What is Motivation?
Motivation is the force that leads people to act to achieve their objectives. It is the activators of human behaviors to do something. People are willing to act cause they are motivated towards their goals. The driver of their actions may be money need, success need, position need, their best potentiality.
Motivation is the art of inspiring and encouraging subordinates or people to do work in an effective way so that both organizational and individual goals can be achieved.
The term motivation derived from the word ‘motive’. As a noun motive means an objective and as a verb motive means moving into action.
A person is how much motivated, can not be observed directly but only from the shown behavior. It is also influenced by a worker’s perception, learning, ability, and personality traits. Management gets work done by working with and through people to achieve organizational goals. Motivation is the crucial tool for the manager or leader to achieve effective work performance from workers.
Employees get motivated when they get what they expected from the management. Their expectations like increased salary, bonuses, incentives, over time, and other similar benefits.
Motivation is essential for both individual and the organization, an individual is motivated for his success and an organization motivates its employees for organizational success.
In fact, motivation is the psychological and human aspect. Motivation is the process of creating willingness among the employees to do work in the best possible way. It is the act of inspiring employees to devote maximum effort to achieve organizational objectives.
People do something to fulfill their basic and social needs. In other words, workers or employees fulfill their duties efficiently to fulfill their needs, desires, and wishes. Motivation is an instrument through which the management understands why and how workers interact and work in accordance with organizational requirements. It energizes the behavior of subordinates and directs them towards the attainments of common goals.
Different scholars define motivation in their own way, some important definitions are:
Motivation means a process of stimulating people to action to achieve desired goals – William G. Scott
Motivation means willingness to exert high level of effort to reach organizational goals, conditioned by the effort’s ability to satisfy some individual need – Decenzo and Robbins
Motivation is a general term applying to the entire class of drives, desires, needs, wishes, and similar forces that induce an individual or a group of people to work – Koontz and O’Donnell
Motivation can be defined as a willingness to work to expand energy to achieve a goal or reward – Dale S Beach
The concept of motivation is mainly psychological. It relates to those forces operating within the individual employee or subordinate which impel him to act or not act in certain ways – Dalton E. McFarland
Thus, motivation consists of inspiring and encouraging subordinates to do work to achieve common goals. A manager must have knowledge of why and how people act in accordance with organizational requirements. He must have the knowledge to do a particular work with a clear vision.
It is the responsibility of the manager to develop such an environment that workers can perform their work in the best possible way.
Features of Motivation
Motivation is a continuous process. Up to life, people needed to be motivated. It is a psychological phenomenon that affects individual behaviors. As it has sound benefits, the complex it is.
Following are the main features/characteristics of the motivation:
#1 Psychological Process
Motivation is a psychological process. It is a process to achieve the desired result by stimulating and influencing the behavior of subordinates.
A manager must be careful to understand the needs, motives, and desires of every worker in the organization. Subordinates differ in their approach and even two individuals can not be motivated with the same technique.
#2 Continuous Process
It is a continuous process. A satisfied person of today may not be satisfied tomorrow. When one need is satisfied, another need emerges.
Therefore, motivation is a never-ending process until the completion of the objectives. It is the responsibility of the management to develop new techniques, systems, and methods to fulfill the changing needs of workers.
#3 Complex and Unpredictable
It is complex and unpredictable. Human wants are unlimited and change according to the time and situation. A satisfied person of the present may not be satisfied in the future.
In a similar manner, even two persons may not be motivated with similar behavior and facilities. Therefore, a manager must be conscious to motivate subordinates and to achieve objectives effectively.
#4 Pervasive Function
It is a pervasive function of all levels of management. Every manager from the top-level to the lowest level in the management hierarchy is responsible for motivation.
A manager is primarily responsible for motivating his subordinates and secondly other subordinates in the management hierarchy. For this, it is essential to develop the concept of group work and team spirit among all the members of the organization.
#5 Influences the Behavior
One of the important parts of motivation is to influence the behavior of the people. Management has to influence the behavior of the workers and inspire them to concentrate more on their works.
Therefore, a manager has to play the role of a leader to influence the behavior of subordinates to achieve common goals.
#6 Concentrated on Whole Individual
Individuals are motivated to fulfill their unlimited needs. A person can not be partly motivated as he is a self-contained and inseparable unit.
For example, whenever individual wishes to wear a pair of shoes, only the feet are not motivated but the whole body of the individual is motivated to get the shoes. Thus, motivation is concentrated on individuals and their attitudes to improve their working efficiency.
#7 Positive or Negative Motivation
Last but not least, motivation can be negative and positive. A positive one promises incentives and rewards to workers. Incentives involve financial and non-financial benefits.
A negative one is based on punishment for a poor performance like minimizing wage, demotion, job termination, etc. On the basis of requirements, a manager can use both positive and negative motivation for better performance.