.FOUR FACTORS OF CONTEMPORARY MOTIVATION

[1] Equity

Here's a common dilemma faced by many managers. You have a staff of six people and you have one employee who's always coming to you complaining, and he wants you to do something for him. Finally, you give in and you give him what he wants. But now you've got everybody else coming to you complaining. You solve one problem and all it does is cause about five more problems. Well, that situation can be explained by the concept of equity.

Equity comes from the idea that people want to be treated equitably, or fairly, compared with somebody else. As in the figure below, it seems that we make a simple ratio in our minds when we're at work and we assess the effort that we put into our job and relate it to the rewards that we get back. Then we compare that ratio with someone else's ratio, i.e. the effort they put into their job and the rewards that they get back. If it's a balanced situation everything's fine. If we think other people are getting rewarded for their work in the same proportion as we are, then there's no problem. However, when there's an imbalance, when the ratios aren't the same, we'll do something to bring it back into balance. We'll do something to get equity, so that we feel that we're treated fairly compared to everybody else.

EQUITY

MY:             OTHER:

[1] EFFORT                   [3] EFFORT

  -----------------    VS   -----------------

[2] REWARD                  [4] REWARD

If an individual perceives an imbalance in the comparative ratios above, he or she will do something to bring the ratios back into balance. Two strategies are:

(a) Rationalize

(b) Do something to change one or all of the four factors.

A very common feeling of inequity would be when, in your opinion, someone else isn't putting in as much effort into her job as you put into yours and yet her rewards are the same as yours. Maybe even more. Or the situation where you think someone else is working just as hard as you yet he's getting rewarded more. Well, by this simple formula, that would be an inequitable situation. There are two basic strategies that your employees would use if they perceived inequity.

The first strategy is to rationalize. Basically, that's playing mental games. They rationalize away the inequity. In other words, they'll think of some good reason why someone else doesn't have to work as hard and yet get the same rewards. They may say to themselves, "Well, old Charlie, he's getting old now and he may not seem to work as hard as I do, but actually he puts out as much effort. He just doesn't accomplish as much because he's getting old, he's slowing down. When you think of it, I guess Charlie's working just as hard as me. He just doesn't produce as much." Well, all that is, is a rationalization. It's just a mental exercise they're going through, trying to reason away the inequity.

But more often than not, what happens is that the employee doesn't rationalize away the inequity. Rather, he actually does something to change one or all of the four factors. The employee will actually do something to change (1) the effort that he puts into the job, or (2) the rewards that he gets back. Or (3) he'll do something to alter the efforts or (4) the rewards that someone else gets from the job. And this is where you run into supervisory problems. Let's look at each of these four factors.

Suppose you were trying to motivate me on the job, and I felt that there was a lack of equity in the way you were treating me compared to the other employees working for you. The first thing I could do is to do something about my effort. And most often, what I will do is decrease my effort to bring it more in line with what I think everybody else in the department is doing. There are many ways that I can reduce my effort and not impact my rewards. I can slow down. I can come into work late, take extended coffee breaks or lunch breaks. I can use up sick time. I can actually start getting sick to reduce the amount of effort I put into my job.

This can explain the unfortunate situation where you could have an employee working for you who wants to do good work, who could do good work, who would do good work but doesn't because she feels that if she does, she is cheating herself. She is creating an inequitable situation because if she works any harder, she won't get the rewards that she ought to when compared with everybody else. Why should she work hard when nobody else does? So, high absenteeism might be a symptom of people just feeling they've been cheated on the job by their supervisor or by their company as compared to other people. An important point to remember is that the effort that I'm putting into my job isn't the effort you think I'm putting in. It's the effort I think I'm putting in. And I may be upset because I don't think I'm getting the appropriate rewards, because I think I'm putting in more effort than I actually am. So, what happens? I begin to reduce my effort, and things get even worse.

What this draws to our attention, as a manager, is the importance of continuous communication between ourselves and our employees. Each employee must be fully aware of what his or her effort or performance actually is. Problems arise when the employee thinks that he or she is doing better than he actually is, or he thinks he's doing worse than he actually is.

