Midterm in Effective Management

Student: Nino Tchumburidze

Motivational Problems in Organizations

 Nowadays the organizations have to work, exist, and develop in a very rapidly variable
environment. Hence, all the functions and approaches of management are subject to being
reconsidered and renovate. Managers who oversee teams commonly face several challenges related to
productivity and communication. Knowing how to recognize these challenges and address them helps
increase a manager's confidence and ability to lead a team. In this article, we discuss the most common
challenges of managing employees and ways to overcome these challenges.
As the time, generations, needs and surrounding area have been changing, as a
consequence, the desires of the workforce had altered. While in the XIX and in the beginnings of
the XX century the managers faced problems such as unsanitary, discrimination and employees’
physiological issues, the main problem of the XXI century’s management, from my point of
view, is how to correctly motivate workforce. During my working experience, I have worked for
several, to be more precise 5, organizations with different concepts and workforce. This constant
job changing was not good for career, but therefore, the unhealthy work environment that I face
in previous jobs was not benefiting my future success. The mentioned unhealthy area at
workplace was the consequence of the lack of supporting and motivational top managers. I could
not see the clear and inspirational approaches from managers, the management that works for
employees’ development and overall takes care of company’s long-term achievements. That is
why, I choose motivational issues in the organization as one of the main managerial problems,
that companies face nowadays.
For some people the word “motivation” is often utilized to represent why a person does
something. Motivation involves emotional, biological, social and cognitive forces that drives a
particular action. People get motivated in a daily bases, whether it is eating a meal in order to kill
the hunger, reading a book in order to gain knowledge or in long-term to become a successful
person. In order to achieve long-term minded goals being effective throughout the studying and
working cycle is crucial for every people. A person’s performance at work is affected by several
individual factors (personality, attitudes and beliefs, motivation, perception) but from my
perspective, mostly by motivation. Many theorists over the years starting from the industrial
revolution have analyzed what makes employees work harder. For some reason, a lot companies
have issues when trying to motivate their staff. If the workers are motivated the company is
likely to be more successful. Motivated employees are crucial, as company’s achievements and
result are highly related to motivated people, who work hard, love their job and are ready to
dedicate their selves to organization’s social image.
The stuff motivation is very difficult process to achieve, as managers have to perceive the
concept of motivation itself and how does it work among the employees. To be able to
understand motivation, it is essential to be aware of human nature and the motivation cycle, in
order to not to lose stuff, their effort of achieving high level and self-recognition. For example, in
Mars Incorporated, the third-largest private company in United States, which provides pet food
as well, the wending machines dispense free candy all day long, pet owners are allowed to take
their animals at work and what’s the most important, regular employees’ as well as top

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executives’ pay get docked, if they are late for work. All these extrinsic forces (which will be
discussed in the next pages) determine the company’s low churn rate and the loyalty of
workforce. In General, employees’ great performance can be determined mostly with motivation
and ability. A person shows motivation as the enthusiasm while performing a certain task, when
the ability relates to the competence of the performer.
According to various authors, motivation can be defined as a goal directed
behavior driven by internal and external forces. External motivation means that your
motivation to attain goals comes from a source outside yourself, e.g. reward, praise from team
members, encouragement, acknowledgement, incentive, etc., and while internal motivation of
achieving goals comes within and is usually driven by individuals’ needs to do something for
themselves, which I think is self-motivation. Inner forces enables people enjoy one particular
process for instance studying, working. An individual’s view of these intrinsic and extrinsic
motivational factors is impacted by previous experience, current needs, gender, and personal and
cultural values and can change from time to time. Most discussions in the literature relate
motivation to:
- Needs, drives, stimuli and triggers;
- Goals, desired outcomes;
- Approach versus avoidance (pleasure versus pain);
- Performance (actual), response, effort;
- Valence (attractive value), incentive;
- Expectations (of reward, satisfaction);
- Reinforcement;
- Abilities, intelligence, awareness (of options);
- Perception of reality;
- Personality differences;
- Management attitudes/assumptions about people [ CITATION Col95 \l 1033 ]
As I mentioned above, achieving motivation in working environment is essential for
every company and, therefore, for managers as they are in touch with the majority of workforce
in daily basis and have to keep them in tune. Managers’ role to motivate and inspirit all workers,
in order to reach company’s target, long-term goals, is very important and simultaneously hard to
achieve. Creating a system that can motivate the employees is not an easy task since each
person is unique and the perception of motivation depends on one’s physiological situation,
beliefs and aims. Also, in each company and in particular for each worker, the same set of
motivations would not work since the desires and needs of workers could vary greatly. Some
people are motivated primarily by money, others are motivated to perform well because
managers make them feel appreciated for doing a good job, and still others find their primary
motivation in the challenge of solving complex problems or making a contribution to society
[ CITATION Ric \l 1033 ] . With such different motivations among individuals, how do managers
find the right way to motivate people toward common organizational goals?

