Is Designing Motivation Also a Manager's Job?

I don't feel motivated...

When you feel this way, how do you boost your motivation?

Go for a walk? Try meditating?

Those are options, but learning about Expectancy Theory might give you some hints.

Switch on your motivation with Expectancy Theory!

Expectancy Theory is the idea that humans feel motivated when they understand that taking action will be rewarded.

This theory was proposed by Professor Victor H. Vroom of Yale University.

What is the novelty of this Expectancy Theory?

It lies in the fact that it explains the mechanism of motivation through the relationship between three points: effort, performance, and reward.

Lack of motivation occurs because effort, performance, and reward are not connected.

For example, let's say you are working as a salesperson for a company. You have been given the following mission:

"Please sell a certain product to 100 houses in 3 days through cold calling." "We expect you to sell the product to 50 houses. We do not care about the process." "As for the reward, it is a flat rate of 100,000 yen regardless of how much you sell."

Would you feel motivated or not?

You might say, "No way, I don't want to do cold calling in the first place!" Also, even if you don't mind cold calling, you might be discouraged by the high goal of selling the product to 50 out of 100 houses.

Exactly.

Let's analyze this situation further using Expectancy Theory.

Cause 1: Setting a goal of 50 successful sales as the 'result' expected from the 'action' of 100 cold calls in 3 days makes the recipient feel the hurdle is too high.

Cause 2: Even if that goal could be achieved, a flat 'reward' of 100,000 yen is not convincing.

Questions like, "Can you really get results from cold calling in this day and age?" or "Won't the process be evaluated?" show thatthe recipient simply does not feel convinced by the connection between effort, results, and rewards.

This is an extreme example, but the same thing happens frequently in the workplace.

Designing a subordinate's motivation is also a manager's job

In the workplace, have you ever assigned work to a subordinate (or sometimes a junior colleague) only to find they don't tackle it with high motivation?

That may be because they themselves are unable to connect these three elements.

In such a state, even if you make them proceed with the work, you will not get good results.

So, who designs the work?

Ideally, we would like individuals to autonomously think about the significance of their work and engage with it, but only a small fraction of people can do that.

Therefore, in many cases, it is important for the manager to carefully think through the work content, design it to be motivating, and communicate it to the subordinate.

Isn't this design process exactly what we can call the work of development?

★The original tweet is here★