Achieve world class through motivation

There is one factor all world class companies agree on: To become and remain one of the leading companies in the world you have to devote a tremendous amount of effort in involving and motivating people. It is a broad consensus today that a positive motivation philosophy and practice should improve business performances, promote innovation, and deliver stronger drive to achieve strategic objectives. This can be better understood and applied by looking into the basics of Herzberg’s hygiene theory, McGregor’s X and Y theories and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Herzberg’s hygiene theory

In 1959, Frederick Herzberg published his study on understanding employee motivation in The Motivation to Work.  He developed the hygiene theory to explain the results. The analogy is that ‘hygiene’ prevents the illness but does not cure illness; it is necessary but not sufficient condition for healthy life. If the theory holds, management not only must provide hygiene factors to avoid employee dissatisfaction, but also must provide factors that motivate people. For a truly world class organisation, the ‘hygiene’ factors must be in place, but what really makes the difference is the motivation factor: achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement and growth.

McGregor’s X and Y theories

Douglas McGregor, an American social psychologist, proposed his famous X-Y theory in his 1960 book The Human Side of Enterprise. McGregor’s X-Y Theory remains central to organizational development, and to improving organizational culture.

In theory X, which has been proven counter-effective in most modern practice, management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can and that they inherently dislike work. As a result of this, management believes that workers need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of controls developed.

In theory Y, management assumes employees may be ambitious and self-motivated and exercise self-control. It is believed that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties. They possess the ability for creative problem solving, but their talents are underused in most organizations. Given the proper conditions, theory Y managers believe that employees will learn to seek out and accept responsibility and to exercise self-control and self-direction in accomplishing objectives to which they are committed. A Theory Y manager believes that, given the right conditions, most people will want to do well at work. They believe that the satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong motivation.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was first appeared in his 1943 paper “A theory of Human Motivation”. It suggested that people are motivated to fulfil basic needs before moving on to other needs. A more important and relevant implication of the theory is that whilst people are satisfied with their basic needs such as physiological and safety, to which they are in today’s environment, they can only be most effectively motivated by the higher levels of needs such as social, esteem and self-actualisation.                  

We can all learn something from those models shown above, and possibly perform markedly better by applying them in practice. Fundamentally, leaders of organisation must conduct the business such that people see fulfilling their personal ambitions as being consistent with that of business.

To get to know more of those world class companies, have a look at “In pursuit of World Class Excellence” by Dr. Dawei Lu.