The Reason to Motivation Others in Society Essay (Critical Writing)

Introduction

Motivation is one of the most important character traits. Motivation is used in various contexts both formal and informal in order to facilitate the achievement of certain ends. But, what is the meaning of definition? This question has been answered differently by different people depending on varied perception of what it constitutes.

However, the rationale for motivation has remained relatively the same universally. Psychologically, motivation has been defined as the psychosomatic feature that provokes a certain organism to work towards the achievements of desired goals and objectives. Motivation can be said to be the energy or power within that pushes an individual towards performing certain actions and achievement (Wiseman, 2008, p.43).

Motivation actually has a lot to do with yearning and ambition; this implies that in the absence of both desire and ambition, there cannot be motivation.

In most cases, individuals nurse the desire and ambition to have something achieved in line with personally set goals and objectives, whether for personal or group gains. In this case, when an individual does not have the push, the willingness and initiative to act, then it means such an individual lacks the necessary motivation coupled with the inner drive to succeed with the desire (Hawkins, 2009, p.144).

Motivation gives strengths to ambition, offers direction and increases one’s initiative and energizes one to work even harder; besides, it encourages and gives an individual the persistence to work towards achieving one’s set goals and desires. Motivation as a trait is one of the most significant success indicators.

When an individual or group of individuals lacks motivation, no result is achievable; however, in the case where results are achieved, they are highly likely not to be desirable and may be mediocre results or outcomes. Meanwhile, wherever there is motivation and drive within each individual, great and high quality results are achievable and success is inevitable for both an individual and groups of individuals (Booth, 1977, p.72).

Motivation is not always positive in terms of outcomes. There are individuals who may be to perpetually commit crime. For instance, those who commit burglary have their own personal motivators; even those who commit suicide or murder are motivated by certain things. For the purposes of this paper, motivation is considered on its ability to spur positive change and help an individual or groups of individuals to purse their goals and objectives to the end.

Motivating others

It is important to note that being able to motivate others is a great asset in itself. Motivation comes from within. However, there are individuals who lack motivation from within and hence need motivation from others (Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2007, p.256). This is where motivational individuals come to fill in the gap.

Motivation is a personal skill and it can come from rational people irrespective of age, occupation or social or economic status. Nonetheless, it is good to point out that motivation can take place in the context of socially approved context and in a context that is anti-social.

It therefore implies that not everybody can give motivation to others, especially those whose self-images are not good within the public domain.

For one to be able to successfully motivate others, one needs to have reputation, be respected by those he or she intends to motivate; he or she should understand the socio-economic and cultural background of those intended for motivation and respect their viewpoints. Motivation can also take place at corporate level (Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2007, p.289).

It can take place in a business context where corporate leaders get to motivate employees and businessmen and businesswomen. Again, to be a successful motivator, it is crucial to understand motivational factors and the appropriate scenarios to offer motivation.

De-motivation is necessitated by lack of motivation in an individual or groups of individuals. There are several literatures that have discussed motivation from various perspectives. Some of these literatures have discussed how to tell that individual or groups of people lack motivation; they have also examined what might make people to be de-motivated.

According to available information, the indicators of lack of motivation amongst employees in an organization or company include increased sicknesses some of which are feigned to escape responsibilities, increased employee absenteeism, lateness during arrival at the work place, employees leave the office either before closing time or immediately the time reaches, lack of communication, poor attitude at work place expression of frustration.

A question may be asked, “Why do individual feel or get frustrated?” there are many reasons or factors that may make an individual to get frustrated and hence lack motivation.

Some of these factors include lack of motivation either from within or others around, boredom with what one is pursuing either on personal grounds or as a duty at work place, when one is not getting the attention of others in terms of listening, lack of encouragement, lack of or poor training, absence of work delegation, being criticized instead of being helped to overcome or correct mistakes and being given too much wok.

These are just but few amongst the major causes of frustration leading to lack of motivation. It is important to know what makes particular individuals to feel the lack of motivation before attempting to come up with ways and strategies to motivate them. This may involve listening to them as they explain what makes them feel frustrated and lack the willpower to undertake tasks. The information acquired from them can be used to design appropriate ways to motivate them.

