1. Lesson 10
Understanding Motivation
Introduction
Many organisations today feel that they have failed to motivate their staff. They have tried
various reward management systems, but these continuously fail. What does it take to have a
motivated staff? What can leaders do to ensure this? Can we really motivate our staff or should
our focus just be on their bottom-line results. Today many are suggesting that our focus should
shift from trying to motivate staff and move instead to getting them to a place where they are
self-motivated. With members of our organisations having multiple careers and various life
crises, can leadership really be responsible for their motivation levels? This leaves me with the
conclusion that business has so often focused on balance sheets and income statements without
exploring the human element.
Today in our nation, people need to ask themselves what motivates them. Is it money, doing the
job well, recognition, winning, advancement, acceptance? Or would you be happy if only you
could work in a nicer environment? If certain things in your organisation were "sorted out"
would you work harder? Motivation is the major factor in addressing a person’s willingness to
do something. If people are unmotivated they will not have an interest in learning or in applying
what they have learned to their job or performance. All behaviour (except for reflexes like
blinking etc) is motivated. Motivation consists of the forces that energize, direct and sustain a
person’s efforts.
I. What is motivation?
A. Motivation is a cognitive persistence, the drive, tendency or desire to undertake or
complete a task, expand effort and do a quality job.
B. Motivation consists of three components.
People’s beliefs about their work influences motivation. These beliefs can be broken down
into the following:
1. Expectancy: person’s perceived likelihood that their efforts will enable them to
successfully attain their performance goals.
2. Instrumentality: is the perceived likelihood that performance will be followed by a
particular outcome.
3. Valence: is the value the outcome holds for the person contemplating it.
For motivation to be high, expectancy, instrumentalities, and total valence of all outcomes
must all be high. A person will not be highly motivated if any of the following conditions
exist:
• He believes he can’t perform well enough to achieve the positive outcomes that he
knows the company provides to good performers (high valence and high
instrumentality but low expectancy)
• He knows he can do the job. He is fairly certain what the ultimate outcomes will be
(a promotion or transfer). However, he does not want those outcomes or believes
other, negative outcomes outweigh the positive (high expectancy and high
instrumentality but low valence).
Business God’s Way © Paul Nyamuda, City Life Church (Student Notes with Answers) 52

2. • He knows he can do the job. He wants several important outcomes (a favourable
performance review, a raise, and a promotion). But he believes that no matter how
well he performs, the outcomes will not be forthcoming (high expectancy and
positive valences but low instrumentality).
Therefore increasing motivation we need to:
• increase expectancies
• identify positively valent outcomes
• make performance instrumental toward positive outcomes
C. Motivation is categorized into intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
1. Intrinsic rewards are those rewards which are inherent in the job content
2. Extrinsic rewards are factors such as money which are outside the job content.
Kohn, Amabile, Burns, Gentry, Wlodkowski and Senge all suggest people are inherently
curious, creative and seek optimum challenges that relate to what they value. The major
challenge of leadership has often been getting people to do what the leader values and sees.
A lot of problems could be solved when leaders study their followers to say what motivates
them. Since true followers do so voluntarily, one of the keys is to tap into what motivates
them intrinsically. We often have not thought of this because of the many myths we have
believed concerning what motivates human beings.
II. What is the relationship between motivation and needs?
We cannot talk about motivating people if we do not include in our discussion, the link between
motivation and needs. People are motivated differently because they have different needs. If we
are to develop effective motivation strategies in our organisations, we need to also have a
thorough understanding of basic human needs.
A. John Adairs model
1. Task accomplishment: Achievement in terms of a common aim tends to build a sense
of group identity – the ‘we-feeling’, as some have called it. The moment of victory
closes the psychological gaps between people: morale rises naturally.
2. Unity: Good internal communications and a developed team spirit based upon past
successes make a group much more likely to do well in its task area, and incidentally
provide a more satisfactory climate for the individual.
3. Recognition of individual needs: An individual whose needs are recognised and who
feels that he or she can make a characteristic and worthwhile contribution both to the
task and the group will tend to produce good fruits in both these areas.
B. Alderfer’s Model
This model is also useful in helping us see the different categories of needs that people have.
Alderfer’s ERG Theory focuses on::
1. Existence needs: material and physiological
2. Relational needs: Relations with others, sharing thoughts and feelings
3. Growth needs: Motivate people to creatively change themselves and their environment
C. McClelland’s Model
This model also helps us in a similar way and becomes particularly useful in seeing what
primarily motivates one’s followers:
Business God’s Way © Paul Nyamuda, City Life Church (Student Notes with Answers) 53

3. 1. Achievement: Accomplishment and goal attainment
2. Affiliation: Desire to be liked by others
3. Power: Desire to influence (personalised power and socialised power)
It’s important to be aware that these needs differ from country to country. In today’s global
economy it is important for multinational companies to consider how their employees may be
motivated by different needs:
• USA– Achievement and esteem
• Greece and Japan - Security
• Sweden; Norway, Denmark - Social needs
III. What are we motivating people to do?
To motivate workers, managers must know the behaviours they want to motivate people to
exhibit. We want o motivate workers to
A. Join the organisation
B. Remain in the organisation
C. Come to work regularly
D. Perform (high output; high quality)
E. Exhibit good citizenship
F. Overcoming the common causes of demotivation
A highly motivated staff member may put in 60 hours of work in sales, but not reach his or her
goals because s/he:
1. does not understand the customer or product
2. is selling inferior products at a high price
3. difficult sales territory
4. is working for a disreputable company
Sadly, many organisational leaders are attempting to motivate their staff whilst their
organisational environment and culture is very demotivating. Outlined below are some
demotivating environments:
1. Company politics
2. Unclear expectations
3. Unnecessary rules
4. Unproductive meetings
5. Internal competition
6. Withholding information
7. Criticism
8. Tolerating poor performance
9. Unfairness and under-utilised capability
IV. How do we facilitate and stimulate motivated performance?
A. We encourage motivation by playing our role as effective managers.
Effective managers stimulate performance by giving employees what they need for effective
performance. Well facilitated performance makes you able but the employee must also be
willing. People are willing to work hard if they see a reason to.
Hence, people are more motivated to do work:
1. for which they are held responsible
2. if a deadline is put
3. if they are assessed
Business God’s Way © Paul Nyamuda, City Life Church (Student Notes with Answers) 54

