Self-assessment #4: Motivation 1) Using as many motivational and behavioral modi

Question

Self-assessment #4: Motivation

1) Using as many motivational and behavioral modification theories as you feel you need to, assess your motivation relative to your education; specifically, what motivates you today in graduate school. What motivates you in general as you move through the coursework in the OL program? Is it the prospect of earning money when you graduate? (long-term) Is it simply the quest to get good grades (short-term) or is it the motivation to learn (expert power)? When you've had issues with motivation in college what do you feel the problems were specifically tied to motivational and behavioral modification theories?

2) What do you feel will be the best motivator when you get into the workforce one day? Is it fundamentally different than what motivates you in your education? What do you think some of the main problems managers have in motivating their workers today? Is it realistic to rely on intrinsic motivation to drive your employees? If yes, how do you create a culture in which intrinsic motivation can thrive? If no, how useful do you feel extrinsic motivators are for your workers? Are there dangers in using purely extrinsic rewards to motivate employees in the short term? Long term? Explain.

Self-assessment #5: Conflict

1) Conflict is typically associated with a negative context in our society. As we discussed in Chapter 14, conflict is something that organizations should embrace and not avoid. However, the typical response by most individuals is to have a negative/defensive response to conflict which creates a significant barrier to implementing functional conflict in organizations. For this exercise, address your own conflict style. Of the 9 defense mechanisms that we discussed in class (aggressive, compromise, withdrawal), discuss what your typical defense mechanism(s) are. Do you actively seek conflict in your life or try to avoid it? Why?

2)As a manager/leader, what do you feel the best way will be to create an environment of functional conflict? How would you accomplish that? Do you feel most of the conflict you deal with in your career will be task, relationship or process conflict? How do you guard from these types of conflicts becoming dysfunctional?

Explanation / Answer

1)Using as many motivational and behavioral modification theories as you feel you need to, assess your motivation relative to your education; specifically, what motivates you today in graduate school.

Although there are multiple theories that can be applied to analyze the motivation and behavior of any student towards his studies (most of them being appropriate), we would use the Fogg behavior model which proposes that the behavior in studies would be composed of 3 different factors A) Motivation b) Ability c) Triggers.

Motivation levels would in turn be affected by pleasure/pain levels, Hope/fear factor and social acceptance/rejection. In my case I have a great portion of my motivation towards studies stemming from the social acceptance/rejection factor as my and my family’s social acceptance is to a large extent determined by how well I do in studies and thus how bright my future could be.

Next is the ability factor which affects the behavior towards studies. It includes time (long stretches of continuous cramming), physical effort (to sit and study and revise), cognitive ability (sharpness of mind to understand and analyze the concepts) etc. I feel an important factor here is my deep desire to learn anything under the sun.

Next are the triggers in the form of Professors, exams, scholarships that further motivates an individual in studies.

I feel all these factors are active in my case but the prime factor still remains the social acceptance (future dream of luxury, glory.) and deep desire to learn/stay sharp.

What motivates you in general as you move through the coursework in the OL program? Is it the prospect of earning money when you graduate? (long-term) Is it simply the quest to get good grades (short-term) or is it the motivation to learn (expert power)? When you've had issues with motivation in college what do you feel the problems were specifically tied to motivational and behavioral modification theories?

Yes the prospects of earning money is a deep motivator for me (almost 60%), followed by the desire to know everything (30%) and the rest of the factors contribute the final 10%.

Some of these problems were definitely tied to the motivation theories such as for few subjects just a pass grade was needed, hence I never cared to delve deeper in those subjects. In some the professor (trigger) wasn’t strong enough for me to take the subject etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_change_theories

2)What do you feel will be the best motivator when you get into the workforce one day? Is it fundamentally different than what motivates you in your education? What do you think some of the main problems managers have in motivating their workers today? Is it realistic to rely on intrinsic motivation to drive your employees? If yes, how do you create a culture in which intrinsic motivation can thrive? If no, how useful do you feel extrinsic motivators are for your workers? Are there dangers in using purely extrinsic rewards to motivate employees in the short term? Long term? Explain.

When I get into the workforce an entirely different set of factors would motivate me. We can club them as financial and non financial factors. I would say compensation would be the 50% of the driving force inside me. The rest 50 % would be job enlargement, rotation, enrichment etc. Basically these factors would satisfy the intellectual side of me and the compensation would take care of the necessary comforts (more than needs less than luxury) I need to lead a healthy and secure lifestyle.

Perhaps the most important factors managers today lack is the charisma (including intellectual prowess) need to lead the team. This can vary from company to company and team to team but if a manager lives the talk and is fair to all, he is half done motivating his people.

No I don’t think only intrinsic motivation alone can drive all people. As every individual is different, we need a set of factors and in what combination each factor drives and individual would be his choice, upbringing, needs etc. Relying only on intrinsic motivation would work only in organizations with 15-20 members all of them educationally brilliant, progressive thinking, intellectually keen etc.

At the same time, if there are only extrinsic factors of motivation, the sustenance of motivation is doomed as as soon as the external factors fade, the motivation level goes down and the organization is on its downward spiral.

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