The second factor that I could change would be the reward I get for my efforts. I could start stealing. A high percentage of petty theft can be traced back to people feeling cheated by the company. That's one way I could begin to increase my rewards. I could start taking tools, and supplies, and pencils, and paper. Minor theft? Yes. But in my mind it's a way of bringing equity back into the job. I'm not really a thief, but I'm stealing to bring me justice. But "rewards" doesn't simply mean financial rewards. Just as effort on the job depended upon what I thought my effort was, likewise rewards are what I consider to be the rewards of my work. And that usually goes beyond salary. It could be something like attention from the supervisor.

I remember years ago I managed a large staff and I had one employee who was continually doing the job wrong. I'd have to spend a disproportionate amount of my time giving that employee close supervision. But all it did was cause unrest among the other employees. It wasn't until later that I realized part of the rewards of the job was getting a fair share of the supervisor's time. And, of course, what the good employees were saying was that the poor employee was getting most of the supervisor's time. The rewards of the job went to the employee who shouldn't get rewards. I had to solve that employee's performance problem and yet still spread myself around the department in an equitable way.

Another way that I could increase my rewards is to put roadblocks in the way of the supervisor - cause the supervisor problems so that I'd get some entertainment from his frustration or embarrassment.

I may think my rewards are lower than what they should be compared to other people because I'm not really aware of the actual effort or rewards of the other people. But I get upset just the same and do something to rectify that incorrectly perceived inequity.

There are also things I could do to change or influence the other two factors in this equation. That is the effort and the rewards of somebody else. I could do things to make it harder for other people to put in the amount of effort that they should. I could use intimidation to make them work harder than they are now. I could steal from the other employees. I could tell tales on them. I could cause problems between them and their supervisor which would then decrease the rewards that they get on the job. And so rivalry and conflict between employees might be traced back to a perceived inequity by one or both parties.

Unfortunately, people don't always pick appropriate people to compare themselves to. More often than not, they'll be comparing themselves with somebody that they think is appropriate but it's probably someone that helps to make their case better. So you can have people working for you who are upset not because of what you're doing with them, not because of the way you're managing them; but they're upset because they've got a friend or a relative working in another department, in another company, maybe even in another city who's getting more rewards for less work. And, of course, that's out of your control. But it can still demotivate the employee who works for you. Regretfully, this equity concept can't predict what your employees will do if they do perceive inequity. All we know is that they will do something. They will either rationalize, or they will do something to change or influence one or all of those four factors.

Because of "equity", you never deal with employees one at a time even though it may look that way. You're actually dealing with them in the group. Why?

Because people compare. A critical thing that any manager has to keep in mind when managing employees is that employees compare, and you've got to do whatever you can to maintain equity among your staff. That doesn't mean, by the way, that you treat everybody the same. But what you should do is make sure that the rewards are related to the effort put into the job. Make sure that the top performers are getting the top rewards and that people can perceive a direct link between effort and reward. If not, you get problems with motivation and morale.

Remember the discussion about the need to maintain social distance between yourself and your subordinates. That guideline is reinforced by the research that's been done on equity. Some of the rewards from the job, as noted earlier, could be attention from the supervisor. And if you're perceived to be giving attention to your best friend and it isn't related to your friend's effort on the job, you'll have employees doing something to resolve that lack of equity.

[2] Appropriate Consequences

Behavior is a Function of its Consequences  (Rewards, Punishments)

The law of behavior states that behavior is a function of its consequences. What this means is that our behavior, or what we do on the job, is greatly determined by what we think will result from our behavior; whether the consequences of what we do will be nice or whether they'll be something that we don't like. The law of behavior states that if we think the consequences of something we're going to do will be good for us, we are more likely to do it - "the odds increase" that we'll do it. We still might not, but the odds go up. But if we think that the consequences of something we might do will be bad for us, the likelihood decreases; the odds go down that we'll do it. We still might, but the likelihood goes down. And so, when we manage the behavior of people, what we're actually managing is the consequences of what these people will do. For if you want to increase the likelihood that an employee of yours will do something, try to arrange nice consequences to the individual as a result of doing it. And, if you want to decrease the likelihood that the employee will do something, try to arrange consequences that the person won't like. There are four types of consequences to your employees' behavior.

