Bulls Eye

AS we know from the Hygiene Theory of motivation that achievement is one of the factor which increases job satisfaction. A sense of achievement gives us strength and builds our confidence but at the same time it is very important that the achievement which we are trying to chase is valued by not only us but others also. Goal setting theory just works with that argument. Valued by the organization targets are given to the employee or the targets are defined by the employee itself. In a survey of organizational behavior scholars, Goal Setting Theory has been rated as the most important theory but it has to be conducted very carefully considering certain things in mind like regular feedback, ability of the employee chasing the goal, goal commitment of the employee.

Microsoft Corporation has a long tradition of emphasizing individual goals in its performance management system to support its performance based culture. Due to number of reasons like economic and competitive pressures and several exhaustive legal challenges to its business practices, the CEO of the company Steave Balmer instituted several changes in the organization’s structure and processes to ensure the success of Microsoft in future. The PM system review team conducted an audit of over 1500 employee annual performance review forms using the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Aggressive, Realistic, Time Bound) criteria to assess the quality of employee goals. The annual performance review includes the employee’s goal for the year, employee’s and manager’s review regarding the goal and official employee’s performance rating. Results were very astonishing: -

·         25% of all employees had not included “specific” goals on their annual review form: -

A person without a specific goal is just like a ship without rudder. Chasing something makes a lot sense when we know what we are chasing.

·         Only about 40 per cent were estimated measurable: -

Effective goals are more quantifiable. It someone knows the specific goals the performance is inclined to be higher.

·         The goals were more activity-focused than focused on results, and it was hard to see alignment with broader organizational or company goals: -

Giving employees goals that are not aligned with company goals will be a problem, because goals will direct employees' energies to a certain end. How can the big ship go in a specific decided direction unless all crew members of the ship does not want to go in that direction?

To explore the reasons for ineffective goal setting the PM review team conducted focus groups with managers and employees at different levels and at different regions worldwide. Some of the findings and their relationship with OB concepts were: -

·         Managers and employees need to meet more regularly to update progress toward achieving goals. This is the feedback part which is very important as the manager comes to know the progress of the employee towards the goal and gets enlighten by the challenges and conflicts faced by the employee. It really enhances the information of manager about the employee’s personality and gives the hint that how a specific employee can be motivated towards the goal.

·         The findings indicated that many concepts and condition were not present for many employees at Microsoft. Goals direct attention, energize people, influence persistence, effort, and work pace. So, some of the essential SMART Goal motivators were missing from the employees. It was difficult to know what directed their attention, energy, and efforts.

·         Managers need more training in setting SMART goals. It was clear that it is important to stick with the SMART goals as this is the motto of the company. Managers at Microsoft often motivate people to discover new ways to achieve the goal which were aberrant as per Microsoft’s goal.

Microsoft leaders concluded that goals are viewed as hopes rather than genuine commitment and it is imperative to have commitment with the goal. Thus the first change that was made was to combine the two by changing the actual language from ‘goals’ to ‘commitments.’ The commitment terminology came directly from leaders who believed that when an employee makes a commitment, there is a greater level of accountability to meet that commitment. To support the CEO’s plan to drive a culture of accountability, this language change was important. Along with that some important things were taken care like regular communication with manager, alignment commitment across the company by cascading commitments all over the organization.

In a nutshell one can say that along with the other causes Feedback and Commitment were the reasons of the ineffective practice of Goal Setting theory and company recognized it and worked on the essential parts of it.

