Breaking the Motivational Code

Aug 03 2006 by Jerry Pounds Print This Article

Unlike the DaVinci Code, the Motivational Code has yet to be broken. And as they trade argument and counter-argument about what makes us tick, our best and brightest management theorists seem to be suffering from chronic schizophrenia.

"Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be!" exclaims Ophelia in Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5.

Ophelia may have been experiencing a depressive episode when she made this pronouncement, but she could equally have been expressing her exasperation after reviewing contemporary management thinking.

Most organizational behavior experts, gurus and consultants weave their incantations from the motivational theories of "authorities". If you trace these back to source, you wind up reading B.F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler and Carl Rogers.

Alternatively, you can skip the primary theorists and move to their well-known translators - and the darlings of every college management class - Abraham Maslow and Douglas McGregor.

Their ideas are then interpolated through the cerebral sieves of celebrated management gurus like Tom Peters, Peter Drucker and thousands of others. Further down the food chain come national and regional thought leaders and large consulting houses whose practices and principles besiege the perspectives of business figures around the world.

Apparently, psychology's basic truths are known only by a privileged few – and they're not talking. Unlike the DaVinci Code, the Motivational Code has yet to be broken. Meanwhile, the field of applied psychology remains a battlefield where there are no victors but instead an endless conflict of assertion and rebuttal. No position goes unchallenged, no premise uncriticized, no principle unassailed.

Apparently, psychology's basic truths are known only by a privileged few – and they're not talking

The upshot is that the average business leader, manager or supervisor is often left completely confused, free-floating in a conceptual cosmos without anchorage or orientation and vulnerable to every new program or fad.

Ask any manager in any organization in any country to describe the basic assumptions that inform his or her strategy for managing people. What conceptual framework underpins their management practices?

If you review the history of any large organization you'll find that such a framework conspicuous by its absence. In its place is an eclectic mishmash of performance improvement programs, motivational initiatives and behavior change practices which are usually based upon mutually exclusive theories about human motivation.

Look more closely at the content, methods and objectives of these initiatives and you uncover dramatic inconsistencies that create the impression that the organization is on some random search for the values and practices that hold the key to managing employee performance.

But don't expect the management gurus to clarify the disparities between these theories. After all, their stock and trade is the creation of entertaining perspectives on management and leadership. Uncertainty and ambiguity is the breeding ground for new books and the fads they produce.

Just think about some of these ideas:

T-groups; Managerial Grid; Behavior Modification; One-Minute Management; Total Quality Management; Learning Organizations; Peak Performance; Management by Walking Around; Neurolinguistic programming; Scorecarding; Excellence; Chaos; MBO; Matrix Management; Team-Based Management; Right Sizing; Process Re-engineering; Knowledge Management; Emotional Intelligence

The absence of a consensus on human motivation has not stopped organizations from moving forward with solutions like these, each reflecting a unique set of assumptions about what motivates employees to improve.

Much may have been learned from these experiences, but management credibility, trust and organizational resources have been sacrificed in the process.

So as the so-called management experts continue to bicker, perhaps we would be better off resorting to practical wisdom based on experience and direct observation.

What, if any, facts can we use as basic assumptions? Let's start with the medieval philosopher William of Ockham, whose method of thinking was distilled into problems solving principle called Occam's Razor.

According to Wickipedia, Occam's Razor "is a principle stating that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. … Furthermore, when competing theories have equal predictive powers, the principle recommends selecting those that introduce the fewest assumptions and postulate the fewest hypothetical entities."

In everyday language, I think William of Ockham is telling us that the simplest answer should be the first to be examined. Therefore, in our quest to understand how to influence employee performance we should probably begin by asking what circumstances in the workplace influence people to change what they do, how they do it, when they do it, and how much of it they do?

Certain situations lead employees to voluntarily change their work behavior (performance). So what lessons can we draw from these? How can we apply them to our management behavior so that we canl in turn change and influence employee behavior?