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 First of all, for solving the motivational problem at workplace, it is crucial for every
manager to be a good leader, because the leader can provide employees with an inspiring visions,
set achievable goals and motivate them to work hard for outlined targets. Leader can be:
charismatic, transformational and transactional. The first one has ability to motivate workers,
transformational can bring out the innovation and inspiring vision and transactional clarifies
roles and provider rewards [ CITATION Ric \l 1033 ]. While discussing true leaders, I cannot neglect
John Maxwell’s 5 Level of Leadership: Position the entry level, where upper management
appoints one on the particular managerial position; Permission is the first real step that brings
one into leadership and is establishing out of work relations among employees; Production is
the stage, where a leader gets results from team; at the fourth stage of People Development a
true leader shifts his/her focus from the production achieved by others to the development of
their potential and to motivate them for further development; and the final stage the Pinnacle is
the high level of leadership, that lifts and motivates the entire organization and creates an
environment that benefits everyone in it, contributing to their success. Despite the fact that this
theory is not about motivation and motivational forces that drives employees, I think that the
example of 5 level of leadership is very crucial while gaining your team members trust and
acknowledgement as their leader. Only after then, when your employee perceive you as a true
leader, only then you can make an impact on them, motivate and move forward.
When a person settles himself/herself as a leader and gains the trust of the workforce, the
next step is to know how to negotiate and motivate different types of employees. In this term, I
would like to recall Georgian business consultant’s and speaker’s Andro Dgebuadze’s speech
about how to motivate employees. According to him there are 5 types of workers in all
organizations. The first and the smallest group of people are workers with a very high awareness,
trust factors and the greatest performance, in other words self-motivated people. The next
segment of workforce consists of more people, than in the first group and represent the king of
people’s type, that hardworking followers[ CITATION Ric \l 1033 ], but without initiative. The third
and the largest group includes people who can work but their performance has to be checked.
The fourth group of employees think that they are the part of the organization but, in fact they
are not. They need trainings and the list of educational activities, in order to become the part of
the organization. The final cluster of workforce is not doing anything but stealing some time,
energy or achievement of others. The trickiest thing while motivating all these types of workers
is know how to motivate each type of group and do not mix these motivational approaches. For
example, for motivating the first group of workers good examples and constant opportunities for
further development are the most crucial forces, while these methods of motivations cannot be
used for the third group, as their work still needs control and are not trustworthy and vice versa,
as the fourth and third group types of people need external forces e.g. money, reward or
restriction for being late for motivation, using these tools for the first and the second teams will
in opposite demotivate them.
Before I list all the setting specific, development-oriented and challenging issues about
motivation, I would like to admit that working environment plays a vital role for my job