1) Positive Reinforcement: As a consequence to performing a behavior, something nice is turned on.

2) Negative Reinforcement: As a consequence to performing a behavior, something bad is turned off.

3) Punishment: As a consequence to performing a behavior, something bad is turned on or something nice is turned off.

4) Extinction: Nothing is perceived to be a consequence to performing a behavior.

[1] positive reinforcement.

The word reinforcement, by definition, means that something is going to be strengthened. In this case, the likelihood of a behavior. The word positive comes from a plus sign or "an addition to". In other words, a positive reinforcer is something that is an addition to you, something that you receive which you like, and which leads you to repeat whatever you did to receive it. Whatever you receive is called the positive reinforcer. Receiving it is called positive reinforcement. Now this happens all through life. For example, you do something and you receive a gift. If you like the gift, you're more prone to repeat whatever you did to receive the gift. Other examples of positive reinforcers would be a pat on the back, a kiss, a promotion, recreation time, longer coffee breaks, getting the attention of the supervisor, or getting social praise. By the way, if you get attention from your supervisor and you don't want it, that doesn't say that the concept of positive reinforcement doesn't work. It just says that in your particular case, attention from the supervisor wasn't a positive reinforcer. It only is a positive reinforcer if, in fact, it reinforces whatever you did and you end up performing that behavior once again.

[2] negative reinforcement

This consequence is often misunderstood. In colloquial or slang usage, negative reinforcement is sometimes used when we really mean punishment.

But it isn't punishment at all. It's quite the opposite because reinforcement, again by definition, means something that is going to be strengthened. The word negative comes from the "minus sign" or "something is taken away from you". Negative reinforcement is when something that you don't like is taken away from you as a result of doing something. In other words, your overall situation became better because something which you didn't like was taken away. Now that may sound strange, but these happen a lot.

For example, somebody's constantly bothering you, so you give him what he wants and as a result he goes away. Well, your behavior of giving that individual what he wanted was negatively reinforced. Why? Because the consequence of your giving him something resulted in his going away. What was bothering you went away. You are now more prone to give the person what he wants in the future in order to get rid of him. Or you break a rule and you know that you should have been punished. But because you lied or because you faked the data or because you just avoided the situation, the threat of the punishment is taken away. Well then, the act of lying or faking the data or running away from the situation was negatively reinforced because the threat of the punishment was taken away. As a consequence, you're more prone to lie or fake data or run away in the future.

Often negative and positive reinforcements go hand in hand. For example, say you're over at a neighbor's house and they have a little boy who is three years old. You're trying to talk to your neighbor but the little boy has a heavy toy and he keeps hitting you on the shin with it. You'd like to get rid of the little pest but you can't very well, so you try to ignore him. It doesn't work. So you reach into your pocket and you give the little boy some candy and say, "Here are some candies, now why don't you go away and play?" The little boy drops the toy, takes the candies and leaves. Now you figure you've solved the problem. But let's analyze that situation from a perspective of positive and negative reinforcement.

The little boy has been hitting your shin. As a consequence to the little boy for hitting your shin, he gets a candy. Inadvertently you may have positively reinforced the little boy for hitting your shin, because next time he wants some candy, some attention, he just might come back and start hitting your shin. And what happened to you? The consequence to you for giving the boy the candy, was that he went away, and he stopped hitting your shin. Inadvertently you were negatively reinforced for giving the boy a candy. The consequence to you for giving him the candy was that he disappeared. The next time when the little boy comes and he's pestering you, you're more likely to try to give him something to get rid of him because you know it works. Why? Because your behavior of giving him the candy was negatively reinforced. You think you've solved the problem, but it's now more likely to happen again.

[3] punishment

As a result of doing something, you either receive something that you don't like, or you lose something which you do like or wanted to keep. Examples of punishment could be a demotion, having extra work dumped on you when you didn't want it, receiving an official verbal warning or a suspension, losing status in your company, having your title changed, having your office changed, losing some of your perks, or being denied a chance to attend a special training course.

