Employee Motivation

A powerful New Model

by Nitin Nohria, Boris Groysberg, and Linda-Eling Lee

Prof. Anna Comacchio

Silvia Gandus
832431
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1. Introduction to the topic

Since the beginning of mankind, all kinds of aggragation of humans have established
an hierarchical and well defined society, with leaders, usually men supposed to be the
most relevant personalities, and under them there was a pyramidal structure based on
importance and relevance within the society.
This kind of representation of ancient and primitive community is extraordinary similar
not only to our modern society, but also to the typical organizational structure or
nowadays most rated companies.
Despite great technological advancements, as the basic needs of mankind still remain
the same, we can now compare the similarities and problems that humans had to face
at that time and today.
Thousands of years before the word motivation entered the manager's vocabulary,
people realized the importance of motivating workers in order to accomplish tasks for
an organization.
It was not until 1923 when Elton Mayo made clear the inefficiency of the pure carrotand-stick motivation, that motivational theory began to face with management. After
some experiments, Mayo concluded that the reason for low productivity was related
not only to salary and financial incentives, but also and mainly to the working
atmosphere. Mayo main conclusion from a managerial point of view was the strong
importance of psychology and well being of the worker in order to increase
productivity of the whole organization. From this point on, employee motivation has
been a key issue for organizational success, and has become a science studied
worldwide.1

2. Summary of the article

The article Employee Motivation by N. Nohria, B. Groysberg and L. Lee published on
the Harvard Business Review in 2008, takes into consideration a wide and vital
aspect of human resource studies, that is employees motivation. In particular they
referred to the theory by Lawrence and Nohria that states that there are four drivers,
the fulfill of such is needed in order to rise motivation.
The four drivers that the researchers take into account are:
-acquire (obtain scarce goods, including intangibles such as social status);
-bond (form connections with individuals and groups);
-comprehend (satisfy our curiosity and master the world around us);
-defend (protect against external threats and promote justice).

1userwww.sfsu.edu/~gtarakji/engr801/wordoc/motivation.html

The authors based their research in order to answer the following question:
What actions, precisely, can managers take to satisfy the four drives and, thereby,
increase their employees overall motivation? 2

The drive to acquire

Firstly they took into consideration the drive to acquire, a relative concept linked
not only to our state of well-being, but also to the others. From an organizational
point of view, in order to fulfill the drive to acquire, a fair and appropriate reward
system in needed. The reward system has to tie clearly rewards to performance, in
order to motivate employees in reaching high and challenging goals, and not to
accept average or poor performances. Moreover as a means to create a fair
organization, the wages has to be well correlated to the position held by the
workers.

Drive

Organization level

Actions to for fulfillment

Acquire

Reward System

-fair and differentiate salary

-fairly tie performance to rewards

The drive to bond

The drive to bond manifests itself in our urge to find others and engage them with
in relationships of mutual caring3. The organization has to improve and fulfill this
drive among workers in order to create strong social networks between them. This
condition is reachable through organizational culture: promotion of teamwork,
collaboration among teams and encouraging friendship are all fundamental actions
that can be taken in order to fulfill the drive to bond, not only to other employees,
but also to the organization itself.

Drive

Bond

Organization level

Culture

Actions to for fulfillment

-improve social networks and
mutual reliance
-encourage collaboration and
team work

Employee Motivation A Powerful New Model by Nitin Nohria, Boris Groysberg, and Linda-Eling Lee

http://www.articlesbase.com/human-resources-articles/the-four-drive-theory-in-theworkplace-1650121.html
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The drive to Comprehend

The drive to comprehend is a vital aspect of our daily life, it stimulates curiosity and
allows us to take consequent actions from what we learn and understand. From the
organizational point of view, the drive to comprehend can be improved by creating
jobs that are meaningful, interesting, and challenging within the company. Job
satisfaction is one of the most effective way for motivating employees, because it
stimulates intrinsic motivation. Most of the times job satisfaction and
meaningfulness can higher performance more that financial rewards.4

Drive

Organization level

Comprehend

Job design

Actions to for fulfillment

-create distinct and important
jobs for the organization

The drive to Defend

The drive to defend ourselves from external threats, in a natural and spontaneous
aspect of mankind: we always tend to resist to changes that we think might
damage our position, thoughts or even tangible goods.
In order to reduce as much as possible this natural barrier, the organization has to
create a fair, trustworthy, and transparent processes for performance management
and resource allocation.5

Drive

Defend

Organization level

Performance Management

Actions to for fulfillment

-increase transparency as much
as possible
-Build trust by being just and
transparent in granting rewards,
assignments, and other forms of
recognition

Human Resource Slides

Employee Motivation A Powerful New Model by Nitin Nohria, Boris Groysberg, and Linda-Eling Lee

Graph of the holistic vision of Employee Motivation through simultaneous fulfillment of

the four drivers.

The central role of direct managers

The research also points out the great influence that direct managers have on
workers motivation. Some employees were found to attribute as much importance
to their boss meeting their four drives as to the organizations policies. The most
striking result was that an unbalanced fulfillment of one drive, with respect to the
other three, may vigorously affect the overall motivation of a group of workers. To
be able to reach and maintain high motivation within a working unit, the direct
manager has to pay great attention to the actual state of all four drivers.

