The Motivational Process

Human motivation is a complex process that begins with human needs. (Needs are drives or forces that initiate behaviour).When needs become very strong people engage in efforts to fulfil these needs. As a result of such efforts people experience various levels of need satisfaction. The extent to which people find their needs satisfied serves to influence the future choices to satisfy the same or similar needs. The diagram illustrates:

The motivational process is a dynamic one. An individual has at any one time several needs to satisfy and one can be at different positions in the cycle for each need. Satisfaction of the needs also takes different time frames but at any rate the starting point is always needs.

 Motivation is a complex problem in organizations because the needs, wants and desires of each employee differ. Each employee is unique in his biological and psychological make up.

Motivation is further complicated by the fact that it is not exactly clear who is responsible for employee motivation i.e. whether the manager or the employee himself (is the individual expected to provide his own motivation or is motivation a function of management ).

Motivation can either be external or internal.External motivation emanates from management, and employees react either positively or negatively to what their managers do. Managers must therefore use external motivation that generates positive responses from employees.

Internal motivation originates from within the individual as he tries to satisfy his various needs. It may be caused by factors within the individual e.g. personality or factors that are under the control of management e.g. job context (salaries, policies, working conditions) and job content (recognition, advancement, status and responsibility).

Persons find that organizations allow them to achieve goals that they cannot achieve alone. This may imply a large degree of self-motivation or internal motivation on the part of each individual. Many people however do not realize that by working toward the organizational goals they are also achieving their own individual goals. Such people are rarely self motivated enough to share in organizational goals and usually want jobs with salaries that can pay bills. For such people management must provide external motivation in order to encourage them to work towards organizational goals.