Motivation, Motivation And Intrinsic Motivation

When a person plans or wants to do something, he or she has a motivation for that specific thing. In other words, when a person does something, that person has a reason why he or she should do that thing. Not always there is a reason to do something, but sometimes may be many reasons that are backing a person to take those actions to do it. This happens not only to humans, or living organisms, but also in nonliving organisms. An example is when a rock which had bounced after it hit the floor while falling down. Scientists may tell some of the reasons why the rock does that kind of action, but they cannot tell all of the reasons that back the rock’s actions. A similar thing, as the scientists, was Alfie Kohn trying to do in his essay, “Why

Pink provides a well laid out case highlighting the gap between what science knows and what organizations do. Showcasing the mid-century work of Harry Harlow and Edward Deci , Pink explains how human motivation seems to run counter to what most scientists and citizens believe. For decades, we have believed that we know what motivates people: rewards. Rewards are supposed to intensify interest and enhance performance. But Harlow and Deci found different results. Deci wrote, “When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity.” Like a shot of espresso, rewards can give you a jolt of energy, but the boost wears out, moreover, it can erode a person’s longer-term motivation to engage in the task. As we continue to incentivize our staff and students,

In his book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel H. Pink lays out the groundwork for what he calls “Motivation 3.0.” Pink opens his book with the acknowledgement of the past drives of human behavior. Originally, humans’ main drive was biological. Hunger, thirst, and sex are the main three components of this drive. The next drive recognized is the drive most commonly used by businesses today, Motivation 2.0.

Motivation can be defined as the desire or inspiration to carry out specific tasks or to do something. Motivation is required when goals are being set and more so in their execution. In a work setting, motivation can be defined as a process through which individuals choose between alternative forms of behavior with the aim of achieving personal objectives. The goals sought by individuals can be extrinsic or relatively tangible such as monetary rewards and promotion, or intrinsic or intangible such as self esteem or job satisfaction (Armstrong, 2006). In learning, the desire to attain good grades is what motivates a student to study hard everyday as they prepare for the exam. On the other hand, for a teacher to put his best foot forward, he

While watching “The Puzzle of Motivation” by Dan Pink, I was very intrigued. Throughout the entire talk, there were several interesting points that were made. It really interested me when Pink talked about the group that was rewarded. Pink stated that if the contestants were in the top 25% of the fastest times, they would be rewarded five dollars. With this incentive, most would hope to do well, if not better than the person that would not be rewarded. Pink then goes on to point out the results. How much faster did the group that was offered a reward actually do? On average, it took them three and a half minutes longer. This really stood out to me because when offered a reward for a task, normally a person would be more motivated and thus do better. What amazed me even more was that this isn’t just a one time thing. This is has been replicated over and over for nearly 40 years. As Pink says around 04:33, “These contingent motivators -- if you do this, then you get that -- work in some circumstances. But for a lot of tasks, they actually either don 't work or, often, they do harm.” These rewards that are being offered are being used to attempt to sharpen thinking and accelerate creativity, but instead it’s proving to do the opposite. It’s proving to dull thinking and block creativity.

According to Bateman & Snell (2009), Motivators to employee job performance are centered on extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Extrinsic rewards are characteristics of the workplace that attract and retain people. They revolve around organization and management policies, working conditions, pay, benefits, and other so-called “hygiene” factors. Intrinsic rewards are motivators that provide employees personal satisfaction in the performance of their jobs such as opportunities for personal and career growth, recognition and the feeling of achievement in the successful completion of a task. (p. 486). Herzberg’s two-factor theory suggests

The success of any business depends on the productivity and satisfaction of its employees. Employees need to be motivated to work. Motivation can be defined as the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals. Motivation can be either intrinsic or extrinsic. For an individual to be motivated in a work situation there must be a need, which the individual would have to perceive a possibility of satisfying through some reward. Intrinsic motivation stems from motivations that are inherent and arise from performing the task of the job itself, which the individual gets a feeling of either positive or negative motivation as a result of

The standard way of thinking about motivation has it that the only way to get people to be driven is to reward them extrinsically. In other words, the way we generally try to motivate people is by dangling a carrot in front of their face, or pushing them with a poke to the ribs with stick. Many people assume that if you want someone to do something, you incentivize them with external compensation. For example, if you want a student to work harder in class, offer them extra credits. If you want your basketball team to be better, make them run more suicides as punishment. However, in this book, Drive: ’’The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us’’ by Daniel Pink challenges this conventional, preconceived notion of motivation of carrot and stick mentality. Pink divided motivation into three categories that evolved over time: motivation 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0.

Motivation is the number one driving force behind anything and everything an individual does each day. “Motivation is the desire to do the best possible job or to exert the maximum effort to perform an assigned task. Motivation energizes, directs, and sustains human behavior directed towards a goal.” (Honor, 2009). Motivation can determine the outcome of projects, goals, and can set limits on what an individual can obtain or what they believe they can obtain. Motivation often is the deciding factor on how successful a project in an organization is, and an individual’s needs and desires can both influence a person’s motivation greatly. Motivation can also determine how well an individual does in school, college, or university.

In “The Surprising Science of Motivation”, Dan Pink explained how the 21st century is requiring people to become more creative and think outside of the box. Allowing yourself to view all the possibilities instead of restricting solutions can provide more positive rewards. As a result, I find myself understanding the concept that external rewards like money are not the best way to motivate ourselves or others. Therefore, motivation lies within everyone by giving them the power to examine three elements of motivation which include autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Those that follow this motivation are not receiving cash reward but a reward of accomplishing their own task. In summary, I know understand that a person can be motivated by their

In “Understanding Management”, there is a chapter on motivation that covers both extrinsic and intrinsic reward. The material does highlight the increasing trend of motivating people through appealing to those intrinsic needs and how it

Sturman, Corgel and Verma noted, “the motivation, the drive, or compelling force that energizes people to do what they do comes from either inside the individual (intrinsic motivation) or from the environment (extrinsic motivation)” (Sturman, Corgel, & Verma, 2011). Per the Profile Survey on page 49 my two “Not at all Characteristic” behaviors of noticing appropriate rules and following them and encouraging others to develop and solve their own problems are more like in need of improvement behaviors. In my mind motivation is closely related to encouragement and I have noticed one of my areas that need improvement is recognizing when people need me to encourage them to take action versus when they need me to help them solve a problem. For example,

Young children are compelled to learn because of their natural curiosity in life. Older children seem to need a push in the direction to learn. This describes the two types of motivation. Intrinsic motivation describes the young child. It is motivation from within and the desire someone feels to complete a task, including natural curiosity. Intrinsic motivation is anything we do to motivate ourselves without rewards from an outside source. “In relation to learning, one is compelled to learn by a motive to understand, originating from their own curiosity” (Rehmke-Ribary, 2003 p.intrinsic).

that employees remain motivated if they are rewarded to achieve goals of a company. And when they are

Being rewarded and recognised for their work or contribution is what keeps an employee motivated to work towards achieving the organisational as well as personal goals. When the employees is motivated by rewards, they will have job satisfaction consequently increasing the productivity of the organisation. It necessitates the need of managers to pay more attention in understanding their employees and come up with suitable types of reward systems for the organisation so that the employees are intrinsically and extrinsically motivated all the time. The hypotheses that I put forward here is to support this statement that effective reward management is critical to