[4] extinction

Extinction is when there is no consequence to the behavior. The individual does something but nothing happens. For example, you do something but nobody thanks you, or you get no acknowledgment for having improved your performance on the job. Or you get no reward when you feel it was actually earned. What happens? Your good behavior begins to fade away.

In summary, to increase the likelihood of a behavior, you should follow it with either a positive reinforcer or a negative reinforcer. That will raise the odds that the behavior will happen again. To decrease the likelihood of a behavior, follow it with a punishment or follow it with nothing at all, in others words, use extinction. Punishment and extinction will tend to decrease the likelihood that a behavior will re-occur.

Managing the consequences of our employees' behavior is often called behavior modification. That term has been misunderstood quite a bit over the years. It's got nothing to do with trying to control people's minds. It's simply trying to influence situations so that individuals are more likely to perform certain behaviors. You can't get them to do things that they don't want to. But you can increase the likelihood that the things which they can do, will happen more often, or happen less often.

Behavior modification has been used for over three decades very successfully in all walks of life; especially in business and in education. Teaching managers how to manage the consequences of their employees' behavior has led to some consistent research findings.

PERFORMANCE IS LIKELY TO IMPROVE WHEN: 1. The person gets positive feedback on performance 2. Reinforcement is given at variable intervals, immediately after good performance, not after every good performance 3. The person receives praise and other positive reinforcement for good performance, rather than punishment for poor work.

First of all, performance is likely to improve on the job when the person gets positive feedback on performance. The more the individual knows how he or she is doing, usually the better the performance will get. This is related to our self-confidence and self-esteem. Most of us have some degree of an inferiority complex. And psychiatric and psychological research is showing that individuals who are top performers, even at the executive level, need some feedback from time to time, confirming to themselves that they're right, and that they're doing good work. If not, they begin to doubt it. And when they begin to doubt their own performance, their motivation begins to drop and their performance goes on a down-hill spiral. So a good rule of thumb is, if people are doing good work, they should get some feedback about it. But I don't necessarily mean giving them a raise or money. Simply give them the occasional pat on the back or formal or informal recognition that they're doing good work. Of course, you've got to be specific about what the good work is.

The second major finding is that performance is likely to improve when the reinforcement is given at variable intervals; immediately after good performance but not after every good performance. What that means is that when you do reinforce somebody for having done good work, it should be given at what are called variable intervals. In other words, randomly. It doesn't have to be done all the time, and that perhaps is one of the biggest benefits of using positive reinforcement. You can perpetuate somebody's good performance or good behavior for extended periods of time if the behavior only gets reinforced randomly. This is what we call the gambling syndrome. For example, people play Bingo day in, day out, week in, week out, I'm sure right through this world and into the next world! They don't win all the time. But they know that eventually they will win. And every now and then they do win. They get positively reinforced. And that reinforcement keeps them playing, literally forever. The reinforcement comes randomly. Just like when you play at a slot machine or play other forms of chance. All you have to do is win once and you're probably addicted because you learn, "Hey, there's a chance I'll win again", and that's simply showing the power of positive reinforcement when it's used randomly.

That can be very useful for you as a manager, because as long as the individual clearly knows what the specific behavior is that you want him to perform, and he knows that the behavior does get reinforced every once in a while, he'll likely continue to perform that behavior. That means you don't have to look over the employee's shoulder all the time. You don't have to be there every time the employee does the job well, as long as there's reinforcement every now and then. Positive reinforcement used properly, saves you a great deal of time managing the performance of an employee.

When reinforcement does occur, it should come immediately after good performance. In other words, when you do choose that this is the time you're going to reinforce the performance, the reinforcement should come as soon as possible after that specific behavior. If somebody does a good job and you bring it to their attention two months later and say, "By the way, a couple of months ago you did such and such." you've lost most of the effect of that reinforcer. You want the employee to connect the behavior with the reinforcement so the employee is fully aware that the reinforcement is a direct result of that behavior.

