Seeds of De-Motivation

Free trips, annual bonuses, giving time off seems nice to a person who never had them, aren’t they? While these types of extrinsic rewards may cause a short-term burst of productivity, they also contain the seed for de-motivation in the long term.  Now let us imagine an employee who starts getting these extrinsic awards every time he performs well. He keeps on doing well even in bad economic times. He will not get those probably now and the unsatisfactory level of the employee rises because once they are awarded, they become expected. Company’s profit will dictate the terms of these awards. A ladder with rungs of dissatisfactions leads to the ceiling of De-motivation.

            So how managers prevent that to happen? A noted psychologist and one of the most influential names in business management, Herzberg's research showed that real motivators include achievement, recognition, meaningful work, responsibility, advancement and growth which is also called 'The Two-Factor Theory of Motivation'. Effective managers invest time in knowing people also. They not only focus on tasks but they focus on people also. Some managers do make the mistake that they care about work a lot more than people. This makes the employee feel insignificant. Every individual has a subconscious need that his work should be appreciated by others because recognition is a kind of feedback which lets the employee knows that his work is meaningful.

            Why do we want that our work should be meaningful? It is because every time we do something we want to add a value to ourselves. We look that what we are adding to the society. In order to make the employee’s work more meaningful a manager should make the transition from problem solver to coach. He lets the employee take charge of the problem and provide support and delegation. This not only makes the employee feel that he is adding value also the manager is allowing his employee to flourish to a new level, as a professional and as an individual too. This offers a greater level of satisfaction to an employee as compared to short term extrinsic awards. This style of managers can also be termed as ‘The Transformational Leadership style’ as the leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation.

Another thing which is very important from the standpoint of a manager is to be supportive towards employees which are sincere.  Jack Welch (Former Chairman and CEO of General Electric) was once asked in an interview that “Did you have a particular boss who inspired you?” He replied in his first job he had a disaster once when a plant blew up in Pittsfield. He had to go down to Connecticut to see his bosses and explain what had happened. He was expecting criticism, people yelling at him, get fired but they couldn't have been more supportive and encouraging to him which motivated him towards his work and leveraged his loyalty towards GE.