By: - Vashisth Sharma

Team 4

Enterprise Rent-A-Car - A success story in motivation

Motivation is the desire to achieve a goal or a certain performance level, leading to goal- directed behavior. Motivation is particular to an individual so it is important to find out what factors drive each person. Some employees may be motivated by working in a team whereas others could be driven by a desire to make a difference. In this blog I will be throwing light on how Enterprise Rent-A-Car (Enterprise) has succeeded in creating the right environment for motivating and engaging its people through the development of good communication channels, appropriate training and honest and timely feedback.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car provides a car rental service for customers. It was founded by Jack Taylor in 1957 in the basement of a car dealership in St Louis in the USA. Today the company has over 750,000 rental cars in service globally. The company runs on a very strong customer service and only a highly motivated staff will provide this quality of service. The company uses a simple customer satisfaction survey – the Enterprise Service Quality index (ESQi) - to find out how satisfied its customers are. It is based on two simple questions:          

1. Were you completely satisfied with your rental experience at Enterprise?
2.  Given the opportunity to return to Enterprise, would you?

Enterprise knows that to perform well on the ESQi it needs to have motivated employees. Motivational theorist Frederick Taylor believed that workers needed close supervision and were only motivated by money. However, Enterprise-Rent-A-Car has identified a number of factors which are non-financial and which provide high levels of motivation for its employees. According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model, there is a hierarchy of needs that people want to fulfill through their work. At the lowest levels they require good pay so their basic needs for food, clothing and other essentials are met. However, in addition employees’ needs include:

• safety - a need to feel secure, e.g. through job security or personal protective equipment
• social - a need for affection, e.g. friendly work places based on trust, support and encouragement
• self-esteem - a need for self-respect and the respect of others, e.g. recognition and promotion
• self-actualization - the opportunity for personal fulfillment, e.g. learning new skills and working towards personal goals.

As part of its motivation programme, Enterprise managers are expected to ensure that employees are engaged and motivated by:

·         developing good relationships with their staff (this satisfies the social needs of the employee as per Maslow’s hierarchy of needs)

·          providing the right materials, equipment and information

·          encouraging employees to identify personal development targets (this satisfies the employee’s self-esteem and self-actualization needs)

·          recognizing and rewarding good performance. (satisfies employee’s self-esteem needs)

Enterprise also recognizes that motivated employees benefit the company by:

·         working with passion

·         coming up with new innovative ideas

·         moving the company forward.

Enterprise takes good care in developing and sustaining a positive work environment.  Enterprise‘s culture is based on having motivated people working every day to deliver the best service for customers. Managers and team leaders provide a culture through:

• Good relationships – managers take care of their employees. They try to find out about the employee’s expectations .They give clear directions and the team has fun together.
• Clear communications – clear goals and expectations are set and plans are shared. Reasons for doing things are clearly explained so employees can see how they fit into the big picture.
•  Adequate resources – managers make sure that materials, equipment and information are provided and fit for purpose.
• Encouragement – employees are praised for doing the right thing. Frustrations and problems are acknowledged. The focus is on working towards goals.
• Recognition – effort and good performance are rewarded. By establishing best practice, it is possible for Enterprise to measure branch culture against the benchmarks or standards it has set.

Developing a motivating culture takes time and effort. Enterprise managers and team leaders are given in-depth training. This allows them to develop a strategic, long-term approach to building a culture of customer care through motivated people. Everyone at Enterprise takes part in Motivation Training. This gives employees an understanding of motivation principles and techniques, so everyone‘s goals are in sync with the corporate goals as well.

Team leaders need to understand the needs of the people they manage to ensure they apply the right motivating factors for individuals. During training, managers learn to assess the motivation culture of their branch. For example, a branch with highly motivated employees may demonstrate this by:

•  answering the phone before the working day starts
• working together as a team
• regularly attending social work functions together
• arriving early every day
• organizing and preparing the office at the end of the day.

Employees are aware of the benefits of high levels of performance, such as recognition and promotion, but also the consequences of poor performance.

Frederick Herzberg showed that real motivation comes from within. Factors like good pay and working conditions (his ‘hygiene factors’) stop employees from being dissatisfied. However it is the opportunity to set personal targets and to develop oneself that are the true motivators. Within Enterprise, a number of de-motivating factors have been identified. These include:

•  a lack of organization or structure
• a lack of feedback
• a lack of understanding why a task is important
• a lack of consequences for poor performance.                                                                             

Managers are therefore trained to identify and work to reduce these within their branches. This may be by effective communication, training or clear guidance on job standards.