Different literatures have come up with ways through which one can motivate others; motivation comes in different forms. For instance, as a parent one may want to encourage children to achieve their best both at home and in school. In most of such cases where one is faced with the responsibility of motivating others, inspiration by example is one of the best options to get people motivated. According to the available literature, motivating others has several implications.

First, it is important to recognize that motivation is the only reason individuals engage in achieving certain ends. With respect to this, it is good to note that some individuals derive motivation intrinsically while others get it extrinsically. People who are intrinsically motivated derive their motivation from deep within themselves and may not require the motivation of others; meanwhile, those who derive motivation extrinsically derive their motivation from others and may not achieve desired results if not motivated.

Available literature also indicates that the first step in motivating others is having a sense of purpose. The motivator must make the people he or she is motivating to understand the work or goals they are pursuing are of great purpose.

When they lose hope and no longer see the need to pursue the goals or task, showing them the purpose of such may offer them the necessary motivation to continue to the end; this implies that while one may not actually be aware of how significant the task is performing is, making him or her to realize the purpose may lead to a very successful outcome.

Other ways of motivating others include assuring them of how they are likely to benefit, offering the necessarily needed support and encouragement in performing a given task and creating a sense of importance in an individuals or groups of people; people always want to feel important and regarding them as search could be a great motivation to them.

Theoretical perspectives of motivation

There are a number of theories that relate to the subject of motivation. One amongst the main theories that relate to the subject is the Maslow’s Hierarchy needs. The theory recognizes that individuals have certain needs that they want fulfilled. A need is something we need either personally or as a group; however, the Maslow’s theory tends to be biased towards individual needs.

These needs give the desire and drives which motivate individuals get ways of satisfying such needs. In this case, being able to satisfy these needs is the main goal. Maslow’s theory of motivation is referred to as the “hierarchy of needs.” According to Maslsow, individuals have five major needs ranked according to their importance starting from the most important to least. The first in the hierarchy is the physiological needs in which an individual has the need to eat, drink, work, sleep and reproduce.

The second is the safety needs which entails the needs for shelter and feel secure. The third need is the belonging needs whereby a person desires to feel part of a group and be accepted. Fourth is self esteem need; here an individual need the good feelings about themselves and be recognized by others for their achievements.

The last but not least amongst the hierarchical needs is the need to self-realization; in this hierarchy of needs individuals need to achieve personal fulfillment and grow and develop themselves. Maslow believes that individuals would only move down the list in order to be motivated by the next set of needs only after they have satisfied their previous needs (Maslow, 1943, pp.369-397).

Moreover, there is another theory by Alderfer which is related to Maslow’s hierarchical theory. Alderfer’s theory put the needs into three categories which include existence needs, relatedness needs and growth needs. This theory applies mostly to work environment where managers and or leaders require comprehending the theory if they are to motivate their employees.

This theory argues that managers and organizational leaders to realize that some people simply come to earn money and will only be concerned with existence needs and hence will not bother about getting on with other; which is related to relatedness needs. Also, others come to work in order to meet others and have a personal challenge and some sense of achievements; this is related to growth needs.

But, for the rest, they may be driven by all the desires. According to Alderfer, motivating people with existence needs requires that they are paid enough, given a safe and good work place, offered incentives; set reasonable targets and that people should be treated as individuals (Zepeda, 2007, p.214).

Furthermore, Alderfer’s theory argues that motivating people with relatedness needs include showing them respect, giving responsibilities, offering recognition for good performance, communicating with them appropriately, involving them in decision making processes, encouraging them to freely give their ideas, praising them whenever they achieve goals and objectives of the organization, offering chance for team building and some days out of office and celebrating success with them.

Motivating people with growth needs requires that individuals are offered with necessary support in order to complete their tasks; staff members are given challenges at the work place, work is made to be as interesting as it can be, people are encouraged to be innovative and think for themselves, individuals are kept informed on the necessary activities going on within an organization, people are stretched with new work and appropriate and necessary trainings are offered to the people (Borkowski, 2009, p.122).

Another prominent supposition is Vroom’s theory, which is based on the credence that effort by a worker yields performance, alternately, performance leads to rewards (which may turn out to be either positive or negative). The theory posits that the motivation and rewards goes hand in hand.

Equally, the more the negative rewards, the less motivated the employee becomes. In other words, Vroom came up with the proposition that for an individual to feel motivated there must be an established link amongst effort, performance and the motivation itself. To account for such a scenario, he proposes three distinctive variables: Valence, Expectancy and Instrumentality.

