Motivation, Morale and the Early to Mid-20th Century

Video Transcription

Hello and welcome to this tutorial on Motivation, Morale, and the Early to Mid-20th Century. As always with these tutorials, please feel free to fast forward, pause, or rewind as many times as you need in order to get the most out of the time that you're going to spend here. Let me ask you a question right off the bat. What is it that motivates you? Is it money? Is it time off? Is it a pat on the back? Is it an award or reward?

Well, during this lesson, what we're going to be looking at are motivation and morale. We're also going to be looking at some studies on motivation and morale in the early to mid-20th century, and we're going to look at motivating others.

Now, the key terms we're going to be looking at in this lesson are morale, classical theory, the Hawthorne Effect, the two-factor effect, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs model, and lastly, we're going to be looking at Theory X. Let's go ahead and start talking about motivation and morale.

Now, motivation is the justifications for acting in a particular way. I'm going to school because I want to be educated in this particular field of study. That would be my motivation for that particular action. Now, morale is the certainty of an individual or a group at a specific time. And morale can take on the form of motivation. If someone has high morale at an organization, or the morale of a group or individual is high, then they can be motivated to do a particular action really, really well.

Now an organizations goal typically is to achieve their goals in the most efficient manner possible. Employees need more than just the correct raw materials and equipment in order to get the job done. At work, they need morale. They need a reason to be motivated, a reason to do that job. And motivation, morale, job satisfactions, and satisfying the needs of the employees are all interconnected in helping that organization achieve their organizational goals in an efficient manner.

Let's take a look at some different studies that relate to motivation and morale that were done in the early to mid-20th century. The first one we're going to look at is the classical theory. Now, the classical theory is the theory that employees are motivated solely by money. And this was the case for a long, long time. And it was introduced by a man named Frederick Taylor back in 1911.

Now what Mr. Taylor realized is that this classical theory wasn't always correct, and that employees and managers are sometimes motivated by something more than money. They could be motivated simply by doing a good job-- that self-satisfaction that they get from doing a good job. Are you motivated by something more than money? Is attainment or recognition something that you seek? You see, it's not always about money, as the classical theory would have had us believe.

Now, the Hawthorne Effect was an interesting study done by Elton Mayo at Western Electric in about 1925. Now, the Hawthorne effect is a theory of motivation that argues that productivity will increase when managers pay attention to their workers. Now, like I said, it was done by a company called Western Electric in 1925. Elton Mayo-- what he did was he looked at the lighting levels in a factory. And he wanted to come up with the best lighting level to get the most efficient workforce possible. So they play with the lighting. Obviously, they raised it, and they find out that, hey, you know what? The workers do better. Then they lowered it, and they also found out that the workers did better too.

Well, what they found out it had nothing to do with the lighting levels. The workers performance was affected by people paying attention to them-- that feeling of someone looking over their shoulder.

Now, Two-Factor Theory is defined as a theory of motivation which argues that both workplace hygiene and the motivation have an impact on worker satisfaction. Now hygiene factors, here-- what they're talking about are their supervisors, the pay, and security of their jobs, the working conditions, company policies, and interpersonal relationships. And this is one that was done by a man name Frederick Herzberg, and it was done in Pittsburgh.

Now motivational factors that they were talking about were things like achievement or recognition. Sometimes it's simply the satisfaction of doing the job itself, or the responsibility that goes along with doing that job. Sometimes it's advancement or growth within the company that motivated the employer and increased employee satisfaction.

Now, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs model is a theory of motivation that argues that humans must meet their most basic needs before meeting complex ones. And this was done by a man named Abraham Maslow. Now, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs takes the form of a five-level pyramid of needs. And these needs range from physiological needs, such as food or sleep or shelter, thirst, all the way up to something called self-actualization.

Now, the five levels within that pyramid are the physiological needs, like we mentioned before, security, social needs, a need for esteem or recognition, and then finally, self-actualization, where all of my needs below that are satisfied and can become self-actualization. The important thing to remember with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is, according to Maslow, it's impossible for you to move up the chain or up the hierarchy model without first satisfying the needs of the level just below that. For instance, I can't move up to the esteem level of the Hierarchy of Needs without first satisfying my physiological needs, my security needs, and my social needs. The

Theory of X model is a theory of motivation that-- well, workers are naturally lazy. And that's not exactly the whole picture. This was introduced by a man named Douglas McGregor. And what he said was that managers tend to operate according to Theory X, or Theory Y.

Now, we already said that Theory X was a theory of motivation that workers are naturally lazy. Theory Y is exactly the opposite-- the theory that workers are naturally productive or want to do a good job. They're self-motivated. They're energetic, responsible, and ambitious, whereas people who ascribe to the Theory X are lazy, irresponsible, unproductive, and unambitious. And what Douglas McGregor postulated was that managers tend to fall on either one or two categories. They either ascribe to Theory X, that workers are lazy, or Theory Y, that workers are not.

So let's talk about motivating others here for just a second. And when you want to motivate someone-- you can tell when someone's a good motivator, because you'll notice a couple of things. One, that people around this particular person want to do their best when they're around them, doing that job that they have assigned. Also motivating others-- you need to assess each person's, quote, unquote, hot button, or what it is that makes them motivated. And people are going to use that to get the best out of their employee.

Good employers also are able to motivate many kinds of direct reports, or teams, or project members. It doesn't matter what background they come from or what type of worker they are. A good motivator can still motivate them regardless.

A good motivator invites input from each person, shares ownership and visibility with that person for the goals that they've set. And they can help empower other people. It's someone that people really like working for. That's how you can describe someone who is a good motivator. And they can make others feel important.

So what is it we looked at today? Well, we talked about motivation and morale-- kind of the difference between them and how they work together. We also looked at some studies that were done in the early to mid-20th century and some different theories of motivation and morale. And we also looked at motivating others is, and what a good motivator looks like.

Now, as always, I want to thank you for spending some time with me today and have a great day.