Motivating Workers
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I found this incredibly profound and realized just how true it is.
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O'Reilly has been pushing a book that they have on why you can't motivate workers.
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@scottalanmiller said:
O'Reilly has been pushing a book that they have on why you can't motivate workers.
Just got a new article idea!
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So why can't you motivate workers and what's the difference between motivation and inspiration (sounds like bollocks to me...)?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
So why can't you motivate workers and what's the difference between motivation and inspiration (sounds like bollocks to me...)?
Because workers motivate themselves. The job of a job is to make the worker want to work hard at their job. It's to inspire passion and drive. You can't teach these things, or even more you can't force them. The person can only cause these things within themselves. The job should help create the desire for me to want to work hard for them.
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That may be true of some jobs I guess, but certainly not all. I have a few banker friends who hate their jobs but are motivated by huge sums of cash.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
That may be true of some jobs I guess, but certainly not all. I have few banker friends who hate their jobs but are motivated by huge sums of cash.
You can't force motivation. It's a lackluster effort at best. You can force faux-motivation, but true passion can only come from the person themselves.
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@thanksajdotcom said:
You can't force motivation. It's a lackluster effort at best. You can force faux-motivation,
I don't know what that means. I know that a lot of companies motivate staff via money and threat of termination.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
You can't force motivation. It's a lackluster effort at best. You can force faux-motivation,
I don't know what that means. I know that a lot of companies motivate staff via money and threat of termination.
Neither of which have been shown to be good motivators.
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@coliver said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
You can't force motivation. It's a lackluster effort at best. You can force faux-motivation,
I don't know what that means. I know that a lot of companies motivate staff via money and threat of termination.
Neither of which have been shown to be good motivators.
Exactly. Money doesn't inspire passion. It inspires greed. People who are passionate about their work don't do it for the money. They do it because they love what they do.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
You can't force motivation. It's a lackluster effort at best. You can force faux-motivation,
I don't know what that means. I know that a lot of companies motivate staff via money and threat of termination.
Take someone who truly likes what they do and wants to do a good job and they will NEVER be motivated because of money or the threat of termination. Those create fear and lower quality of work, not better.
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@coliver said:
Neither of which have been shown to be good motivators.
Haven't they? I haven't seen any studies either way. I know its still a popular way of motivating staff. I haven't heard of any photocopier resellers scrapping their commission system because their sales reps are so inspired by photocopiers, or banks scrapping their bonus scheme because their workers are so inspired by credit default swaps that bonuses are no longer required.
I'm speaking as someone who isn't inspired by my job, btw. I mean I don't mind coming to work, but I do it for the money. I still believe I do a good job.
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There are a lot of different motivation theories, many of which have decades of evidence to back them up.
A.J. is referring to what I think is the Self-Determination theory, which basically says that once an employee meets three intrinsic needs, competence, relatedness, and independence (I think been a long time since my management theory classes) that employee will be working at their optimal productivity.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
So why can't you motivate workers and what's the difference between motivation and inspiration (sounds like bollocks to me...)?
Inspiring someone is convincing them to use their motivation for you. Motivated people are going to do things. They just might do it in a way that is useful to you. Inspire them to be motivated in a direction useful to you.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
That may be true of some jobs I guess, but certainly not all. I have a few banker friends who hate their jobs but are motivated by huge sums of cash.
But aren't they already motivated by the cash? The job doesn't add that, exactly. And at least in IT, it has been shown that money itself is a poor motivator too. IT isn't a career field motivated by money.
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@coliver said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
You can't force motivation. It's a lackluster effort at best. You can force faux-motivation,
I don't know what that means. I know that a lot of companies motivate staff via money and threat of termination.
Neither of which have been shown to be good motivators.
Yes, they kind of motivate, but mostly they motivate people to look elsewhere. They can motivate you for an hour or a day. But they are unlikely to make you reliably motivated.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Haven't they? I haven't seen any studies either way. I know its still a popular way of motivating staff. I haven't heard of any photocopier resellers scrapping their commission system because their sales reps are so inspired by photocopiers, or banks scrapping their bonus scheme because their workers are so inspired by credit default swaps that bonuses are no longer required.
Is it? I'm aware that a lot of people think they are motivating people that way but not aware that it is actually motivating anyone. Salespeople become salespeople (in my experience) because they are motivated by money and like doing sales. The money is already a motivation before getting there. The job isn't motivating them, it's just not demotivating them - allowing them to motivate themselves.
The things you are talking about - removing compensation, I would say would be demotivational. Paying below the value of the work. People who are already motivated by money will be more motivated by more money, I agree. But people who are not already motivated won't be more motivated by more money.
If they were, people would act very differently than they do as a whole
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@coliver said:
There are a lot of different motivation theories, many of which have decades of evidence to back them up.
A.J. is referring to what I think is the Self-Determination theory, which basically says that once an employee meets three intrinsic needs, competence, relatedness, and independence (I think been a long time since my management theory classes) that employee will be working at their optimal productivity.
That seems to make sense. Paying nothing means that people have to find their money (or food, or housing) elsewhere. But pay them enough to be happy and paying them more won't motivate them more. I know that studies were done in this and were required reading for my management graduate work and they supported that at least in IT, money beyond market value really did nothing and would actually cause problems as people began to see their work as tied to money rather than being its own reward.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@coliver said:
Neither of which have been shown to be good motivators.
Haven't they? I haven't seen any studies either way. I know its still a popular way of motivating staff. I haven't heard of any photocopier resellers scrapping their commission system because their sales reps are so inspired by photocopiers, or banks scrapping their bonus scheme because their workers are so inspired by credit default swaps that bonuses are no longer required.
I'm speaking as someone who isn't inspired by my job, btw. I mean I don't mind coming to work, but I do it for the money. I still believe I do a good job.
There has been studies on this since the 50's. Money and threats aren't good motivators, it has been show in every major motivation study done. Money work up till a point, but after that point offering more money has diminishing returns. Threats almost never work, people produce less when threatened with termination then if they were given any other kind of incentive.
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@scottalanmiller said:
People who are already motivated by money will be more motivated by more money, I agree. But people who are not already motivated won't be more motivated by more money.
Yes. I agree with this. People are different. Assuming I'm understanding the difference between motivation and inspiration, I'd say I'm motivated at work but not inspired. That doesn't make me any less of a worker than @thanksajdotcom, it makes me different. I think there's a danger that people can assume that everyone is just like them and anyone different is wrong.
