Watch Dan Pink video: Drive: the surprising truth that motivates us.(Links to an external site.) Then review chapter 5 regarding motivation. Understanding motivation is important because compensation,

 Brandon Anders

 I thought this video was absolutely phenomenal. I think it needs to be viewed in team building exercises and every person in management should watch it. The idea that a larger reward saw poorer performance when it came to rudimentary cognitive skill seemed contradictory. But he went on to explain the science behind it really well. A study that I found showed that there was a negative relationship between monitoring and a feeling of trust, which in turn negatively impacted employees’ motivation and feeling of master (Bernstrøm & Svare, 2017). I think this study is important because I’ve been an employee who has been overly monitored and micromanaged by a manager, and that feeling of distrust really makes me second guess my choices as an employee on the unit.

            I think early on, the video touched base with the Equity Theory. It explained how when an employee can get higher compensation for doing more work, there is a direct relationship between the two. As the video goes on to discuss another way of motivating people, it gets rid of the idea of financial compensation to the point of saying organizations should pay people enough so money is not a motivator. This aligns more closes with the Expectancy Theory, and more specifically the Effort-Performance Expectation. This expectation refers “to employees’ beliefs that working harder will lead to high performance” (Valentine et al., 2020, p 154). This is the type of motivation, I believe, the video discusses. This hard work leading to high performance, I believe, can link to autonomy, mastery, and purpose; all of which are important to high motivation and performance.

Bernstrøm, V. H., & Svare, H. (2017). Significance of monitoring and control for employees’ felt trust, motivation, and mastery. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 7(4), 29–49. https://web-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.umary.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=7&sid=9437a4ac-3c90-428d-9245-f5f10f1e040f%40pdc-v-sessmgr04&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=131575401&db=asnLinks to an external site.

Valentine, S. R., Meglich, P. A., Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2020). Human resource management (16th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Savannah Gaulin

Dan Pink’s video about motivation showed that when you have a highly conceptual and difficult task with too great of an incentive, the larger reward led to poorer performance. I think this video correlates with the two-factor theory. Frederick Herzberg’s motivation/hygiene theory assumes that one group of factors, motivators, accounts for increases in individual motivation because of enrichment and other positive work characteristics (Mathis, et. al., 2020). Hygiene factors including company policy and administration, supervision, relationship with supervisor, working conditions, salary, and relationship with peers, personal relationship, relationship with subordinates, status, and security can cause employees to become dissatisfied with work if these basic expectations are not adequately addressed (Ozsoy, 2019). According to Herzberg's two-factor motivation theory, the presence of hygiene factors does not increase motivation, but a lack of hygiene factors leads to dissatisfaction.

The video suggests that money is indeed a motivator, but the best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table so that they are thinking about their work, not money. In correlation to the theory, you want to pay people enough money so that they are satisfied and motivated, but you don’t want to pay them too much and give them too much work because then they will underperform. A great example of this that I can think of is working overtime. The incentive for working overtime is getting paid time-and-a-half, but the more hours worked leads to more fatigue and more mistakes.

Reference:

Mathis. R. L., Jackson, J. H., Valentine, S., & Meglich, P. A. (2020) Human Resource Management (16th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Ozsoy, E. (2019). An Empirical Test of Herzberg’s Two-Factor Motivation Theory. Marketing & Management of Innovations, 1, 11–20. https://doi-org.ezproxy.umary.edu/10.21272/mmi.2019.1-01