Motivation
What Motivates Us?Ethics in Business
By
Roberto Roman
BU 200
Introduction to Business
Chaminade University of Honolulu
Date (May 3April 17, 2013
Motivation
Motivation plays a key role in the daily lives of most people. A well-motivated individual will be more attentive, efficient, hardworking, and happy. So what leads a person to be motivated? How can one obtain motivation? Maintain it? How is having a personal drive, or goals motivators for you in the work place or private life? When we look at what drives people to satisfy needs, there are two things that aid, and that is having intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Personal satisfaction is what helps to motivate some while others prefer things such as promotions or pay raises. According to Amit J. Shah of Frostburg State University, people gain motivation in a variety of ways whether through interpersonal relations, personal satisfaction, compensation or benefits. It is not uncommon to be motivated by multiple things. Most people would be satisfied with their work and would love compensation at the same time. A recent study was done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where a group of the country’s top economists were put through a behavioral study. Dan Pink explains in the video “Drive” that people are not as predictable as they seem. The thinking is that if you reward behavior you get more of what you want versus punishing behavior getting less of what you want. The study showed that when it came to mechanical tasks, a higher reward led to better performance and when it came to cognitive tasks the same type of high reward led to poorer performance. This is what led many experts to believe that having autonomy is better than being directed every step of the way. Autonomy leads to empowerment in the workforce. An autonomous individual will produce more when not enticed with
By
Roberto Roman
BU 200
Introduction to Business
Chaminade University of Honolulu
Date (May 3April 17, 2013
Motivation
Motivation plays a key role in the daily lives of most people. A well-motivated individual will be more attentive, efficient, hardworking, and happy. So what leads a person to be motivated? How can one obtain motivation? Maintain it? How is having a personal drive, or goals motivators for you in the work place or private life? When we look at what drives people to satisfy needs, there are two things that aid, and that is having intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Personal satisfaction is what helps to motivate some while others prefer things such as promotions or pay raises. According to Amit J. Shah of Frostburg State University, people gain motivation in a variety of ways whether through interpersonal relations, personal satisfaction, compensation or benefits. It is not uncommon to be motivated by multiple things. Most people would be satisfied with their work and would love compensation at the same time. A recent study was done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where a group of the country’s top economists were put through a behavioral study. Dan Pink explains in the video “Drive” that people are not as predictable as they seem. The thinking is that if you reward behavior you get more of what you want versus punishing behavior getting less of what you want. The study showed that when it came to mechanical tasks, a higher reward led to better performance and when it came to cognitive tasks the same type of high reward led to poorer performance. This is what led many experts to believe that having autonomy is better than being directed every step of the way. Autonomy leads to empowerment in the workforce. An autonomous individual will produce more when not enticed with
References: Pink, Dan (2010) Drive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc Shah, A.J. (2011) Business Now, New York: McGraw-Hill Vandamme, Lisa (2010) Motivation and education Capitalism Magazine http://capitalismmagazine.com/2010/06/motivation-and-educationhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/tykiisel/2013/01/30/82-percent-of-people-dont-trust-the-boss-to-tell-the-truth/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2012/10/24/spotting-toxic-emotions-before-they-infect-you-at-work/ http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/26/weekinreview/the-not-so-neutrals-of-world-war-ii.html