He explains that Expectancy represents the credence that increased level of effort leads to rise in the level of performance. Of course, he posits that the success of this is dependent on the availability of right resources, possessing the right skills to perform on the job and getting the essential support that will ensure the job is accomplished.

According Vroom, instrumentality is the principle that if one has a good performance on the job, he for she will receive a valued outcome; that is, there is something for the performer in every good job done; and this is influenced by such factors as comprehensible understanding of the link between the desired outcome and the performance, trust in the individual who is to ‘make the decision of the who should get a given outcome and transparency in the process of deciding how individuals should share in the outcome (Vroom, 1964, pp.128-137).

In his last variable, Valence, Vroom argues that individuals place some level of importance on a given outcome. The perception of the individuals on whether or not increased effort will increase performance, increased performance will increase rewards for individuals and rewards on offer is of value determines whether the individuals are motivated or not.

This implies that achievements within an organization are not necessarily the causes for individuals’ motivation; it starts from their perceptions as they perform their duties as employees of the organization (Vroom, 1964, pp.140-168).

Improving skill proficiency in motivation

There is one most important means through which skills on motivation can be improved for its effectiveness. This can be done through learning and attending seminars on motivations. There are several individuals whose career profession is motivational speaking. Through attending such seminars and listening to motivational speakers a manager is most likely to learn new ways of doing motivation.

There are also varied literature materials that discuss various techniques of doing motivations. It therefore means that as much as one might not have been naturally born a motivator, he or she can still gain sufficient knowledge on how to help a team or individuals to achieve high successes through motivations (Ojewale, 2008, p. 201).

There are many other ways through which an individual can improve his or her motivation skills. Most of them are through experience which involves knowing what has worked in the past and what have not in the motivation process. One of the ways through which one can improve on motivation skills is by knowing how to communicate consequences to the people being motivated.

What this means is that the motivator is aware of what can hurt the emotions of the individuals; it is important the motivator communicates the consequences of not undertaking a particular task or achieving a particular goal in such a way that is not likely to sound or appear as a threat to the subjects.

People being motivated should be told of the possible consequences; to successfully achieve this, the motivator must be armed with extra skills that will enable him or her to communicate effectively without harming the feelings of those being motivated. Otherwise, the people may turn against the motivators and hence lose his or her influence (Ojewale, 208, p. 207).

Again, it is important to note that people like doing what gives them pleasure. It is imperative that the motivator is able to determine what makes the people feel pleasure. It may not be necessary that the motivator only provide jobs, tasks or set goals that only give pleasure, but great skills are required to make the people find pleasure in what they are already doing.

Moreover, being able to give detailed instruction one of the best motivation skill a motivator can ever posses. Some times poor instructions may make individuals not to be confident and therefore not motivated in performing a given task. Therefore, the motivator needs to be enlightened on how the people take in instructions and how they follow those instructions.

During the implementation process, the motivator should set the subjects free to express their thoughts and what they believe the instructions should have been in order to perform as they are required (Ojewale, 2008, p.157).

Meeting long term goals may not be motivating as there are possibilities that the employees of individuals behind their achievements may lose motivation in the process. The managers require having techniques of keeping them focused until the goals are achieved as desired.

Available literature indicates that in order to keep the employees motivated to the end, the managers should adopt the strategies of setting short-term goals that are monitored throughout the process; after achievement of every short term goal, they workers should be appreciated for great work done before getting into the pursuit of the succeeding short-term goals.

Besides, it is also stated that in order to keep people motivated, the motivators or the managers should keep in mind that the individual workers have concerns for their personal stakes in the tasks being performed. In this case, the managers should be aware of what the workers of the stakeholders need in the undertaking process (Ojewale, 2008, p.157).

According to other writers, motivating people does not really mean setting goals and instructing them on how to go about it throughout. It is crucial that the managers trust the ability of those working on the desired tasks or goals and set them free to successfully achieve the goals. In the process of performing tasks, those involved may make some mistakes and therefore may need to be criticized or corrected. While doing the criticism, the supervisors and or managers should do it constructively.

