Times have changed, but motivating the workforce is still a paradox.  The concept of motivation going fluid these days, the levels of motivation differs in individuals as well as in interpersonal relationships.

Motivation is defined as the energetic forces or its sets and subsets originating within and beyond a human’s being that will help in initiating the job related behavior in determining the intensity, direction and duration (Pinder, 2008). While intensity points to the hardness or the hardenability, if not channeled to the right direction, it will go in unfavorable directions or as wasted energy.  The duration of persistence, dimension of motivation is the time span an individual is able to maintain the effort for intensity and direction.  Needless to say, for intrinsically motivated individuals, this period of persistence or duration is maintained long enough to achieve individual and organizational goals.  The 1950’s laid the foundation for theories of motivation.  The hierarchy of needs, from physiological, safety-security, social-belongingness, esteem, self-actualization was originally explained from the premise of levels and that when one is fulfilled, the other becomes dominant (Maslow, 1943).  Due to its simplicity and also validation from research studies, Maslow’s theory received wide acceptance at those times.

The dichotomy of good or bad feelings in the job context, was explored and led to the motivation hygiene theory which is customarily known as two-factor theory by Fredrick Hertzberg (1964;3-7).  The supposition is quite interesting in that Hertzberg negates the traditional belief of satisfaction and the antonym dissatisfaction, but proposes the duality of satisfaction or no satisfaction and dissatisfaction or no dissatisfaction as a continuum.  Needless to say the theory postulates that eliminating the factors of dissatisfaction need not bring in motivation.  The adequacy of hygiene factors (pay, policy, ergonomics, inter and intra relationships, security, quality) at the workplace diminishes dissatisfaction, but does not address motivation.  That being so, motivation is driven by outcomes that are directly derived from the job itself like, promotion, personal growth, recognition, responsibility and opportunities for achievement.

The theoretical underpinning of needs, stated the factors or important aspects of motivation as achievement needs (nAch), power needs (nPow), and affiliation needs (nAff) (McClelland, 1987). This theory is backed by research more so in cultures with power distance (Emmerick, Gardner, Wendt, et al., 2010).

At times, the feeling of dissatisfaction at an individual level is seen as counterintuitive, the self-determination theory posits that, a task that was freely chosen and enjoyed by an individual, when converted as obligatory, the motivation to do that task is undermined (Gagne & Deci, 2005).  Driven by a need to compete, excel and connect, autonomy is a desired attribute, for affective and attitudinal deliverables and outcomes, while competence naturally predicts performance (den Broeck, Ferris, Chang & Rosen, 2016).

Addressing challenges, the intention to focus on goals, in itself is a source of motivation (Locke & Latham, 2002).  The goal setting theory (Locke, 1968) underpins that while each goal and its specificity increases the performance, the more challenging the goals are, the higher the performance will be, and the feedback is like a moderator for the performance, since each individual believe that he/she is capable of performing the task (Bandura, 1986, 1987) with focus and competence.  This self-efficacy theory (1977) is a subset of Bandura’s social cognitive theory, SET (1986, 1997), wherein the key behavioral determinants are self-efficacy and outcome expectancies (Sutton, 2001).  Bandura also proposed (Anderson & Betz, 2001) enactive mastery, vicarious modeling, verbal persuasion and arousal as ways to increase self-efficacy.  Needless to say the Pygmalion effect (Paul, 2013) makes this a motivating factor for goal fulfillment.

Motivation is not a strategy or an initiative, but an imperative and a drive to take bold action to challenge old patterns of behavior to build and lead the way for performance and  outcomes.

​​

​