Personal Values and Motivation - Research Paper Example

Introduction Organizations are unique in the sense that they offer an opportunity to individuals to basically explore the human nature from a completely different perspective. People working in organizations need to ensure that while working and performing in these organizations they continue to evolve themselves as individuals also and as such all the organizational learning also actually transforms into the individual personal learning also. This is important in the sense that the key to motivation of an employee is the ability of the employee to reflect upon some of the factors which have been instrumental in ensuring that the employee continues to evolve and develop himself in more appropriate manner. My personal philosophy towards work always remained focus on the aspect of achieving the superior performance while at the same time managing highest ethical standards to work. This means that what motivate me most is not just the monetary reward the job offers but also as to how the job will actually help me to develop as a person and what personal characteristics I can develop by working in that place. As such I strongly believe that personal integrity and the highest ethical standards to work are some of the intrinsic factors which can allow the individuals to flourish and perform well in the organizations. This paper will therefore will be an attempt from my side to provide a reflection on my personal values and how they motivate me and how I can actually use in order to motivate myself and others. Personal Values and motivation To me what values most is how the organization and the immediate environment of an individual actually help him or her to achieve the degree of motivation where a person can actually evolve himself as a better person. This also means that my motivation factors include the non-intrinsic factors which are essential for me to keep me motivated. There are different things which motivate me personally however, I believe that what motivates me most is the working in an organization which is managed ethically and provide equal opportunities to their employees so that they can grow and develop themselves as better performing individuals. Secondly, I strongly believe that overall organizational environment and culture is the biggest factor which actually keeps a person motivated to continue to work. Considering the traditional complexity of the organizations and increasing competition it has became critical for the organizations to retain their best performing employees. As such organizations therefore have to develop and manage an environment which suits such employees and offer them an opportunity to accomplish the challenging organizational goals while at the same time achieving their personal objectives of growth and personal development. (Luthans) Thirdly, I believe that adequate compensation is something which can really keep an employee motivated to continue to perform well. Adequate compensation therefore plays the key role as to how the organization actually reward its employees and provide them opportunities to meet their personal objectives while at the same time ensuring that they achieve the organizational objectives too. This is critical in the sense that organizations have to develop an environment where they can actually intrinsically motivate their employees in order to get better performance and offer the employees which they value most. Organizations therefore have the obligation to actually to provide an environment which brings best out of the employees. All need based approaches to motivation therefore reflect upon the fact that organizations must be able to explore and understand the needs of their employees and subsequently develop an environment which can help achieve the fulfillment of employee needs so that they can perform better and achieve the organizational excellence. (Bjerke and Ind) My personal opinion therefore upon the way an employee can be motivated is to properly understand his needs and attempt to address those needs in order to ensure that employees provide more than they are expected to. I therefore strongly believe that if an organization can provide a kind of environment to the employees and built and meet the expectations of the employees in order to achieve the organizational excellence. Importance of motivation My studies on the topic of motivation suggest that the expectancy theory is one of the critical approaches towards identifying the needs of the employees and the employees shall have a fair and clear idea as to what they can expect from the organization and what organization can expect from them. In a sense this is critical because it allow the employees to personally reflect upon their own position and how they are going to contribute towards the organization and how organization can in fact provide the require return. Development of expectations and their subsequent meeting provides opportunity to the business leaders to actually develop an environment which can foster creativity and allow employees to become more innovative in their approaches. A good leader therefore shall always emphasize upon how he or she can build these expectations and make it realizable to the employees that the organization is actually aware of their expectations and is continue to strive hard to meet all those expectations. To me, it is important that I shall develop my leadership qualities in such a manner that besides developing my business acumen I must also understand as to how actually the employees are intrinsically motivated and what are some of the factors which can allow a business leader to basically tap into the creative powers of the employees while at the same time continue to keep them motivated and achieve the organizational objectives. The personal values which I carry and which I developed over the period of time through my interaction with the world and training and development by my family put me in a position where I can readily understand as to what are some of the key factors which can actually allow the employees to remain motivated and continue to perform to the best of their potential. I believe that a good leader should have this tendency to become more critical of the ways in which employees can be motivated. How it works? Organizational learning is critical in the sense that it offers an opportunity to the organizations and business leaders to continuously develop their abilities to develop an organization which is aware of its external environment. An awareness of the external environment therefore can allow them to look within the organization and develop the capabilities and competencies which can allow them to compete and meet the external challenges. In such situations it is really important that the organization must give considerable though to the motivational needs of its employees. A considerable approach therefore would require that the organizations must develop an environment which can foster motivation. Second important aspect to develop such an organization and better understand the motivational needs is basically to reflect upon how the employees build their expectations. My personal approach would be to thoroughly understand the way employees view the organizations and generate and develop the organizational metaphors which can help them to relate themselves with the organization. This is critical in the sense that it offers an opportunity to the business leaders to basically understand the inherent weaknesses of the organization which can keep it withholding from achieving the organizational excellence and ensuring that employees perform to the best of their abilities. My personal opinion therefore would be that the leaders must develop their own capability to understand their employees well. In the end it is important that the business leaders must create such an environment which can foster this creativity and intrinsically motivate the employees. My personal approach therefore would always be the one where I can create open line of communication within the organization so that each tier of management and higher management of the organization can easily understand the motivational needs of each other. Recommendations Based on what I have gained over the period of time, I strongly believe that employees can perform excellently if organization can meet their expectations. Meeting expectations means there must be relatively shorter gap between how the employees perceive about the organization and what organization actually is. Motivation is critical for the organizations in the sense that it definitely allows the organization to create the kind of performance which can really set it apart. In order to achieve this, it is however, critical that the organization must develop an environment which can foster employee trust and make employees believe that their needs are being taken care of and that organization is aware of employee needs and what it is actually doing in order to meet all those needs. What is also however, critical to understand that organizations must keep their communication channels open in order to ensure that the gap between how the employee thinks about the organization and what organization actually is narrowed down. Once this is achieved, it may become easier for the leaders to build those expectations and ensure that the employees perform to their fullest while also ensuring that the organization is meeting all the needs of the employees in order to keep them motivated. Bibliography Bjerke, Rune and Nicholas Ind. "The impact of aesthetics on employee satisfaction and motivation." The impact of aesthetics on employee satisfaction and motivation (2007): 57-73. Luthans, Fred. Organizational Behavior: An Evidence-Based Approach. Nebraska: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2010. Read More