Motivation (Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and the learning theory)

According to Huucznsky and Buchanan (2007), an organisation s a managed system designed and operated to achieve a specific set of objectives.  It is a social group which distributes tasks for a collective goal. Whenever people interact in organisations, many factors come into play. All organizational studies seek to control, predict and explain the behaviors of people in the organisation, since the behavior of employees play a major role in organizational development, organizational performance enhancement and also individual and group performance, satisfaction and commitment. Organisations in recent times seek to improve performance and service quality, reduce production cost, increase efficiency and promote continuous improvement with the use of Information Technologies. These objectives can only be achieved through commitment and dedication of employees. It is believed that, employee commitment and dedication is dependent on how motivated they are in the organisation.

According to Hoyer and MacInnis (1997), motivation is an inner force that reflects goal- directed arousal. It is the driving force within individuals by which they attempt to achieve some goals in order to fulfill some need or expectation. The behavior of people is determined by what motivates them and their performance is a product of both ability and level.

Performance = function (ability × motivation)

Mullins (2010) defined motivation as the creation of stimuli, incentives and working environments that enable people to perform to the best of their ability. The heart of motivation is to give people what they really want most to work. Mescon (1985), affirmed that the existence of the concept of motivation for ages means that in every social set-up, be it a nation, a state or a community, individuals should be motivated in order to work effectively and efficiently towards high output goals. This implies that in order for organisations to give out their best, employee motivation is essential.

Motivation is the driving force by which humans achieve their goals. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. The term is generally used to describe humans behavior. It is a very personal thing and is influenced by many variables. Farren (1989) suggested that to understand motivation, one needs to understand the basic human needs; family, health and well being, work/career, economic, learning, home/shelter, social relationships, spirituality, community, leisure, mobility and the environment/safety. Knowing they exist and understanding them gives the leader a deeper framework upon which to build an understanding of your own motivation and that of others. Using it as a check list when introducing change, is a useful way to check you have looked at the impact of the change on employee motivation from a number of different lenses.

Employee motivation is a major factor in the success or failure of any organisation. Without a motivated workforce, productivity, morale, profits, product and service delivery suffers, so in order to stay competitive, organisations must invest in effective decision strategies to motivate the staff. Different factors motivate individuals and team differently. While some are motivated by money, others are motivated by the opportunity for professional development, flexible work schedules, or a sense of accomplishment. From line managers to top executives, understanding what factors motivate employees is a key to gaining the human resource advantage that leads to success in organisations (Javitch Associates, 2007).

Motivating employees to complete their work correctly and on time is one of the major tasks of management. Changing an employee's perception of his place within a company is sometimes an effective way of improving organizational behavior constructively. Employees who perceive that they have a greater control over their work lives will likely be more motivated to excel within the organizational structure. A worker's social perception of others within the organization can affect his motivation to complete work effectively to a large degree. Motivation within an organization remains high if a worker perceives that there are opportunities for personal development or professional advancement, if he feels capable of completing tasks correctly and is involved with various organizational decision-making and goal-setting processes. Motivation can be reduced if the worker perceives a lack of opportunity for growth, a lack of involvement or a lack of opportunities to demonstrate any creativity. Each individual is motivated by needs and the most basic needs are inborn. People are wanting beings, they always want more depending on what they already have. To motivate employees, management need to know “what” motivates people, their needs and goals (content) and “how” motivation occurs (process). Maslow, Alderfer, Herzberg and McClelland studied motivation from a “content” perspective.

Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs helped to explain how these needs motivate us all. He suggests that human needs are arranged in series of levels, a hierarchy of importance. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs states that we must satisfy each need in turn, starting with the first, which deals with the most obvious needs for survival itself. It is only when the lower order needs of physical and emotional well-being are satisfied that we are concerned with the higher order needs of influence and personal development. Conversely if the things that satisfy our lower order needs are swept away, we are no longer concerned about the maintenance of our higher order needs.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is an excellent model for understanding human motivation, but it is a broad concept. People move up (or down) the hierarchy, depending what's happening to them in their lives, it is also true that most people's motivational 'set' at any time comprises elements of all of the motivational drivers. For example, self-actualizers (level 5 - original model) are mainly focused on self-actualizing but are still motivated to eat (level 1) and socialise (level 3). Similarly, homeless folk whose main focus is feeding themselves (level 1) and finding shelter for the night (level 2) can also be, albeit to a lesser extent, still concerned with social relationships (level 3), how their friends perceive them (level 4), and even the meaning of life (level 5 - original model).

