Second Take On Motivation!

Motivation, motivation, and more motivation, everywhere I go I see the word motivation used to increase the efficiency of workers. Getting down into further dynamics of our so called “Motivation”, I came across the extremes of motivation, such kind are found only in the high motivation places and they are divided in to 2 classes, either that motivation yields you big opportunity or its some threat to the company. If you are thinking this in serious terms, let me tell you this type of occasions doesn’t take place in a common workplace, you are absolutely located somewhere in the middle of the spectrum where personal stakes are relatively low unless your company came across a major disaster, you should be okay otherwise it gets difficult to sustain high level of motivation in such situations. So its obvious from a common laymen’s point of view to get attracted towards the opportunities of life rather than the threat side of motivation.

When you have some opportunity, you survive and most of the times we see supervisors making undue advantages by giving casual threats, you cannot just motivate your employees by frightening them, isn’t it? But to some extent, it feels beneficial as they feel threat coming close to them, it pushes them hard to turn to survival side of the game i.e., the motivation curve. Threats are basically used by managers to move people away from high motivation by opportunities, there are many such examples which I came across, but in the end its no use, using threats as a motivating factors, in fact its one of the biggest de-motivating factors. So here is one question for all the managers, do they see any benefits while using threats as a motivation to their employees? Most of them would deny to the above questions, of course, no one wants to be pinned at threatening his employees but many employees do have complaints regarding their managers holding threats on them on a regular basis in the work place.

After analyzing the situation and workplace of employees in one organization, the majority of answers I got is, yes, managers use threats so as to withhold the opportunities and make them do what they want them to do. Employees have no reason to speak wrong, if you give threats that mean you really do. If you think as a manager from particular point of view that drives your behavior in making them do something in your manner but what you perceive might be irrelevant and these are the employees who better know their work than you do. My advise to managers is, to get in to their employees shoes and perceive how they would feel, then you would better understand what impression they have about you, may be unknowingly, you threaten them without you having such an intention.

As the famous trainer for behavioral sciences, Ken Blanchard says that “motivation is a 6 inch job, everything comes down to the space between the ears. So its all what people hear and think about it that matters, everything else is a surplus. Now, let us discuss some points in brief as to what words, actions or comments do people think as threats:

1. The monthly or annual meetings, where managers tell their employees about their performances and what raise they will get and the bigger threat is whether they will or will not get the raise at all.
2. During the allocation of rewards and incentives, the managers have full control over the allocation of prizes, believe me, majority of them will pay attention to the people who didn’t get the awards and so they feel that they are being withheld because they didn’t suck up to or go kissing asses of their bosses.
3. The bonus programs are much bigger a threat where employee is given choices if he wants to attend it or not, and if he says no, he is told he wont get the bonus or he wouldn’t be promoted later.
4. The supervisors who always have less time in their hands to show their project reports often tell their employees, if the task is not done within specified period of time, his job is gone. This is a threat-based motivation.
5. When an employee is new or whether he is not able to understand the process and the manager really gets wild on his threatening him that this all will go in to his file, an employee feels dismissed and gets de-motivated to work.

These are the most common of threats we find supervisors or managers giving to their employees, but its no good. A manager might feel high when threatening an employee but it will actually turn out to be a bigger threat for themselves as employees start loosing interest in their work, get scared of using their creativity in their work or some may start looking for a new job.