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satisfaction. This factors are mostly the forces that Herzberg describes in his Two Factor Theory.
It’s natural, that there are some factors, which can motivate and demotivate workforce that could
not be neglected. From my perspective, Herzberg’s job’s dissatisfying factors are important to
consider at workplace. Inappropriate administration, security, working conditions and company
policies are forces, which can demotivate stuff for working and further development. From my
point of view, these listed hygiene factors should be satisfied, in order to move to another step of
development, which are called Motivators, such as achievement, recognition, advancement and
growth. In spite of the fact that these listed factors play essential role in working environment
and stuff, I must admit that this theory states more job satisfactory forces, rather than
motivational. But in some cases, satisfactory causes motivation and vice versa, dissatisfying
environment decreases motivation among workforce.
It worth mentioning, that motivation/demotivation of the workforce occurs for various
reasons. In this paragraph I would like to give several examples for motivational issues at work
from my job experience and my perspective, how to settle them. The first issue, regarding
motivation at work comes when the goals and the paths to achieve these goals (requirements) are
not clear and realistic. An employer or supervisor who does not set clear targets for
employees creates workplace conditions where motivational issues can develop. Employees
feel lost and unable to work toward identifiable goals when an employer or manager does not
provide examples of proper performance or correct mistakes through the application of
consistent job assessment. In order to enhance performance and increase motivation among
employees a lot managers use Goal-Setting Theory, stated by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham.
Goal-setting theory suggests that for goal-setting to be effective with desired outcomes,
they must contain the following specific points: Meaningful and clear – “When it is obvious
that the goal cannot be reached, don’t adjust goals, adjust the action steps” (Confucius, 551-479
B.C.). In general most goals are achievable, but the steps that should be taken in order to reach
that target are mostly uncertain, that is why setting precise and measurable steps and goals are is
crucial for better performance. Realistic and changeling – goals should be realistic and
achievable, in order to motivate team members, in my case myself, to feel the triumph after
attaining one. The changeling goal makes working process more passionate and the reward is
sweeter. Appropriate feedback – making feedback on your/others performance helps people to
work with more involvement and makes job more satisfying. It is important for managers to
provide performance feedback on a regular, ongoing basis. However, self-feedback, where
people are able to monitor their own progress toward a goal, has been found to be an even
stronger motivator than external feedback [ CITATION Mcm \l 1033 ]. The goals should give team
members to evaluate results and they should be learning-oriented, for further developed
performance. In Goal-Setting Theory, goals should be drawn out not for only the team, but also
in individual level.
One of the most common issues from my work experience was that the lack of the
interest in worker’s contribution and opinions. An employee feels more motivated and achieves a
higher level of productivity when an owner or manager shows genuine interest in his/her

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opinions about the business. This increases the employee's mental ownership of the company and
motivates her to help ensure growth through better job performance. An employer or supervisor
who does not value employee opinion runs the risk of creating a culture where a worker has no
mental stake in the company's success outside of a paycheck. In other words, the motivational
issue derives when there is no one-on-one attention, which means: no regular performance
evaluations, irregular one-on-one management meetings, lack of personal goal-setting and the
absence of regular feedback. I have to admit, that until my present job I have never had
opportunities such as receiving feedback from my team members or giving one to anyone. From
my present job’s experience I can say that for resolving this problem could be helpful regularly
scheduling brief private appointments with staffers to touch base on both work and professional
development issues. Hold regular employee performance reviews, annually or bi-annually, and in
these discussions, set specific goals and objectives.
In order to be successful and motivational among its workforce. Managers in other
companies are discovering that creating an environment where people feel valued and feel that
they have opportunities for growth and development is one key to high employee motivation,
which is an essential ingredient for organizational success. Overall the managers should focus on
job enrichment, which means incorporating high-level motivators into the work, including
recognition, opportunities for growth, learning, and achievement. All these factors motivate
employee and make him/her to perform better and dedicate herself/himself to organization.
To sum up, I would like to state that intrinsic forces play a great role in motivating and
inspiring workforce, which leads to organization’s future success and creates pleasant social
image. But simultaneously with internal forces, there could be external motivator factors as well,
that make working environment more satisfying and desirable. When talking about the external
motivators, I would like to recall Herzberg hygiene factors: Positive KITA (a kick in the ass).  It
means any kind reward, an incentive, more status, a promotion…. One of the positive KITA is
reducing time spent on work or spiraling wages, which means workers feel that if rising wages
won’t or don’t do the job, reducing will [ CITATION Her \l 1033 ]. Extrinsic motivator factors could
make working process happier, like in Google. It provides some of the most amazing extrinsic
rewards—free breakfast, lunch, and dinner, subsidized massages, free yoga classes, free snacks,
beverages, and candy all day. According to their policy, they justify their philosophy “happiest,
most productive workplace in the world”.

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References
Cole, G. (1995). Organisational Behaviour: Theory and Practice.
Draft, R. L. (n.d.). Management.
Herzberg. (n.d.). Two factor theory of motivation.
Mcmahon, J. I. (n.d.). The effects of goal setting, external feedback and seld generated feedback outcome
variables. Academy of Management.