Motivating and Inspiring Others

Chapter six examines management theories about interpersonal motivation and the management skill of inspiring people. Motivation is a widely used but poorly understood term. Some estimate the number of scholarly definitions for the concept in the hundreds. To complicate things further, it can be viewed both as a thing/noun (such as a set of forces, personal characteristics, or internal state) as well as a process/verb (such as a set of stages, collection of actions, or method of getting someone from one place to another). Shining through this fog is the simple yet practically relevant question: What is the best way to motivate someone? The seeds to an answer begin with the insight that motivation exists to fill a “gap”—the different between where one is and one wants to be. Thus managers can motivate their employees by either highlighting threats to avoid (negative gaps) or opportunities to pursue (positive gaps). How to best do this? Major theories of motivation can be usefully divided into four categories that correspond to a common type of recommendation: (1) Diagnosing Needs—Figure out what people want, (2) Designing Jobs—Enhance what positions offer, (3) Actions—Guide behaviors through goals and expectancies, and (4) Outcomes—Reinforce efforts both appropriately and fairly. Managers do not have to choose between one theory and another; instead, they can use them in a complementary manner as part of an overall motivation program. Therefore in this sixth chapter we look at these methods for better motivating people.