A good place to start is examining what type of situations cause employees to change their behavior.

  • Leadership – when there is a change in leadership, most employees attempt to change and align their behavior with the values (priorities, interests, idiosyncracies) of the new regime.
  • Company culture – new employees learn and adapt to their new employer's customs and practices.
  • Supervision – employees bob and weave in synchronization with their manger's moods, eccentricities, priorities and personality.
  • Systems and processes – employees creatively adjust to the barriers and obstacles of dysfunctional systems by creating shortcuts and alternatives.
  • Peers – employees constantly manage their social environment – avoiding coworkers they dislike and accomodating to the behavior of their more tolerable peers.
  • Downsizing, mergers, restructuring – employees anticipate the influence of broad organizational changes and adjust their job performance accordingly.
  • Empowerment – many employees will volunteer their time and energy to solve problems and implement change. They will learn new behavior.
  • Cross-training and continuing education – employees will volunteer to learn how to do a new job or learn more about the job they are doing.

In these instances, employees are managing themselves (their behavior) to steer around organizational obstacles such as the wrath of management, layoffs or excessive workloads.

What's more, when something attracts them, they will position themselves to participate and willingly learn and practice new behaviors.

So what principles we draw from all this? Most fundamentally, these examples tell us that behavior is lawful. Behavior is governed by its consequences. And once you know what to look for, three simple laws emerge.

  • Any work behavior (verbal or physical) that works (pays off, is successful, gets us what we want) is repeated.
  • Any work behavior that avoids a negative experience (criticism, needless effort, appearing dumb, avoids something we don't want) is repeated.
  • Any work behavior that leads directly to a negative experience (discipline, embarassment, needless effort) is not repeated.

In organizational settings, attempts to change attitudes, beliefs, values and personality traits have cost us billions of dollars with little to show. Yet these three laws of behavior operate consistently regardless of variables like personality, natural endowment, gender, and education.

They are present in every country and culture. Their influence is felt by CEOs, supervisors, technicians and professionals. Everyone adapts their behavior to optimize their best interests and to minimize distress to themselves.

So how do we capitalize on our knowledge of these fundamental principles, this relationship between what we do (our behavior) and what it leads to (its consequences)? How do we use this knowledge to enhance employee performance and engagement?

Part II of this article will explore the answers to these questions in detail.

Part II  |  Part III

  Categories:

About The Author

Jerry Pounds
Jerry Pounds

Jerry Pounds is a management consultant with over 30 years of experience in applying positive reinforcement, reward, and recognition strategies to business and industry. He has written and spoken on the application and problematic nature of corporate motivational and rewards programs and trained thousands of executives, managers, and supervisors in the use of praise and rewards.

Older Comments

Item 3 is wrong.

Efforts that have a consequence are more likely to be repeated, efforts that do not have a consequence are less likely to be repeated.

Skinner should be read in the original. He's never presented properly in the textbooks.

Rolf Marvin Bĝe Lindgren Oslo, Norway

Motivation is multifaceted. Each of us has a unique profile of different basic desires that are psychologically significant to us. People differ in WHAT they desire, and HOW MUCH they desire each one of these basic needs.

Steven Reiss wrote about this in his book 'Who am I', by far the most logically and resanonably written motivational theory to me. While the list of 16 basic desires in the book may be debatable, the underlying theory (called sensitivity theory) has very strong basis.

What makes sense about this theory is that it is not just a personality theory, but an interactional theory of personality and environment. First of all, what is 'embarassing' for one person, may not be so for another person. And what is 'embarassing' for one person under one set of conditions, may not be so for the same person under other sets of conditions. The same can be said about adjectives like 'interesting', 'challenging', 'fun', 'boring', 'enjoying', 'pain' et al...

So it really is about individual differences and situational context that result in different motivational behaviors.