3.Comments and Remarks

Understanding human motivation has direct implications in the field of management,
for this reason the four-driver theory by Nohria and Lawrence is becoming more and
more considered from a managerial point of view within the HR departments. But on
the other hand the theory is in development and it still has to take into deeper
consideration some aspects of the four drives. In fact even if it accommodates the
idea of learned needs, it does not fully explain them.6

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Motivation#Four-drive_theory

Even if the article refers to the four drivers as independent and equally important in
order to reach motivation, I personally do not agree totally on this statement. In my
personal opinion there is one aspect that I would add to the theory: the weight that
each drive acquires according to personal characteristics of the worker. The drivers are
not equally considered by all the employees: increasing one of the drivers might have
different motivational effects depending on each workers range of values.
Therefor, values and needs make the difference when we take into account singular
workers motivation. My view takes inspiration from the Maslow's hierarchy of needs;
the theory is based on the pyramid of human needs, from the most essential like food
and breathing to the most refined, like morality and problem solving. 7
The experiment:
In order to sustain my theory, I have carried out a simple experiment. I have
addressed 10 workers, motivated by the fulfillment of the four drivers and holding
similar importance into different organizations, but they differ in personal
characteristics like age, social status and needs. I have divided the ten workers into
two groups according to similarities and I have created two average workers profiles
for each group. My hypothesis is that the two groups are mainly motivated by the
fulfillment of different drivers.
Profile A
Profile A, represents a worker that holds a
quite relevant and stable position in an

Average age

56

organization. His performance has been

Sex

Male

positive and stable over time, as he never

Job position

Divisional Manager

Segment

Banking/Industry

Family

Yes

experienced job turnover, moreover he has

always worked in the same segment and
has accumulated great experience. Profile A
is on average 57 years old, so he is not so

far from retirement. He has a family and lives in a property house.8

Profile B
Profile B, represents a young worker that,

Average age

29

Sex

Male

experience in the segment of IT/marketing,

Job position

Funcional Manager

but on average, has not in managing a

Segment

IT/Marketing

Family

No

for the first time, manages a function of a

medium-small organization. He has

team. He is holding this position since no

more than 2 years. Moreover he has no
family and lives in a rented house.
7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

all info are taken by a direct interview with the candidates

The Question:
List in order of importance, and give percentage weights to the facts that would
motivate you the most in reaching a definite goal:
1. Higher payroll
2. Holding higher and definite role
3. Work in a friendly environment
4. Work in a transparent and fair environment
The Results:
Profile A

(average of the answers of the 5 workers of group A)

20%
34%

Higher Payroll
Holding higher and definite role
Work in a friendly environment
Work in a transparent and fair anvironment

22%
24%

Profile B

(average of the answers of the 5 workers of group B)

12%
30%
23%

Higher payroll
Holding higher and definite role
Work in a friendly environment
Work in a transparent and fair environment

35%

From the experiment I worked out, we can see that there is some sort of correlation
between motivation and worker personal characteristics.
Therefor the fulfillment on the four drivers in order to reach motivation within an
organization is for sure a valid theory, but in my opinion it can be integrated with
some more in detail studies.
It is noticeable that for workers belonging to profile B, working in a friendly
environment is much more important than for workers of profile A, an explanation
could be that a younger worker who has just moved to a new place, wants to find a
group of welcoming colleagues in his working environment. As a consequence,
stimulating the drive to bond in profile B would strongly increase his motivation.
Another significant comparison could be done taking into account the salary. For
workers of profile A a higher payroll is not the most important motivational factor, but
it is doubtlessly more relevant than for workers belonging to profile B. The most
outstanding reason stays in the higher costs that the family-worker has to face.
In fact profile A groups the 5 workers that have a family and have to face high costs
like schooling, vacations and bills.
Anyway we could also try to explain why both groups of workers feel less motivated
by financial rewards.
A plausible motive could be found in the Herzbergs Two-factors theory. 9 The theory
points out that individuals are not content with the satisfaction of lower-order needs
at work, i.e those associated with salary incentives or safe and pleasant working
conditions. Rather, individuals look for the satisfaction with achievement, recognition,
responsibility and job relevance and interest. 10

HRM slides-motivation and job analysis

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory
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4.Conclusion
Human resource management can be considered not only as an economic science, but
also as a phycological one, in fact it takes root from the study of human behaviours,
needs and values. The four-driver theory provides the necessary steps to link
phycology to economics and finally to the decision making process in order to increase
motivation. There are two other important theories that help the understanding of the
relationship between phycology and employee motivation:
Herzbergs two-factor theory

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

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One theory does not exclude the other, instead they all contribute in finding strong
and effective ways to motivate employees through managing performance
management, job design, salary, rewards, relationships,fairness, etc.etc... from a
phycological point of view.

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image:http://www.intellegohealth.co.uk/upload/content/154-motivator_hygiene.jpg

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image:http://www.teach-nology.com/tutorials/teaching/whatareneeds.html
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