4. 4. if they are recognised
5. if they are rewarded fairly
B. We encourage motivation by creating a goal-setting culture.
Goals should be:
1. acceptable to the employee
2. challenging but attainable
3. specific
4. quantifiable
5. measurable
“We’re doing things we didn’t think were possible”
Boeing CEO
C. We encourage motivation by endeavouring to meet people’s needs.
D. We encourage motivation by making workers responsible.
E. We encourage motivation by creating an atmosphere of trust.
F. We encourage motivation by creating an atmosphere where workers are more likely to
be self-motivated.
In many of our organisations, leadership is controlling and dominating and as a result staff is
demotivated as its creativity is stifled. Humans have a need for growth, expression and creativity.
When this is stifled it results in demotivation. The following outlines some cost effective ways to
foster creativity:
1. Make sure people are matched to the right assignments.
2. Give people freedom in how they approach their work.
3. Time pressures can be motivating, however, fake deadlines will promote distrust and
overwhelming deadlines will lead to burnout.
4. The proper design of a work team where diversity is the key.
5. Supervisory encouragement to demonstrate that employees’ work is important
6. Organisational support where the structure mandates information sharing, collaboration
and ensuring political problems do not fester.
G. We encourage motivation by giving workers incentives which are in line with their
values.
Workers are motivated by incentives which are in line with their values. If the incentives don’t
reflect their values they become ineffective. Many employees today are demotivated, not
because they are not rewarded, but because the rewards are not coherent with their values.
Maccoby found that people may differ in desired incentives according to their behavioural styles
or team roles. He divided them up into five social character types:
1. Expert: Little value in peer recognition but desires job security, subject mastery and
autonomy
2. Helpers: Want to care for people and receive satisfaction making a difference in people’s
lives. Values appreciation and extrinsically motivated by feedback
3. Defenders: Controllers and value justice. Energised by opportunities to protect people
4. Innovator: Intrinsically motivated and fuelled by vision. Values an admiring audience,
recognition and glory. Extrinsically motivated by factors providing power to achieve
goals.
Business God’s Way © Paul Nyamuda, City Life Church (Student Notes with Answers) 55

5. 5. Self-developers: Fuelled by opportunities to upgrade skill and become authorities.
Balance in life is more important than money or success. Responsibility is a reward.
H. We encourage motivation by embracing an intrinsic reward management culture.
Because work motivation has been dependent traditionally on external rewards, we have not
encouraged a culture of self-motivation. Our focus now is not so much on motivating employees,
but on facilitating their own self motivation. Having said this, the real challenge of motivation is
not the initial mobilisation but the sustenance of it over a long period. We need to rethink our
current reward management systems base them on quality of work and not just completion of
task. If employees are going to be motivated we need to encourage an atmosphere of learning.
I. We encourage motivation by creating perceived equity.
It is important that your employees feel that there is justice ion the work place. The moment a
follower does not feel fairness has been achieved, it may be negatively affect motivation levels.
Equity Theory postulates that when people assess how fairly they are treated, they look at 2
factors:
Outcomes/inputs VS others outcomes/inputs
These are not made objectively but are based on subjective perceptions and inequity leads to
dissatisfaction.
Balance can be brought by:
• reduction of inputs (or quitting)
• increase outcomes
• re-evaluation of situation
Appendix I
Key Motivation Statements
Read the following issues to consider in motivation and then answer the following questions:
How can your understanding each of the points outlined below change the way you motivate
people in your role as a leader?
How does each of the following points reflect a different ethos from that which is practiced at
your workplace?
1. It is important that there is a close relationship between what you want others to do and
some reward. If rewards are not tied to performance then low motivation can be the
result.
2. To motivate one's subordinates, one has to understand some basic human needs.
Everyone needs to feel important, worth something to the organisation, to belong, to
achieve something meaningful, to stand out.
3. Motivation can stem from satisfaction in doing a good job or from recognition by others
for our efforts. When individuals become consumed by the need for recognition, it can
Business God’s Way © Paul Nyamuda, City Life Church (Student Notes with Answers) 56

6. become shattering when their boss changes and they have someone who views them
differently.
4. Money can be a motivator, but only if you value more money and perceive a strong
relationship between your effort and reward.
5. Strong motivators are: achieving results, being valued and made to feel important, being
included and accepted by an admired group, competing - getting ahead of others, gaining
influence and status, earning more money, and opportunities to do things you like.
6. Something can motivate behaviour only if that behaviour leads to it.
7. The key is to find out what motivates the people you want to motivate. It may be useful
to ask your subordinates to explore times in their work history when they have been
motivated or demotivated. Encourage them to explore what caused this.
8. Avoid assuming you know what they want.
9. Your power to motivate may depend partly on how much others value recognition from
you or inclusion by you.
10. You can find out what values and characteristics your subordinates admire in their
corporate heroes and, if they are agreeable to you, try to develop those traits yourself.
11. Although you have a major part to play in motivating your subordinates, the aim should
be to have subordinates come to a place where they are self-motivated.
Business God’s Way © Paul Nyamuda, City Life Church (Student Notes with Answers) 57