Recognition, one of Herzberg’s motivators, is important for employees to feel they are valued. To address this, Enterprise has introduced a system called ‘The Vote’. This aims to support and encourage the development of exceptional customer service. It works on the basis of co-workers providing assessment on themselves and each other. All employees in rental branches rank everyone in their team, including themselves, in terms of their customer service efforts. They provide a constructive explanation of the rankings given. These are then fed back to all employees. The names of the best performer and most improved employee are communicated to all employees in the region. This is a way of recognizing those employees who are delivering exceptional service and identifying those who may need additional motivation.

‘The Vote’ helps to achieve high ESQi scores because:

•  everyone is involved in suggesting improvements to others
• only constructive feedback is allowed
•  progress reports are issued regularly to remind fellow employees on how to improve.
•  improvement is valued as much as overall performance.

 A motivated workforce does not just happen. People need to be encouraged. This requires skilfull management and managers trained in motivation. Systems also need to be created which encourage employees to be more engaged with their jobs.

The table below shows how Enterprise highlights the differences between engaged employees and those who are not motivated:

Enterprise managers look for employees showing signs of disengagement so they can take immediate action. For example, they may remind employees why they are valuable.

They may also ask questions like:

·         How does your task and position fit your goals?

·         What could we do better?

By actively listening to the employee’s ideas, they may be able to make changes that will motivate the employee. Enterprise encourages managers to motivate their teams

throughout the working day. This involves:

·         making sure the team understands the objectives and target for the day (taking into account any constraints such as short staffing)

·         monitoring progress at mid-day and giving constructive feedback on how to make the rest of the day run smoothly

·          thanking and acknowledging each person’s achievement for that day and creating enthusiasm for the next day’s work.

Enterprise managers recognize that motivation is personal to the individual. If employees feel that they are being treated fairly, they will be more likely to give their best. Motivation comes from within an individual. Enterprise managers therefore need to find out about the personal goals and aspirations of their employees. What motivates one employee will not necessarily motivate another.

By

Sonu Soney Joseph

Does Steve Jobs Build Supermen?

It is easy to follow the news and get the impression that Steve Jobs is a super genius, working in a secret location, like Tony Stark, working late into the night to create the next blockbuster product that will change the world.  This, of course, is nothing like the truth.  He is just one man, he could not possibly be responsible for creating, designing, programing, every product that has come out of Apple.  For a more accurate picture of the way Apple works, you have to imagine that he is in charge of around 15,000 workers, and on a day to day basis only contacts about 100 people within the organization.  Of course Steve Jobs is incredibly important to the company, but it is not he who creates these wonderful products but rather it is his team and organization.  You may ask yourself, if Steve Jobs is not the super genius, that you thought he is, then he must have a super intelligent staff of Supermen or Superwomen that invent and create for him.  Before we jump to conclusions lets examine further how Apples organization produces super results.

If you had the chance to as Steve Jobs what type of people he hires you might think, "of course, the smartest".  Now you would be right in thinking this.  Steve Jobs hires very smart people, and according to our major predictors of job performance General Mental Abilities is the most important factors affecting Job Performance.  However, Steve Jobs hires from a pool of intelligent people.  The difference between getting a job at Apple and not getting the job, among similar smart people would be love for Apple. Yes, Love!  Steve job consistently hires people who are in love or are capable of falling in love with Apple. Steve Jobs himself is very much in love with Apple.

So, how does love relate to organizational behavior and creating wonderful products?  First of all, employees who love what they do are motivated by intrinsic motivation not extrinsic motivation.  They are not working because of money, or a longer vacation.  Something that exists inside themselves motivates them and that makes all the difference.  According to Frederick Herzberg's two factor theory, at Apple a workers Hygne Factors are met by a good salary and working conditions, but more importantly his Motivating Factors are met by interesting and important work.

