MGT 501 Lesson 3 ESSAY

MGT 501 Lesson 3

Motivation, Job Design, and Implications for the Work of Managing

Objectives of This Presentation

Motivation Theories

Principles of Job Design, and Their Underlying Justification

Implications for the Work of Management

Motivation Theories

From the text (Chapter 7), here are the three key elements of motivation:

Intensity: How hard a person tries

Direction: What is the person exerting his or her efforts to do? (Is this effort productive or not, relative to an organization’s goals?)

Persistence: Given the intensity of a person’s effort, how long can he or she keep it up?

If we define productive effort as effort that is directed to the goals of an organization, then we see that “motivation” as defined here is “motivation to supply productive effort.”

Motivation Theories

Some classical theories of motivation include:

Maslow (“hierarchy of needs”)

Herzberg (“hygiene” vs. “motivational” needs)

McClelland (needs for achievement, power, and affiliation dominate human motivation at work)

After reviewing these and some contemporary theories, the authors write (see next slide):

Motivating

Factors

Hygiene

Factors

Motivation Theories

“What does all this mean? For individuals, it means you should choose your job for reasons other than extrinsic rewards. For organizations, it means managers should provide intrinsic as well as extrinsic incentives. Managers need to make the work interesting, provide recognition, and support employee growth and development. Employees who feel that what they do is within their control and a result of free choice are likely to be more motivated by their work and committed to their employers.” (Robbins and Judge 2018 105)

In the remainder of this presentation, we will focus on what managers need to do to “make the work interesting.” This leads to the issue of job design…

Principles of Job Design and Their Justification

Once we have taken care of the “hygiene” issues of living, what matters to us as human beings?

We want to belong

We want to be respected

We want our achievements to be recognized

Behind these wants is a set of even more basic wants:

We want to “look good” (or at least not “bad”) to other people

We want to “look good” (or at least not “bad”) to ourselves

Principles of Job Design and Their Justification

When we give other people praise (or blame) for their actions, we assume that

They had the intention to perform the action (that is, they had a plan)

They had control over how they executed the action

If either planning or control is limited (or removed) from the performer of a task, will he or she be praised or blamed (if the action is a “bad” one)?

Why is this important to job design?

Principles of Job Design and Their Justification

Frederick Taylor and “Scientific Management”

In the early 1900s, Frederick Taylor performed experiments and published his ideas on “scientific management.” (Taylor, 1912)

Here are the fundamental principles of “scientific management”:

There is “one best way” to perform any task

But people who do the work are not generally inclined to seek this “one best way”

Therefore, the design of work processes should be taken from the worker and handed over to professionals, who specialize in job design

They used to be called “efficiency experts,” or “industrial engineers.” Nowadays their work is often called “process engineering.”

Principles of Job Design and Their Justification

The result of Taylor’s philosophy was the removal, over much of the 20th century, of the “planning” element of the jobs of people who do physical (and even clerical) work

Now, in order to be “intrinsically” motivated, we need at minimum to be able to take pride in our work, which means we need to be able to say to ourselves “I am proud of what I just did because I designed and then executed what I just did. I am not just a pair of hands without a brain.”

If the planning part of a task is taken from them, they will not be able to claim responsibility for their performance, except for one thing…

But before we determine what that “one thing” is, let’s consider an example.

Principles of Job Design and Their Justification

Example of Taylor’s Principles Gone Too Far: The Automatic Brush Welding Machine Operator*

The only decision left for the incumbent of this job is to stay awake!

For “over-engineered” jobs, the only decision the person doing the work may have left is that of how much effort to supply.

Consider: How could the operator take “pride” in a job like this?

Over-engineering jobs will reduce the productive effort supply of workers (as was discovered during the last half of the 20th century); this is illustrated in the next slide…

*Note: This is described in the video for this lesson.

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Principles of Job Design and Their Justification

This diagram is from Figure 15-2, Chapter 15 of Robbins and Judge (2018)

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Principles of Job Design and Their Justification

The movie, “Modern Times” (1936), starring the legendary comic, Charlie Chaplin, illustrates what we have been discussing here. For your entertainment and enlightenment, you can follow the link below and watch it for few minutes…

The theme of this movie is…?*

*Note: What is the “human cost” of Scientific Management?

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Principles of Job Design and Their Justification

Hackman and Oldham’s (1980) Job Characteristics Model (JCM) was an attempt to fix the problems created by too much “Taylorism” by re-designing jobs so they would be more suitable to human beings. Here are their 5 elements of job design (see Ch. 8, section 1, p. 121):

Skill variety

Task identity

Task significance

Autonomy

Feedback

Principles of Job Design and Their Justification

Comments on Hackman and Oldham’s JCM

They at least understood that people need to take pride in their work—that we are not meant to be “just a set of hands” that exist just do the bidding of others

And while their model opens up a great conversation, it is possible to find flaws in it (this might be a good exercise for you)

Having read the book the year it was published (and then trying to apply to a real factory), here is what I learned about job design:

Principles of Job Design and Their Justification

A person will be motivated to maximize productive effort if

He understands and can explain, if asked, the connection between his daily work routines and the company’s mission, relative to its customers.

He believes the company’s products and services are worthy of his best efforts.

He understands how his actions affect those of other people who work for the company.

He gets to participate, up to his level of competence, in the design of work processes in his work unit.*

He sees himself not just as he is, but as what he is “becoming.”

These principles, if you think about them, contain almost everything mentioned in Chapter 8.

*Note: This can be called the “Fundamental Principle of Engagement.” We will return to this as the course goes on.

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Implications for Management Work

The work of management is to help subordinates to make the connections listed on the previous slide.

It involves investment of time and effort on management’s part, but the investment pays off, as is indicated by the Gallup Report of 2013 (see Chapter 7, section 5)

In order for this investment to be efficient, management has to have the “trust” of employees (more on this next lesson…)

In addition, there are “structural” decisions a management team can make that help attain these objectives:

Job rotation

The creation of “job families” (Levels of expertise are rewarded by offering higher classifications for employees who attain them)—see Chapter 8 section 5 (8.5)

Involvement in continuous process improvement activities (more on this later in the course)

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Implications for Management Work

Every teacher knows this about students: “If you do not care about me, I won’t care about what you teach.”

Every manager needs to know this too: “If you don’t care about me, why should I care about your goals?”

But if I believe you care,* I will “trust” you.

And if I trust that you care, I will provide the gift of “extra” productive effort (by the Norm of Reciprocity).

Consider this…

To what extent does it apply to you?

See you in the next lesson.

*Note: If I am a manager and I care about you, then your well-being becomes a factor in my decision-making. That is, if your well-being decreases, I will feel bad.

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End of Lesson 3—Thank You!

References

Gallup, Inc. (2013). State of the American workplace. Gallop.com.

Hackman, J. Richard, and Greg R. Oldham (1980). Work redesign. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Krone, Charles G. (1975). Open systems redesign. From John D. Adams (ed.) (1975). New Technologies in Organizational Development: 2. La Jolla. California: University Associates.

Mead, George Herbert (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2018). Essentials of organizational behavior. New York, NY : Pearson

Taylor, Frederick Winslow (1912). Scientific Management. Hanover, New Hampshire: Dartmouth College.