This will serve to help them solve the mistake and still remain motivated; otherwise, motivation coupled with destructive criticism may lower the morale of individuals thereby making them to lack the necessary motivation to successful accomplish the task ahead. In the long run, the managers may not achieve desired organizational performance.

In a working environment, employees are always worried about the security of their jobs and professional careers. Hence, it is prudent that the employers use such a situation as a motivation point; the employees should be assured of their job security so that they should not in be in fear that they would lose their jobs should their performance go below the required level, especially where retrenchment is considered as one of the available alternatives to cutting the cost of operations. This will give the employees the morale to work hard towards achieving their goals and objectives.

One important thing to note is that motivational issues at the work place are as a result of the employees’ faults. It is argued that some of the factors contributing to motivational issue; these factors may include personality conflict, lack of the knowledge on how a given behavioral traits affects others, pressure in the families and personal problems amongst others. All these factors, amongst others, may cause employees to lack motivation.

So, when something is realized to have gone wrong, and the employees are no longer motivated to work in the organization, the employers or responsible individual should not just look at the symptoms of the outcome.

He or she should go beyond that and look for the likely causes, come up with alternative solutions and course of actions and implement instead of witch hunting which may cause further deterioration in the morale of already demoralized employees.

According professionals, the worst thing a given leader can ever do is to have the facts wrong; such a leader cannot positively impact on employees by giving motivations (Ojewale, 2008, p.276).

Besides, finding out what makes an employee to lack motivation should start by first collecting the information on what the employees should be doing and whether they are doing them or not. In the process of monitoring the employees as they perform their tasks, it is also important that there past performance records should be examined and compared to the current performance.

This way, the employer or supervisor is able to find out what really frustrates the employees or individuals being observed; it will also help in the process of finding appropriate means of motivation. This should involve working together with the employees. The whole process will help the managers to learn the various things that make employees to lack motivation to perform as they may be required.

The implication of conducting a thorough study of the causes of the problems is to establish ways in which the individuals can be motivated, especially when current motivational techniques are no longer effective or are counterproductive when used with the people.

Conclusion

Motivation is a psychosomatic process that gives an individual’s behavioral traits a purpose. It is a predisposition to perform in a purposive way in order to achieve a certain end; the end constitutes a set of desired needs that an individual seeks to satisfy (Burrows, et al 1980, p. 326).

For one to be motivated, he or she must have the will to act towards satisfying the desired needs. Motivation is, in other words, the drive within an individual that makes him or her to accomplish personal and or organizational goals and objectives. It is important to note that motivate employees will always work hard to sustain an organization and help it achieve its goals as may be outlined in strategic plans; the employees are more productive when they feel motivated.

In order to be effective, it is imperative that the managers should deeply understand what are likely to lower the morale of the employees and what motivates them to give their best at work taking into account the context within the employees perform their tasks. It is acknowledged that motivating employees and other individuals is one of the most complex tasks performed by managers and other leaders; this is due to the fact that motivating factors vary and change with time.

Several theories have been advanced to explain the concept of motivation and how they different impact of the performance of employees and any other individual in an organization. These theories are the Maslow’s theory of motivation which ranks and individual’s needs in five ranks starting from the most important to the least: physiological, safety, belonging, self esteem, and self-realization needs.

According to Maslow, an individual must satisfy lower needs must be met first before the next level of motivation is sort by the individuals. Another prominent supposition is Vroom’s theory, which is based on the credence that effort by a worker yields performance. In this case rewards may either be positive or negative. The theory argues that the more positive the reward the more the individuals will increase their commitment and performance and the more the rewards are negative the less the employees will perform.

There is also the Alderfer’s theory on motivation which is a revision of Maslow’s theory. Instead of Maslow’s five levels of needs, Alderfer’s theory reduced them to just three. The fist one is existence in which an individual is more concerned with the fundamental existence of material motivational factors. The second one is Relatedness; here an individual derives motivation by maintaining interpersonal relationship with others. The last one is Growth which refers the inherent desire by an individual to achieve some level of personal growth.

It is important to note that in order to motivate others, an individual must be motivated first. It will be practically impossible to motivate others when one cannot realize the willpower that lies deep within him or her. Moreover, motivating others requires deeper understanding of what makes others feel frustrated and things and situations in which an individual may feel motivated. With such an understanding, the motivator will be able to know varied ways of motivating others, especially in a working environment.

References List

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