Motivation and how management can use it Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Motivation and how management can use it - Essay Example The late Marvin Bower, who transformed McKinsey & Co. into one of the best management consulting firms in the world, said that the "ability to inspire and require workers to be their best is the greatest resource of any business, and that the rewards for doing so include growth for the business itself, and growth in competitive position, size, and profits" (Edersheim, 2004, p. 65). Much literature about theories of motivation and work relate to the subject of inspiring employees to be their best (Gagne and Deci, 2005; Ambrose and Kulik, 1999). This paper explores how managers can use theories of motivating employees to make the workplace better, more profitable, and efficient. A manager's job is to get things done through their employees, so knowing how to motivate employees is always a challenge that has never been easy and is not getting any easier. Many changes driven by worldwide social and economic forces are happening in the workplace and in the workers themselves. The end of the Cold War in the early 1990s and the globalization of businesses are transforming corporations - public and private, large and small - in a radical way (Stiglitz, 2002). Global competition and the rise of democracy are pressuring companies to be more competitive, agile, and lean, changing the nature of organizational structures and the relationships between managers and workers (Micklethwait & Wooldridge, 2000). Another change agent is the progress of information and communications technology, especially the Internet and mobile computing, which has altered the nature of communication within the organization and the quality of the workforce. Workers are more educated and knowledgeable, able to gain quick access to information and perform knowledge-based tasks in an atmosphere of teamwork and collaboration (Heerwagen, Kelly, & Kampshroer, 2005). As the workplace structure and the workers themselves change, management faces the problem posed by Gerstner (2002) after a successful ten-year effort to bring IBM Corporation out of a crisis: How do you pull the levers of motivation to change the attitudes, behavior, and thinking of a population Of course, different people are motivated by different things. Some by money. Some by advancement. Some by recognition. For some, the most effective motivation is fear - or anger. For others, that doesn't (sic) work; it's learning, or the opportunity to make an impact, to see their efforts produce concrete results. Most people can be roused by the threat of extinction. And most can be inspired by a compelling vision of the future. Over the past ten years, I've pulled most of those levers (p. 203). Effectively changing the attitudes, behavior, and thinking of workers demands that a manager knows what levers of motivation to pull in the first place. Theories, Concepts, and Practices Much research has been done to identify empirically-proven theories and methods that managers can use to motivate their