The third major finding is that performance is likely to improve when the person receives praise and other positive reinforcement for good performance rather than punishment for poor work. In other words, your objective is to reinforce the good performance but not necessarily to punish the bad. The objective should be to change the bad, not necessarily punish it. Suppose there's a range of styles you could use managing employees, where on the one hand you would reinforce them randomly for good work and on the other hand you'd punish them, whenever they broke rules. If you were going to decide which way you should go, whether toward using punishment for poor work or praise for good work, its usually found that it's better to use praise for good work rather than always using punishment for poor work. The reason is, it saves time and it works better. Point the employee in the proper direction and he'll keep on doing good work as long as he knows that the reinforcement comes now and then.

But if your basic style is to discipline whenever employees do anything wrong or whenever their work isn't up to performance standards, the employees learn that's the way you operate. And when they begin to learn that, it forces you to be looking over their shoulders all the time. Why? Because if they ever do break a rule, or don't perform to the appropriate standard and you're not there to find out and to give them punishment, they learn, "Hey, I've done it wrong but I was able to avoid punishment".

What you've inadvertently done is to create a situation where the individual becomes negatively reinforced for poor performance. The employee thinks, "I got away with it this time, maybe I'll get away with it again." Have you ever noticed the manager whose basic style is to tell employees, "Look unless I'm giving you heck you know you're doing good work." He never uses praise for good work because he feels that will make him look soft. He's usually the supervisor who never has enough time, he's always running around putting out fires. And it's because his basic style of using discipline rather than using positive reinforcement for good work forces him into a situation where he never has enough time.

Now, I'm not saying that you're never to use discipline at work. There are times when, despite your good efforts to try to get an employee to change or improve his performance he continually refuses to do the job and you must use discipline. However, that technique should be used as infrequently as possible. Usually it doesn't have to be used at all, if the manager is making the employee clearly aware of what good performance is, and is doing something to see that the good performance is positively reinforced.

Sometimes It's Done Backwards!

The most important thing about "consequences" is that when you're managing people, whether students, employees, or children, if you want to manage their behavior you have to be more aware of the consequences of their behavior. You must make sure that appropriate consequences are following the right behaviors. Unfortunately, all too often we're inadvertently rewarding poor performance and punishing good performance. It sounds rather strange that a manager would do that. But, surprisingly, it happens all the time. And, to a great extent, it's because the manager, or the teacher or the parent isn't as aware as he or she should be of the consequences to the individual's behavior.

If we want to manage our employees' behavior successfully, we have to be more aware of the consequences of their behavior and to make sure that appropriate consequences are following the right behaviors.

Examples of where positive reinforcement is inappropriately used:

• An employee doesn't carry out his fair share of the work load in the office. But as a result he receives more of the supervisor's attention.
• An employee continually arrives late for work and gets social attention from his peers. The individual starts getting notoriety now because he's the employee we can always count on to be five minutes late for work.
• The supervisor or the manager is always a few minutes late for every meeting, no matter when it's called. He always comes in late, and everybody makes a big deal of it.
• The gossiper in the office is always gossiping and as a result gets everyone's attention because everyone else likes to hear what the gossip is.
• The clown is always playing jokes, always horsing around in the back of the office or in the stockroom, or in the classroom, and as a consequence gets attention from his or her peers.
• The child is constantly whining and as a result is given things, and the whining is inadvertently positively reinforced.
• The supervisor threatens employees to get work done and as a result they do it, and therefore the behavior of threatening the staff gets positively reinforced because the supervisor gets what she wants. She's more likely to threaten people the next time.

Examples of inappropriate negative reinforcement:

• The guy who never carries out his fair share of the work; his work is so marginal the supervisor starts to take away work from the individual. The supervisor says, "I don't think you can handle that, so we won't load you down." He never goes to the employee to give him any extra work or hard assignments. As a result, the individual has all the hard work or the extra work taken away.
• The inefficient worker keeps putting off getting his work done. He puts it off and puts it off and finally the supervisor says, "Ah, what the heck." and takes it away and gives it to someone else without disciplining the employee. Inadvertently the employee is negatively reinforced for procrastinating.
• The employee breaks rules and doesn't get any punishment even though he should have. As a result he avoids discipline.
• The supervisor screams and threatens employees because they're always complaining, as a result the complaining stops. No more nuisance from the employees, they don't pester him anymore. Unfortunately, his screaming behavior and threatening behavior was negatively reinforced.

