1.

It is hard to argue with the accepted wisdom – backed by empirical evidence – that a motivated workforce
means better corporate performance. But what actions, precisely, can managers take to satisfy the four drives
and, thereby, increase their employees’ overall motivation?

- Completed two major studies aimed at answering that question.

- To define overall motivation, we focused on 4 commonly measured workplace indicators of it:

+ engagement: energy, effort, initiative

+ satisfaction: does the company meet their expectations, does it satisfy its implicit and explicit contracts with them?

+ commitment: extent to which employees engage in corporate citizenship

+ intention to quit: employee turnover

- Results of 2 studies:

+ individual managers influence overall motivation as much as any organizational policy does

- Examples of satisfying employees’ emotional needs

+ reward system, culture, management systems, design of jobs

+ emphasis individual and store performance, enhance the spirit of camaraderie among employees and their
dedication to technical expertise

+ create a hostile environment that interfered with the drive to defend

2. The four drives that underlie motivation

2.1. The drive to acquire

- Physical goods: food, clothing, housing, money

- Travel and entertainment

- Promotion

- Relative and insatiable

-> Care about both their own compensation packages and others’

2.2. The drive to bond

- Strong positive emotions: love and caring

- Negative: loneliness and anomie

- Boost in motivation when feeling proud of belonging to the firm

- Loss of morale when the institution betrays

- Care more about the firm than about their local group with it

2.3. The drive to comprehend:

- Make sense of the world, produce theories and accounts – scientific, religious, and cultural

-> Explain for reasonable actions and responses

- Frustrated when things seem senseless

- Work place: the desire to make a meaningful contribution, motivated by jobs that challenge them and enable them to
grow and learn

- Demoralized by those that seem to be monotonous or to lead a dead end

2.4. The drive to defend:

- Defend the ideas and opinions

- Feeling of security and confidence if be fulfill

- If not -> fear and resentment

- Resistance to change

-> to fully motivate employees, must address all four drives

3. The organizational levers of motivation

Each drive is best met by a distinct organizational lever

3.1. The reward system

- suitable for the drive to acquire

- how effectively it discriminates between good and poor performers

- give the best people opportunities for advancement

3.2. Culture

- suitable for the drive to bond

- create a culture promoting teamwork, collaboration, openness, and friendship

3.3. Job design

- the drive to comprehend

- designing the job: meaningful, interesting, and challenging

3.4. Performance-management and resource-allocation processes

- the drive to defend

- fair, trustworthy, and transparent processes for performance management and resource allocation

- make decision processes clear

- employee can understand the rationale behind the decision

4. How to make big strides in employee motivation

- improve the effectiveness in fulfilling all four basic emotional drives, not just one.

5. The role of the direct manager

- Managers decisions = organizational policies

- employees recognized that a manager has some control over how company processes and policies are
implemented.

- managers can link rewards and performance in areas such as praise, recognition, and choice assignments.

- they can allocate a bonus pool in ways that distinguish between top and bottom performers

- can take actions that encourage team-work and make jobs more meaningful and interesting

- supervisors foster a highly motivating local environment

- employees look to different elements of their organization to satisfy different drives but expect their managers to do
their best to address all 4 within the constraints that the institution imposes.

- how employees thought about their managers affects to the degree they rate them

1. Does the “new model of motivation” (Nohria, Groysberg, & Lee, 2008) apply to a particular type of work (e.g.,
professional, administrative, technical, unskilled)? Why or why not?
No. It applies to any type of work. Reasons:
- The four drives are common for any employee working in any area
- How managers and organization make actions does not rely on the positions or particular type of work

2. How should organizations allocate their resources among the different influences on performance: the direct
manager, rewards, culture, job design, and performance management systems?
It depends on:
- the situation of the organization
- the size
- objectives and goals
- strategies