, which provides that the employees will get highly motivated if the organization is meeting their needs. This is because in meeting my needs as an employee, the company will be able to ensure that the environment in which I work is comfortable for me to provide efficient services. When I have nothing to complain about in my personal and work environment, I will be able to give the best I can to keep my job by giving the best to the company I work for. When I feel accepted and have control of my work in the business, I will be motivated to produce the best.

Example of effective use of the theory by a manager to motivate me

There is an instance where the manager of my company used Maslow’s needs theory to motivate me (Jonas, 2016). This happened in the organization when we were working on a project to enhance the quality of our products. The manager put me in charge of the project and trusting me to deliver quality; he allowed me to make all the major decisions concerning the project, including choosing my own team. All the resources that I needed to make the project a success was availed to me, allowing me to meet the desired outcome. Having given control over my own work with no interference of the manager and feeling accepted in terms of my skills to produce the best, I felt motivated to do well so that I do not disappoint the manger that had trusted the company and me as a whole as it was looking up to me to make the best decisions for the company’s success. The manager ensured that the work environment I was in was comfortable enough with every need addressed.

The situation where an attempted motivational tool did not work

While the motivational tools often work on employees in the business, there is a situation where it failed to work on the employees in the business organization I work for. The manager of the organization, in attempting to motivate the employees to give the best. The manager applied McGregor’s theory X based on the fact that he treated the employees in accordance with their nature. In this case, the manager addressed the employees who appeared to be lazy harshly and aggressively, thinking that they will be pushed to work hard. Instead, the employees became fearful of the manager because they could not communicate with the manager in instances where they needed assistance to complete a particular task. This led to poor outcomes arising from the poor relationship and communication between the manager and the employees. In applying theory Y, The manager only created division among the employees as the manager appeared to focus more on meeting the needs of the employees that are highly motivated instead of finding ways to motivate the low performers to perform better. The manager seemed to be favoring the already motivated employees. With this, the performance of the company became even worse.

Explanation of the second example

The Aspect about the second example that made it not work is the fact that instead of the manager using ways that are positive to motivate the lazy employees so that they can rise to the same level as the motivated employees, the manger caused the lazy employees to have fear and do their work out of fear, with no courage to ask for help in areas where they needed it. The employees ended up being demotivated, causing poor productivity (Neisig, 2019). The approach that the manager used in motivating the employees and communicating what he wanted them to do created fear instead of motivation to be better, leading to poor outcomes in the organization’s performance.

References

Abyad, A. (2018). Project management, motivation theories, and process management. Middle East Journal of Business, 13(4), 18-22.

Jonas, J. (2016). Making practical use of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory to motivate employees: a case of Masvingo Polytechnic. Journal of Management & Administration, 2016(2), 105-117.

Neisig, M. (2019). When motivation theories create demotivation and impair productivity. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 5(3), 149-152.