Examples of where punishment is commonly used inappropriately:

• You go in to see the supervisor because the supervisor says, "My door is always open." But whenever you do go, you're always being chastised for something. You begin to associate "going to see the supervisor" with "being chastised".
• The boss wants you to open up and give him your ideas, but whenever you do, you get them shot down. Your behavior of opening up to the boss always seems to get punished. Then the boss wonders why you don't communicate as much.
• You have a department full of excellent salespeople. You've trained them well and they are so good and visible that now senior management takes away or promotes your best salespeople. As a result, the department's sales suffer. You go through the effort of training salesmen and developing a good sales force and as a result you lose your best sales people and you're told, "Now you can train more."
• You do super work, you bend over backwards and you really slug it out in your department. You put in extra time and you end up being regarded by your supervisor as the best worker. But whenever there's any extra work that has to be done, who do they come and dump on? You. Quickly you learn that the more you work, the more they dump on you.

Examples of extinction being used inappropriately:

• It's budget time and you work late into the night to submit your department's budget on time to meet the supervisor's deadline. You get it in but it just sits on the supervisor's desk. The supervisor doesn't say thank you, it just sits there and sits there. As a result, you begin to wonder whether there was any deadline. Next time around you don't try as hard to meet the supervisor's deadline. Why? Your behavior was extinguished.
• You put in extra work, you do some special assignments and you get no thanks, no reward. The supervisor just says, "Well, I don't have to thank him for doing his job." The trouble is, that little extra effort you made begins to fade away because it gets extinguished.
• You make it to work on time and you've been making it to work on time every day for years. No one else does, but you do. But you're never thanked for it, it's never even recognized, even on a performance appraisal. Eventually you give up coming to work on time.  I'm sure from your work experience, or even from your experience at home or in school or university, you can think of many examples where positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment and extinction have been used appropriately and also inappropriately.

[3] Expectation of Success

The last two major factors that influence motivation are the expectation of success and the expectation of recognition. First, your employees' expectation of success is their hunch or their guess or what they think the odds are that they can successfully do what you're trying to motivate them to do. It's what they think their chance is of being successful.

Three things influence their expectation of success. The first is whether they have the resources that they need to be successful. By resources is meant the appropriate skills, ability, tools, the training, the right equipment, even "time" could be considered a resource needed to be successful on the job. As a result, a manager should never expect employees to be very motivated to do a job unless they firmly believe they have everything that they need to do it - in particular the time. Never expect an employee to be excited about performing if he or she actually believes there isn't enough time. Since it's the supervisor's responsibility to motivate his or her employees, the supervisor has to assume the responsibilities for ensuring that the employees have what they need to get the job done.

EXPECTATION OF SUCCESS The individual's expectation (hunch, guess, what the odds are) that he or she can perform the task is influenced by: (a) Available Resources, time, skills, materials, etc. (b) Self-Confidence and Self-Esteem (c) Clarity of task/job responsibilities, and expected performance standards.

The second influence on your employees' expectation of success is their self-confidence and their self-esteem. I think this is the most important thing to be keeping in mind when it comes to managing employees. Over the last few decades there has been a great deal of evidence showing that one of the major influences, if not the major influence, on the self-confidence and self-esteem of the people working for you, is you, their supervisor.

That's quite a responsibility to put on your shoulders, but a lot of evidence is showing that to be true. Throughout life, our identify, who we are in the world, is greatly determined by what we do, what our job is. Just test yourself. If you bump into a friend you haven't seen in years, say from school, you quickly get around to "Hey, what are you doing?", or in other words, "Who are you?" Our identity is so strongly connected with our job that, for example, the chronically unemployed have a lot of psychiatric problems trying to come to terms with who they are.

Our identity is determined greatly by what we do. But how "good" a person we think we are is also directly influenced by how good we think we do our job. Even though there may be no logical or moral link between "how good we do our job" and "how good a person we are", because there is such a strong link between our identify and our job, there seems to be that carry-over. You are a competent housewife, you are a competent person. You are a skillful accountant, well, you are a skillful person. You are a well-respected manager, you are a respectable person. You are an incompetent supervisor, you're not a very competent or good person. There seems to be a carry-over.