Awie Foong Singapore

Behavior Analysis typically identifies 4 consequences that influence behavior. Punishment occurs when you do something and you experience a negative stimulus--I reach out and touch the burner on the stove (the behavior)and I burn my finger (the consequence,negative stimulus). That specific behavior is unlikely to occur again.

Extinction--you behave in a certain way and nothing happens) describes an operation whereby behavior is reduced in frequency--not repeated--because it is ineffective or does not get the desired result. Example: You are doing a keynote speech for a large group and you tell a joke (a verbal behavior) when you finish there is no laughter--just dead silence. Joke-telling-behavior is extinguished, meaning it is improbable that you will attempt to tell jokes in future speeches.

Punishment and Extinction describe instances in which the frequency of a specific behavior (or class of behaviors like joke-telling or curiously touching things like the burner) is decreased because of the behaviors consequences.

In the case of Punishment, a behavior leads to something you dont want--something negative. With Extinction, a behavior does not payoff--lead to something you wanted. In both instances the frequency of the respective behaviors decreases in frequency--is less probable, less likely to be repeated.

Jerry Pounds

There's really nothing to it if you grasp Maslow's notions about isomorphism. And if you know something about circuit design and social stoichiometry/calculus, the way to make the perfect social machine is obvious. Management 101 *STARTS* with eupsychian management and eupsychian orthomentoring. It then enters the feedback circuit.

Regards, Sam Cannon maslow.org

Sam Cannon Earth

'A good society is one in which virtue pays.' Abraham Maslow

Sam, Eupsychian Management presents a very pro-human set of beliefs and values that should be 'chosen' if the people who made the best choices were in charge. We have had 4000 years for a meritocracy to evolve, but the biochemical, hormonal and behavioral qualities that allowed man to evolve in this planet's environment seem to be antithetical to intelligent choices.

I am not a Skinnerian, but what 'pays off' (the behavior that pays off) for the individual within and organizational environment tends to be repeated, whether that behavior is moral, ethical or 'virtuous.' Motivational theories amount to naught if an employee is inadvertently being rewarded for the wrong things. I think we need to understand how the environment is influencing employees' actions (behavior) and proactively engineer the environment so that 'virtue' (humane values, ethical decisions, moral turpitude) is encouraged.

Jerry Pounds

I applaud the article for its succinct conclusions. It has been said that the greatest wisdom is embodied in the most simple concepts.

In the case of human motivation it is fair to say that the most fundamental urge of any organism is to survive.

If we look at organisational behaviour it very soon becomes apparent the behaviour, positive and negative in terms of the organisation has, as its root cause, survival.

The thief steals because he feels, in some twisted way, that this action enhances his survival. Likewise, the ethical individual who sacrifices his own well being, to some extent, for the organisation is acting on the premise that his survival is enhanced by doing the 'right thing.'

The dilemma we all face is that, as each individual is just that, an individual, how do we ever get to what is survival to both the organisation and the individual? Make no mistake, we must align what is survival for the individual if we want the organisation to grow and flourish.

Society is based on mutual agreements. (Interestingly, if you look at them in terms of survival they begin to make sense.)

Therefore it seems to me it is incumbent on the leaders of the organisation to CLEARLY state the aims and purposes of the organisation and develop pathways so that employees can contribute to those purposes in a manner that also enhances personal survival.

That's the trick, and it can be done.

Ollie Lind

Ollie Lind Australia

The conventional saying ' Do unto others what you want other to do unto you' under the the motivational concept, is not working any more in our workplace . People need to be appreciated and motivated on what make sense to them. Pushing that exact button or buttons during 12 months of service, is very crucial either sustain or encourage such 'good behaviour'.- A good behaviour that fits the job required behaviour. To simplify the idea, just imagine persuading a vegetarian to enjoy eating a juicy burger ! What ever you try it is 'non starter' and the same thing unfortunately happening within our organization, but stills our managers and leaders wonder why we do not see improvement or change in our businesses !!!... Regards Hamed, Dubai

Hamed Dubai, UAE