Most modern managers would recognize that motivation of their personnel is a critically important factor to successful human-resource management. Yet, despite this recognition, most managers know very little about human motivation and how it can be more effectively channeled toward, instead of away from, organizational objectives.
One of the earliest attempts to explain motivation used the concept of instincts. According to this explanation, individuals had automatic, unlearned predispositions for certain patterns of behavior. As the number of human instincts identified by researchers grew to nearly six thousand, it soon became evident that this was not an adequate explanation of human behavior. Many patterns were shown to be learned; and gradually researchers saw that although animals seemed to have predisposed patterns of behavior (birds flying south in the winter or salmon swimming upstream to spawn), humans did not. Today, very few behavioral scientists recognize instinct as the motive force behind human behavior. Many do believe that there are certain unlearned primary drives (e.g., for food, water, and sex), but such drives are not predisposed patterns of behavior.
Out of the dissatisfaction with the instinctual explanation of motivation evolved the drive theories. The term drive was used to represent the energizing influence that determined the intensity of behavior. Habit, on the other hand, reflected past learning and in particular the reinforcement concept this incentive factor was future oriented (as opposed to habit, which was past oriented). The incentive factor is anticipatory in nature.
The motivational cycle means that needs set lip drives to accomplish goals. Needs are deprivations-either physiological (e.g., food, water, sex) or psychological (e.g., affiliation, achievement, power). Drives, on the other hand, are needs with direction. Drives are the behavioral manifestation of needs. Goals are what the drives are aimed at. Goals will decrease the intensity of the drive and alleviate the needs.
A thirsty man can provide a simple example of the motivational cycle. The homeostatic balance of his body has been upset because his body cells have been deprived of water. This creates a motivational need. The man will attempt to restore the balance by setting up a drive-in this case, to search out a water fountain. The fountain is the goal. The thirsty man is much like the employee in an organization who has a need for achievement. The employee may set up a drive of working hard in order to achieve his goal, promotion into a responsible position.
Life in general and organizations in particular, do not always provide a smooth progression from needs to drives to goals. There are many barriers that prevent goal attainment. There are many stuck doors in life from the broken handle on the water fountain that denies us a cool drink of water to bureaucratic rules and job designs that block opportunities for achievement and growth. When motivated behavior is blocked, the result is often frustration. Behavioral manifestations of frustration include: aggression (attempting to physically or symbolically injure or do harm to the barrier), withdrawal (backing away from the barrier and becoming apathetic, or in some cases regressing to an earlier state), fixation (pretending that the barrier does not exist) or compromise (choosing a more difficult path to the goal to circumvent the barrier or choosing an alternate but less desirable goal).
Much dysfunctional organizational behavior can be attributed to frustration. The worker who gets in fights hits his boss or sabotages the operation may be exhibiting aggression. The apathetic worker who daydreams and is a motivation problem may be experiencing withdrawal. The employee, who keeps plugging away, knocking his head against the wall, may be doing so as the result of a fixation. The employee who quits or becomes a union organizer or lives outside the job may be experiencing compromise. The challenge for the practitioner concerned with effective human-resource management is to remove some of the barriers that prevent employees from attaining goals. Of course, management must be careful to make sure that the goals ill the motivational cycle of individual employees are compatible with the goals of the organization.