But one of the major influences on how good we think we do our job is our supervisor, because the role of the supervisor is to judge our performance on the job. And so our supervisor has a very major impact on our self-esteem and self-confidence. It's as if we bring to work two big suitcases full of all the things we used to have taken care of by our family: caring, attention and support, and we dump it on the doorstep of the supervisor and say, "There, you're the boss, you judge my performance. You give me all these things, the support, the attention, etc." So as a supervisor you may have employees old enough to be your parents yet subconsciously they're often putting you in a parent role. And when they don't get that support from you, when they don't get that caring and the attention, it really has an impact.

Your supervisor can strongly influence your self-esteem. Just test yourself. If your supervisor wanted to, at the beginning of a week, he or she could probably ruin you for the rest of the week, if not the rest of the month, by saying something cruel and unfair and stupid to you, perhaps calling you down. Now, whether or not you believe the supervisor, the "put down" still came from your supervisor and it hurts that much more. As a supervisor yourself, it's a responsibility put on your shoulders. You have a direct impact on the self esteem of all your employees. For example, whenever you interact with people working for you, whether they're your pupils or whether they're your employees, whenever you talk to them, whenever you interact with them, you're doing one of three things and there's no way you can get around this.

As their supervisor or as the boss, you are either raising your employees' self-esteem, maintaining their self-esteem or you're lowering their self-esteem. And once you begin to lower the employees' self-esteem it decreases their motivation, decreases their performance and they're on a downhill spiral. In all interactions with employees, you must at least maintain their self-esteem.

As a supervisor, you are either raising your employees' self-esteem, maintaining their self-esteem, or you're lowering their self-esteem.

You may now know an employee, that if you look at him or her the wrong way, the person seems to fall to pieces. So you really have to safeguard some of your actions with employees. You may chastise an employee, just an off-the-cuff comment and call him stupid or say, "Gee, you're always making dumb mistakes." Now you don't really mean that he's stupid and he doesn't always make dumb mistakes, but because you said it, it means that much more. He'll put weight on every word you say. Why? Because of your role. You're the supervisor, you're playing the role of the judge, you evaluate his performance. You indirectly determine how good a person he thinks he is.

The importance that self-confidence and self-esteem play in motivating our employees emphasizes that motivation isn't a bag of tricks where we simply dangle the right carrot in front of the employee. It goes beyond that. Motivation is greatly determined by the relationship which you develop between yourself and your employee. And of course it can take a long time for you to develop the self-confidence and self-esteem of your employees. It can't be done overnight but it can be ruined overnight.

The third influence on our employees' expectation of success is whether they really know what the job is. How clear was that task? If they're not sure what they're supposed to be doing, how can they have a high confidence that they can do it successfully? So, of course, setting goals and objectives, developing clear performance standards, establishing RBS or BARS, and clearly enunciating what the job is will directly affect the individual's motivation. Keeping employees in the dark about what their job is will not motivate them. It'll do just the opposite.

[4] Expectation of Recognition

The last major factor in the motivation formula is called the expectation of recognition. Earlier we saw that the consequences to the employees' behavior have a direct impact on whether the behavior will continue. So, if you dangle a carrot that individuals want they'll probably strive for it. Well, we're finding now it goes a little beyond that. It isn't that simple. It's not only whether individuals want the recognition or the reward that is promised for performing some activity, but also whether they believe that they'll actually get it if it's earned. To put it bluntly, do they believe that you, as the supervisor, will "come across with the goods"? Will you keep your promise and give them the rewards that they've earned? If they think the odds are low that they'll get the reward for good performance you'll find their motivation will be low as will their performance.

EXPECTATION OF RECOGNITION The individual's expectation that the anticipated recognition or reward will follow the task performance is influenced by: (a) Precedents (b) Trust c) Clarity of reward

At least three things influence the expectation of recognition. The first is precedents. What happened in the past? Have you ever seen individuals doing good work, but they never seemed to get the rewards that their company said they would? They begin to believe that, from what they've seen, the company doesn't come across with the goods. So their expectation of recognition decreased and so did their motivation. A good guideline for supervisors is to make rewards and recognition for good work highly visible. Let people see that those who do good work get the recognition. What you'll do is raise in everybody's mind their expectation of recognition. Your employees will be able to see that good performance does result in recognition.