The most important reason Apple is able to attract exceptional workers is that at Apple they control their own Hardware, Operating System, and Software.  Only at Apple are those things under one roof and the best workers come to Apple because only at Apple can they make great products that can be streamlined.  You could say that according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs the programers and engineers can try to fulfill the two highest of needs on the pyramid.  Esteem is satisfied in the fact that they work for hottest and desirable, and well know companies in the world. 

More importantly they are trying to fulfill the need of self actualization.  These programers and engineers are trying to create something more important than themselves.  Steve Jobs has repeatedly said that death is a very important motivating factor at his company.  He is aware of death and our limited time here on earth and therefore he demands that they should create the best products they can while they are still alive. 

Steve Jobs has created a culture recognizing Love and Death.  These factors go beyond salary, vacation time, and status.  This is how Apple has created products that have a cult like following.  This is also, how Steve Jobs has been able to motivate employees to the highest of their abilities.  And therefore Steve Jobs creates Supermen and Superwomen by being able to recruit the best employees and motivate them by appealing to the highest needs of self actualization.




By, Brodie M.

Why should Piggy get his glasses back?

Why should Piggy get his glasses back?

What determines our perceptions of equity? Holding a perception that your employer is fair, and that your efforts will produce a desirable result is not just an aspect of motivation, but a determiner if you actually stay at an employer.

We know from the text, and probably our personal experience, that personality and culture has some effect on perceptions of equity. The text discusses that German and America workers expect more input into business decisions than other cultures to feel motivated and equitably treated. The Japanese expect more equal rewards than other cultures. On an individual level, people have different levels of sensitivity toward equality. Benevolents will tolerate higher levels of inequity, Sensitives have strict codes of equity and Entitleds have no tolerance for inequity, at least for themselves!

Is the need to have our inputs actually deserving of appropriate outcomes innate or socialized? Our perceptions of self-esteem and justice appear socialized. We observe them selectively, processing them into our belief systems, then store them for a time when we are faced with a situation that requires them. But are we all just an imprint of our personality and culture? Would someone raised in a “Lord of Flies” like world still perceive that their inputs should deserve a requisite output, or would they simply be the socialized to their unbalanced world? In the book “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” Ishmael Beah chronicles his life as a boy soldier in Africa. What struck me about the book was how fundamentally unfair his life was, and how unfair it was to anyone who could have been in his referent group for perceiving equity.

The ancient Greeks believed that the gods would play trick on humans. This made life unfair, but putting a mythological reasoning for it made it tolerable. To put it in a motivational sense, inputs could not be expected to produce a fair output, because life was not fair. This was true for the entire cultural (referent) group. Yet thankfully the Greeks maintained an inner sense of what could be fair, and from this I think much of Western philosophy springs. The character “Piggy” in “Lord of the Flies” was victimized as much by the value of his glasses being useful to start fires (which were eventually stolen and his attempt to retrieve them caused his demise) as by his internal sense that things could be better than they were.

So I will ask the question, and hopefully someone will respond, are we capable of achieving a higher understanding of what is fair, or are we just a product of our environment and disposition? Do we have a soul, or are we just the nuts and bolt of our bodies and society? Did Piggy have the right to ask for his glasses back?

Christian Hunt

Introduction

Our team members are:

Brodie Monical

Christian Hunt

Sonu Soney Joseph

Vashisth Sharma

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

-        Martin Luther King, Jr.

Literally, motivation is the desire to do things. It’s a vital element in setting and attaining goals. It's the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement and lazing around the house all day. The importance of motivation in business cannot be overstated and it is important because it is the psychological catalyst employees require to reach the goal. In this blog we will be citing and discussing on various recent examples in the corporate/business world showing how they have succeeded or failed to motivate their employees and possibly suggest ways to improve them. We invite all to contribute their ideas, concerns and suggestions.