Essay on "Motivation Is Critical to Success and Good"

Essay 3 pages (1190 words) Sources: 3 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

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… READ MORE

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