Goals: the involvement with outcomes

Synopsis: Money isn’t the only motivator. Our involvement with several outcomes ultimately affects what we do. Much of the dilemma we go through relates to our personal desires vis-à-vis our social expectations.

Organizations around the world have traditionally used money incentives to motivate performance. But now, despite the tried and tested lure, they experience increasing attrition rates.

Not the only motivator

Employers are left wondering how exactly productivity can be encouraged, since the shelf life of money incentives appears short.

Besides, with social and organizational diversity increasing, behavioural motivations of different constituent groups seem complex, difficult to predict.

Over four decades ago, theorist Victor Vroom hypothesized the expectancy theory - that a worker tends to choose high productivity if they see it as the means of achieving one or more personal goals.

That means money isn’t the only motivator. Our degree of involvement with perceived outcomes ultimately determines what we do.

Fat or lean?

This works in every area of life, even in discriminating between package labels.

In a study, researchers asked target groups to decide between two packages of ground beef – one labelled “80 percent lean”, the other “20 percent fat”.

They found that although both essentially meant the same thing, most people predictably preferred the lean. Why is because ‘fat’ is connotative, often viewed as repulsive.

Although the package contents were identical, their labels still subtly biased thinking and motivated choice in the target groups - sometimes wishfully!

Personal and social

Advertising language thus attempts to influence consumer choices causing unconscious emotional reactions. Our motivations are linked to our social and cultural origins, and the orientations that we thereby learn or adopt.

Before acting on the environment people tend to think over four types of consequences:

• Self approval or disapproval
• Social approval or disapproval
• Gains or losses for self
• Gains or losses for significant others.
  

Fact is we’re an intensely social species. Much of the dilemma we go through relates to our personal desires vis-à-vis our social expectations.

Integrated response

Norms, beliefs and customs we carry in memory associate with our subjectivity, and sense of self. They contribute to our reasoning.

These considerations influence our life decisions. Consciously or unconsciously, we may be influenced by their dictates. In our action responses we integrate our behaviours with the goals we intend to achieve.

Know the context

In any department, or workgroup in the organization then, motivating factors relating to individual wants may differ from group preferences. Choices as a member of a social (or cultural) group may also be quite different to those in personal capacity.

Earlier the ‘personal’ and ‘social’ referents were a little more predictable because people came from similar backgrounds. Now in the global context, family, community, neighbourhood, etc., could mean different things to different people.

If productivity is to be encouraged, it becomes important to know about these differences of personal and social contexts that serve to motivate the behaviours of organizational members.

Cont’d 2…transcending limits