EXTREME MOTIVATION

To thrive, every business needs to keep employees motivated. The most Innovate
products, the lowest prices, the best customer service- each of these can be achieved
only through the hard work and enthusiasm of workers. There are many
motivational techniques, covering a wide array of situations and price ranges. Most
companies can accomplish their motivation goals with simple, tried and-true
methods.

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric and co-author of WINING, is a

traditionalist. In his opinion, financial rewards are the most important tool in the
motivator' s toolbox. He writes, some people aren 't motivated by financial rewards,
but they rarely gravitate toward business. That's why, "when you think about
motivation, you need to think about money first."

He goes on to note four other effective means of increasing motivation, including

recognition, celebration, a clear mission, and a balance between recognizing past
successes and calling for further achievement. Yet he is quick to point out that
money is paramount, saying "[other rewards] can never be given in lieu of money.
They are an addendum. Plaques gather dust. Checks can be cashed. And employees
know the difference in their bones." He adds, "It ' s not always how much you give
people though. Sometimes it 's how much you give them relative to their peers...
Money is a way of keeping score."
Pay-for-performance motivation systems are popular approach to motivation
through financial rewards. They work well, perhaps perhaps to well. Michael Beer
and Mark Cannon, management professors studying pay-for-performance, write,
"[These rewards] motivate employees to focus excessively on doing what they need
to do to gain rewards, sometimes at the expense of other things that would help the
organization." In the 1990's Hewlett-Packard instituted a teams-based pay-for-
performance compensation system intended to increase motivation and
productivity. Instead, it backfired. When goals were not reached, jeopardizing pay,
teams began to blame their problems on their teams, increasing conflict
dramatically. High-performing team refused to accept new members. Competition
among teams led them to guard their work methods, reducing knowledge transfer.
Employees found the new system too unpredictable and could not easily adjust their
lifestyle as their pay fluctuated. Hewlett-Packard quickly dropped the entire
program.
For some organizations, simpler methods aren't enough. Seagate, a Silicon Valley
firm that is the world's largest maker of hard drives, was facing a severe motivation
crisis. In 1996, following a merger and subsequent layoffs, employees from both of
the merger firms were deeply unhappy. Concerned about their corporate culture
was a mess. "We needed to create a different culture- one that was open, honest,
and encouraged people to work together " says CEO Bill Watkins. Watkins knew
how to teach team building. "Put [employees] in an environment where they have to
ask for help. "Seagate 's top tam decided that the drastic circumstances called for
drastic measures. The enrolled 200 managers in a week-long adventure race in New
Zealand.

Seagate managers compete for spot at the annual event. Each day, team of
employees spend the morning learning about the key attributes of a strong, vital
culture, including trust, accountability, and healthy competition. The afternoons are
devoted to mastering one of the four essential skills for adventure racing:
orienteering, rappelling mountain biking, or kayaking. The final day is devoted to
the race itself, a demanding course over rouged terrain that takes from six to ten
hours to complete. Over the five days, employees test themselves, open up to their
colleagues, and learn to trust team members anchoring the rappelling line. By the
events conclusion, everyone loves it. "For me, the race is anticlimactic" says COO
David Wickersham. "You learn so much about yourself in the first four day and,
personally, I'm surprised by how much people let their guard down."

The retreat is expensive for Seagate, costing $1.8 million annually. Yet that just a
fraction of the firm's $40 million total budget for training. CFO Charles People was
initially skeptical, saying, "I don 't like to schmoozing." But by the end he's
believer: "I consider this an investment." Pope will be responsible for the post-event
follow up, asking participants to translate the lessons they learned in New Zealand
into specific plans for their divisions. Seagate's six-year experiment with extreme
offsite has yielded some real benefits. In January 2006, Forbes named Seagate as its
"Companies for the honor. The award is great, but hardly a surprise for Seagate's
motivated workforce. Seagate ' s managers have learned the most important lesson-
use a motivation approach that fits the situation.

Answer the following questions

Use Maslow's hierarchy of needs to classify each of the rewards

mentioned in this case. How do each of these rewards increase
motivation?

Which theories of motivation seem to fit most closely with Jack

Welch ' s ideas about rewards? Explain.

Use one more approaches to motivation to explain why Seagate's

retreats are motivating to workers