The Motivation - Assignment Example

According to the expectancy theory, it is seen that people will work or behave in a way depending on what they expect or the motivations directed towards them. In this case, managers in organizations will usually offer various forms of motivation in the hope of improving the performance of the employees. In a way, it is seen that motivation influences the outcome of people depending on the type and amount of the motivation in question. In the video, it is however seen that such a theory does not always work in all situations. The study shows that higher pay will lead to better performance only in situations where the job involves mechanical skills. For instance, people who do menial jobs will always increase their performance if the wages are improved (Whiteley, 78).

However, it is further seen that in cases where the job only requires even the most rudimentary cognitive skills to perform, then the higher the amount of reward then the poor the performance realized. This certainly contradicts the expectancy theory. In the same way, once the nature of the job requires above-average cognitive skills, then an increase in the rewards will not always lead to better performance on the part of the workers. In fact, the situation gets much worse for those people who get the largest rewards as their performance usually becomes the worst compared to those who are least rewarded.

In a way, the message of the speaker is a bit consistent with what is normally seen in real-life situations. Across many organizations, the people at the lower levels usually receive the least wages and salaries. These people are therefore very sensitive to aspects of money and any slight increase in their wages will definitely increase their performance. For instance, people who do mechanical jobs tend to increase their input in the job in case they are promised higher pay. On the other hand, the top executives at the organization receive large amounts of money and are therefore very insensitive to such issues. An increase in their bonuses cannot, therefore, make them improve their performance. Since they get huge rewards to motivate them, such rewards are normally wasted in most cases since they do not really affect performance positively but negatively. I experienced such a case while working at a paper-making factory where many people performed mechanical jobs while others worked in the offices at the factory.

As a manager, the knowledge gained from the video would be very appropriate in enabling me to effectively know how to reward different people in the organization and how to maximize the output from every employee. In this case, I would not really reward people progressively in the organization as this might not be very successful. Rather, I would focus on increasing the monetary rewards for those at the bottom of the organizational chart that performs mechanical duties. In such a case, their performance will definitely improve much to the interest of the organization. On the other hand, I would focus on other forms of motivation like giving them the self-autonomy in the organization. Such people are much focused on self-autonomy and that will be my focus to them.