Figure 1.          Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Add caption

Once lower level needs have been satisfied, giving more of the same does not provide motivation. Individuals advance up the hierarchy as each lower-level need becomes satisfied, therefore, to provide motivation for a change in behavior, the manager must direct attention to the next higher level of needs that seek satisfaction. People do not necessarily satisfy their needs, especially higher-level needs, just through the work situation. They satisfy them through other areas of their life as well. Therefore the manager would need to have a complete understanding of people’s private lives, not just their behavior at work. Individual differences mean that people place different values on the same need. For example, some people prefer what they might see as the comparative safety of working in a bureaucratic organisation to a more highly paid and higher status position, but with less job security, in a different organisation. Satisfaction is the main motivational outcome of behavior but job satisfaction does not necessarily lead to improved work performance.

Although, Maslow’s theories has had a significant impact on management approaches to motivation and the design of organisations to meet individual needs, there is the need to identify the relationship among the dynamic variables that make up motivation and the actions required to influence behavior and actions which provide contribution to our understanding of complex nature of work motivation. Organizational behavior is how people act in groups, particularly at work. In practice, no single type of organizational behavior characterizes a business, so leaders need to analyze which type their company uses and find ways to utilize that knowledge to make the company effective. People learn from each other every time and turn to see  each other as a motivator. Learning is a way by which employees are motivated. It is thought of as a process by which behaviour changes as a result of experience (Maples and Webster 1980 quoted in Merriam and Caffarella 1991: 124). Learning as a process focuses on what happens when the learning takes place. Explanations of what happens constitute learning theories. A learning theory is an attempt to describe how people and animals learn, thereby helping us understand the inherently complex process of learning. Learning theories have two chief values according to Hill (2002). One is in providing vocabulary and a conceptual framework for interpreting the examples of learning that we observe. The other is in suggesting where to look for solutions to practical problems. The theories do not give us solutions, but they do direct our attention to those variables that are crucial in finding solutions. Learning may be explained by the combination of two basic approaches, behaviorism and the cognitive theories.

Merriam and Caffarella (1991) highlight four approaches or orientations to learning: Behaviorist, Cognitivist, Humanist, and Social/Situational. These approaches involve contrasting ideas as to the purpose and process of learning and education and the role that educators may take. Cognitive Learning Theory explains why the brain is the most incredible network of information processing and interpretation in the body as we learn things. This theory can be divided into two specific theories: the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), and the Cognitive Behavioral Theory (CBT) (Sarah Mae Sincero, 2011). In the Social Cognitive Theory, 3 variables are considered which are interrelated with each other to enable learning to occur. They are the behavioral factors, environmental factors (extrinsic) and personal factors (intrinsic).

Learning according to the behaviorist theory is an observable change in behavior. Behaviorism, along with several newer variations that have names like information processing theory, emphasize the learning of facts and skills that authorities, such as teachers or school boards, have decided are important. Behavioral teaching and learning tends to focus on skills that will be used later. It does not, however, generally ask you to actually put the skills or knowledge you learn in

Constructivism is a theory of knowledge that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas, to use in a "real" or "authentic" situation. Jean Piaget suggested that through processes of accommodation and assimilation, individuals construct new knowledge from their experiences. When individuals assimilate, they incorporate the new experience into an already existing framework without changing that framework. Constructivism is a theory describing how learning happens, regardless of whether learners are using their experiences to understand a lecture or following the instructions for building a model airplane. In both cases, the theory of constructivism suggests that learners construct knowledge out of their experiences.

The social learning theory, focuses on the learning that occurs within a social context. It considers that people learn from one another, including such concepts as observational learning, imitation, and modeling. Among others Albert Bandura (1996) is considered the leading proponent of this theory. It stresses that learning and subsequent changes in behavior take place as a result of interaction between individuals and their environment. Employees learn by observing the behavior of others and their outcomes of those behaviors. Behaviorists say that learning has to be represented by a permanent change in behavior, in contrast social learning theorists say that because people can learn through observation alone, their learning may not necessarily be shown in their performance. Thus, learning may or may not result in a behavior change. Over the last 30 years social learning theory has become increasingly cognitive in its interpretation of human learning. Awareness and expectations of future reinforcements or punishments can have a major effect on the behaviors that people exhibit.

Everybody has the magnificent ability to make things happen, to create consequences. The more one learns from experience of their consequences, the more reliably they are able to create the precise outcomes they desire. Everything you do has consequences and every consequences has a lesson. Learn well and create all the best you can envision. For effective and positive learning to occur an individual should have positive personal characteristics, exhibit appropriate behavior and stay in a supportive environment.

Reference

1. Learning theories knowledge (2011, September) at learning theories .com;http://www.learning-theories.com
2. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
3. www.infed.org/biblio/b-learn.htm “learning theory”
4. iWise2^TM learning for tomorrow. www.iwise2.com//12-basic human-needs.
5. Majelantle A,(1998) Challenges, motivating Staff with limited resources.
6. Armstrong M, (2007), Handbook, Human Resource Management, Cogan Series.
7. Kreitner R. (1995), Management (6^th edition). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
8. Bedeian, A.G. (1993) Management (3^rd edition). New York: Dryden Press.