Trust is another important influence. This emphasizes that motivation is a relationship which takes time to develop. If the employee doesn't trust the boss or doesn't trust that the organization will give the rewards, he'll develop a low expectation of recognition and of course low motivation. What this says to you, as the supervisor, is never make a promise you can't keep. Never dangle a carrot in front of an employee if you can't 100% guarantee you can deliver. Yet, you know, it's common for us all to be doing just the opposite. We imply that we can give rewards which we in fact can't. We'll say, "Well, if you work hard this year, I'll put in a good word for you for that other job." Of course we say that but what the employee hears is "he will get the other job." Then when he doesn't he's learned "Aha! Here's a supervisor who doesn't keep her promises." You might find yourself doing that because it can be very frustrating being a supervisor and not having as many rewards to give to your employees as you'd wish. You'd like to hand out a lot of gifts for good work but your hands are tied. There is very little you can give. Probably all you can give is sincere praise. But if that's the case, let your employees know that and give sincere praise when it's earned. Don't try to pretend you have other rewards that you don't have.

The Expectation of Recognition helps explain a situation when you have an employee that you simply cannot motivate. Here's the scenario. The employee has been with the organization for fifteen years and for fifteen years he's been told, "Work hard, keep your shoulder to the grindstone, don't make waves, don't cause problems, just get your job done and you'll get ahead". And that's what he's been told for fifteen years. Well, in his mind, he's done just that. But what has he seen for fifteen years? He's seen people promoted above him. He's seen people come in from the outside and made his boss. No matter what happens he never gets ahead. He's still in the same job, and he's beginning to learn, no matter what he does, he won't get the rewards they promised him for his good work. As a result, his expectation of recognition is so low that his motivation ceases and his performance becomes so bad that it makes certain that he never will get a reward or any recognition. He's become soured.

I don't believe you can turn that situation around overnight. You can't step in as the new supervisor and say, "Well, you can trust me. I keep my promises." Because the guy's heard that for fifteen years. Every supervisor has said to him that he'll keep his promises. But the guy still never gets ahead.

About the only thing you could do is level with the employee. Perhaps start from scratch at setting clear performance standards and giving him whatever recognition you can for that work. But you can't turn that situation around overnight. The most you could hope for is to specify clearly what the job is and then enforce the job standards.

The last influence on the expectation of recognition is the clarity of the reward.

Are employees really aware of what the organization's rewards are? If the rewards aren't known, how can employees have a high expectation of getting a reward or getting specific recognition? So, if you're going to use bonuses or prizes as recognition for good performance, don't keep them secret from the employees. It's not a good idea to have surprise rewards at the end of the year. Perhaps employees in the past didn't perform well because they weren't aware that there were any prizes. If they only knew, they may have performed much better.

Consider the game that's sometimes played with high ratings on a performance appraisal. The company says, "We really never rate anybody at the top because that would suggest they're perfect." The highest rating is never awarded. That backfires and decreases motivation because employees learn that the expectation of being rated as a high performer is zero. As a result, their motivation to be a high performer is lowered. This game doesn't make them strive more; it makes them strive less!

Your objective then, as a supervisor or manager, is to do whatever you can to make sure that your employees have a high expectation of recognition. Make sure that the rewards are clear; that people know clearly what they can win or what they can strive for; and that there is a relationship of trust between you and your employee, which may take a long time to develop. Be aware of precedents and that you can't suddenly turn things around overnight.

Also make sure that your employees' expectation of success is as high as possible. Make sure the employees have all the resources that they need to do the job properly. Continually try to build up their self-confidence and self-esteem, perhaps by coaching them or breaking a complicated job down into smaller steps so that the individual can experience fast psychological successes. And make sure that the task is clear so they're fully aware of what they're supposed to be doing and what the performance standards are.

From: Robert H. Kent, The Mansis System: Common Sense Management For Everyone, Winnipeg: Pragma Press, 1996, Appendix 3.

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