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Understanding what motivates employees to perform is crucial for managers seeking to get the best from their people. In ‘Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model’, Nitin Nohria, Boris Groysberg and Linda-Eling Lee argue that employee motivation is influenced by the organization’s ability to fulfill its employees’ four emotional drives through different workplace systems. [1] Nohria et al suggest the steps an organization and its managers can take to maximize the potential of these systems to improve motivation and drive performance. Here, we look at their model in more detail.
The Four Drives
Nohria et al’s model for employee motivation is underpinned by Nohria’s previous work with Paul Lawrence, which posits four basic emotional drives that affect all human behavior. [2] These are:
1. The drive to acquire We want things that contribute to our sense of wellbeing. This includes physical things (e.g. clothes, food), entertainment (e.g. holidays) and events or activities that boost our social status, such as a promotion or increase in salary.
2. The drive to bond: we want to form meaningful relationships, not just with our colleagues, but with our organization.
3. The drive to comprehend: we want to make sense of the world around us and find solutions to problems. Employees are therefore motivated by workplace situations that challenge them and allow them to develop and learn.
4.The drive to defend: we want to protect what is important to us. This doesn’t just include people and possessions, but also our values. This is why many employees are motivated by working for organizations that have clear objectives and allow people to express ideas and opinions.
Nohria, Groysberg and Lee conducted two studies in 2008 in order to learn more about the significance of these drives within the workplace and their potential to impact employee motivation.
Having surveyed 385 employees of two global organizations and 300 companies from the Fortune 500, they concluded that an organization’s ability to meet all four drives accounted for 60% variance in the workplace indicators of employee motivation. According to Nohria at al, these indicators are:
- engagement – the energy, effort and initiative employees bring to their roles
- satisfaction – the extent to which employees feel the organization meets their expectations at work
- commitment – the extent to which employees engage in organizational ‘citizenship’
- intention to quit – for Nohria et al, this is the best indicator of potential employee turnover [3]
Their studies suggested that some indicators of motivation are particularly influenced by the organization’s ability to meet certain drives. For example, when the drive to bond is fulfilled, employee commitment is usually positively impacted, and when the drive to comprehend is satisfied, employee engagement usually improves. However, Nohria et al stress that for overall motivation to improve, all four drives must be fulfilled. If the organization fails to meet just one drive, overall motivation can be damaged, regardless of how effectively the other three drives are satisfied.
What Does This Mean for Organizations?
According to Nohria et al, organizations can fulfill the drives of their employees through the effective use of certain systems and processes within the workplace. While each system links to a specific employee drive, Nohria et al’s research suggests that only when all four systems are used effectively – and all four drives are fulfilled – can overall employee motivation be truly impacted. Let’s now consider each of these systems in turn:
The reward system
The reward system best meets employees’ drive to acquire. Organizations should therefore ensure their reward system:
- differentiates good performers from average and poor performers
- clearly aligns reward with performance
- gives employees access to the same level of reward as that of its competitors
Organizational culture
A culture of collaboration and friendship at work best meets employees’ drive to bond. Organizations should therefore:
- foster mutual reliance and friendship among co-workers
- value collaboration and teamwork
- encourage employees to share best practice
Job design
The design of roles that are meaningful, interesting and challenging best fulfills employees’ drive to comprehend. Organizations should therefore ensure that:
- each job has a distinct purpose that is important to the organization
- each job is meaningful and allows employees to feel they are contributing to organizational objectives
Performance management and resource allocation
These processes best meet our drive to defend when they are fair, trustworthy and transparent. Therefore organizations should:
- increase the transparency of all performance management processes
- clearly explain the rationale behind all decisions relating to the allocation of resources such as technology and staffing
- build trust by offering reward, recognition and interesting work fairly
What Can Managers Do?
Nohria et al’s research reveals that individual managers can influence their team members’ overall motivation as much as organizational policy can. Performance management, resource allocation and culture are identified as areas over which managers have most control in their teams. They should therefore ensure they delegate work and handle performance issues fairly, as well as fostering a positive and friendly team environment.
While managers may not have as much control over the organization’s overall approach to reward, or job design, there are still steps they can take to fulfill their team members’ drives through each of these systems. For example, managers could consider introducing a non-financial reward initiative, such as an incentive or employee recognition scheme, which recognizes and rewards performance without impacting on employees’ salaries or departmental budgets. Similarly, managers can consider ways of making the roles within their team meaningful and challenging without changing their overall design. For example, this could mean giving team members access to interesting project work or inviting them to represent the department at internal committee meetings.
Conclusion
Nohria, Grosyberg and Lee’s research suggests that an organization’s ability to meet all four emotional drives of its employees is highly influential in terms of overall employee motivation. The model provides a framework for both organizations and managers to make effective use of various workplace systems in order to improve the motivation levels of its employees and see increased levels of employee engagement, commitment, satisfaction and retention.
References[1] Nitin Nohria, Boris Groysberg and Linda-Eling Lee, ‘Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model’, Harvard Business Review, Vol 86, No 7-8 (July/August 2008) pp78-84. Nitin Nohria is the Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, Boston. Boris Groysberg is an Associate Professor in Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Business School, Boston. Linda-Eling Lee is a Research Director at the Center for Research on Corporate Performance in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[2] Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria, Drive: How Human Nature Shapes our Choices (Jossey Bass, 2002).
[3] Nitin Nohria, Boris Groysberg and Linda-Eling Lee, ‘Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model’, Harvard Business Review, Vol 86, No 7-8 (July/August 2008) pp78-84.
