To Motivate or Not to Demotivate

I still think eliminating de-motivation is the better way to look at it.

I still see far to many managers thinking in a theory x way - 50 years after McGregor’s The Human Side of Enterprise. If there was not such a systemic failure to apply effective management practices and such a desire to substitute motivation for management I wouldn’t see this as a big deal. The issue is important to me because their is a huge amount of poor management based on how people view the need to fix how people are motivated instead of fixing what management really needs to fix (see all the links in the related section at the bottom of this post).

“eliminating demotivation” is a too simplistic view

I would say a party doesn’t really motivate people. But it can (taking psychology into account) gain advantages by helping bond people to each other, letting people feel good as they form social relationships, build trust with others… They can be good things that can build a stronger work environment. And by building social ties we can create an environment where people are more interested in working toward common goals.

We are naturally social and so we do many things to build on that with others, consciously (less often) and subconsciously. Taking psychology into account is important for managing human systems. But I don’t think we really do motivate people with a party. Parties can set the groundwork that can then be used to tie people together and make it easier to build a sense of community that can lead to people being motivated to help their colleagues… I can certainly see why it can seem as quibbling over minor semantic details, but thinking about these matters can help I think.

The danger is not in calling things motivation. The danger is so many managers think in a theory x way. That is the attitude that needs to change. Whether people agree on what is called motivation… isn’t as important - at least if they are reading people like McGregor and Hertzberg and the links below :). I am probably a bit overly concerned because I see how often empty motivation is seen as a replacement for fixing management performance (improving the management systems…). If there is a sincere effort to improve the system (instead of just encouraging people to work harder or smarter or more carefully or with more motivation…), respect people, understand variation… then if people still want to think of it as motivation that isn’t that important to me.

Related: To Motivate People… Balance Your Practices - Stop Demotivating Me! - The Defect Black Market - Why Extrinsic Motivation Fails - Motivating Employees - Stop Demotivating Employees - Management is Helping Others Be Great - Motivational Poster