Chapter 6

Positive Management and Motivation

Though positive management (PM) is just getting started as a comprehensive human resource strategy, it is closely related to many of the most successful management methods used in organizations every day. Whenever we interact with subordinates, bosses, customers, or colleagues, we operate within a body of knowledge about organizational psychology that has been developed over the last 80 years. This knowledge is infused into practically every aspect of modern organizations and has defined a set of assumptions that we make about how to do (and not to do) things. At the core of it all are theories about motivation.

The importance of motivation can be seen in where it ranks in management education. From a practitioner’s standpoint, organizational behavior is the most important part of the academic field of management, and motivation theories are the most important topics in organizational behavior. They explain why people work, why they sometimes jump out of bed in the morning to hurry to their jobs, and why they sometimes can barely bring themselves to face another day in the workplace. Of equal impact, they explain why some organizations enable and encourage enthusiasm while others breed resentment and cynicism. A broad family of theories and decades of empirical testing describe the motivation process in terms of the people being motivated and in terms of leader behaviors. In addition, they link observable behaviors to internal psychological processes, explaining how motivation works.

Hierarchy of Needs

It must be true that some significant proportion of all college students in America have, at some time or another, been exposed to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.¹ Maslow described five levels of human needs, starting with the most basic and ending with complete realization of one’s self-expectations. Decades of empirical testing have not confirmed the orderly progression of a person from a lower (physiological/safety) level to a higher (social/esteem) level. I mention his work here because it led to acceptance of the idea that people do have different needs at different points in time. One of the criticisms of Maslow’s expectation that people would progress up the hierarchy is that it does not properly contemplate situational contingencies—it doesn’t make enough allowances for circumstances. People can move up and down the hierarchy.

A successful businessperson who is married with two children and lives in a nice suburban home might be expected to have high esteem needs. If, however, a hurricane were to threaten destruction of this person’s home, he or she might develop other needs, such as simple pursuit of safety and security for the family. Concerns for social relationships and esteem might disappear as safety considerations dominate.

The need for and importance of PM practices enter the analogy when we change the setting. Reconfigure the example by replacing the suburban lifestyle with a secure and well-paying job and replacing the esteemed position in the local community with a reputation of expertise and competency in that job. Then replace the hurricane with a new, threatening boss. For an employee working in a secure job in an organization, we would expect a focus on recognition and esteem needs related to a desire to sustain or enhance his or her reputation. Loyalty, comportment, attitude, and focus would be expected to emerge from a position of security and acceptance. If the new boss takes an approach that mistakes are unacceptable (hurricane), that making mistakes can be extremely harmful to one’s career (family in danger), we may see the employee reduce his or her social and esteem needs and emphasize CYA (doubtless most experienced organization members know this acronym but, to be clear, it means “cover your ass”). In this case, CYA is a safety- and security-oriented behavior. We don’t acknowledge this often enough: CYA is almost never in the best interests of the organization.

If an employee becomes self-protective, he or she will take fewer chances. When I say this, I’m not referring to a reduction in reckless behaviors but in the willingness to attempt stretch goals or take on new roles. When people have high security needs, they want to feel less vulnerable to making mistakes. Enough of that kind of conservatism limits creativity and innovation, both of which may be necessary to sustain organizational success.

Some might argue that employees won’t become too conservative or self-protective if doing so further threatens their jobs. But this reasoning attempts to fix the problem by using its cause. If the environment is threatening enough, adverse selection will occur and those who can move will do so, leaving behind those who can’t move, which will result in declining average quality in the workforce. If a person is performing satisfactorily in his or her assigned role in the organization, voluntary turnover is a problem.

A point of clarification: I’ve used an example of a new manager as the introducer of a negative work environment. Frequently, managers are longer tenured employees than are their subordinates, so I need to briefly mention another scenario. What if an in-place manager’s style changes, perhaps due to poor organizational performance? The result could be even more pronounced. If an existing manager’s style changes for the worse, it is a betrayal of trust from the employees’ perspective. I’ve witnessed voluntary turnover related to perceived job insecurity caused by a manager’s negative shift. The goal should be to move in the other direction—select new managers using positivity as a factor and assist existing ones to become more positive.

Three-Needs Theory

David McClelland developed an important explanation of people’s work behaviors, which he referred to as acquired needs theory.² It is better known as the three-needs theory (TNT). To relate TNT to PM, we need several definitions:

1. Power is the ability to influence others to do what you want, and the need for power (nPow) indicates how strongly a person wants to have and use power.
2. The need for achievement (nAch) indicates the strength of a person’s desire to get something accomplished. People vary widely in this construct. Some have a very strong need to achieve, while others have substantially less. High-nAch employees have strong needs for feedback about their work.
3. The need for affiliation (nAff) indicates the strength of a person’s interest in being friendly and having social relationships.

Historically, it has been argued that that people with higher needs for power and lower needs for affiliation make good managers. This makes sense in the context of negative management, with its stronger task focus and weaker employee focus. I contend that a balance among the three needs will be associated with managerial success as demographic and economic changes occur in the workforce.

Positive Management and the Need for Achievement

McClelland’s theory has been tested repeatedly and over many years, persistently revealing a human need for achievement, which can be roughly defined as having a desired outcome that is not yet accomplished. It should be emphasized that McClelland’s needs are not mild “feelings” that people have about their work. They can powerfully motivate people to exert energy and commitment to work activities.

Achievement is the most complex of the three needs in a PM context. At first glance, this may seem confusing because I have argued that PM leads to increased employee achievement. It is easy to assume that an achievement-oriented manager would be drawn to positive approaches. The complexity comes from achievement-oriented leaders’ focus on themselves in the pursuit of making a personal difference or contribution. This poses a potential interference with the application of PM because it is focused on others. Going further, we find another impediment in the “I’ll just do it myself” mentality commonly found in achievement-oriented personalities. Highly achievement-oriented people may be reluctant to delegate because they fear loss of control over the quality of the result. PM requires working with and through others, and achievement-oriented managers may struggle with that requirement. In general, an achievement-oriented manager should be able to easily grasp the potential benefits of PM, even if he or she sometimes struggles a bit with the necessity of delegation. We can select for achievement orientation in hiring and promotion, but we should make sure that the organization’s culture and work environment also stimulate subordinates’ innate achievement needs.

Positive Management and the Need for Affiliation

People vary over how much they need to have social interaction and, for want of a better word, friendship in their work relationships. Some need a lot, others almost none, and most people are somewhere in the middle. Negative management is likely to deprive both achievement-oriented and affiliation-oriented employees of the strokes that fulfill their personal needs. A positive environment is more likely to press the appropriate buttons for an achievement-oriented employee and more likely to offer a friendlier workplace to an affiliation-oriented person.

We must resist the impulse to think simplistically about these constructs. It is not the purpose of PM to create a friendship between managers and employees. Construction of actual friendships may not be key, but the creation of a friendly work environment is. It may be easier to argue this point from the negative than from the positive. Instead of trying to describe what will be achieved by a PM approach, consider what will be lost without one. If negative management is in play, it may decrease the perceived “friendliness” of the workplace, and the quality of interpersonal relationships will be lower. This could be demotivating for affiliation-oriented employees.

A second issue has to do with managers who have a high need for affiliation. It might seem that they would be drawn to PM, but the relationship is not so simple. While it may be easier for an affiliation-oriented manager to engage in PM behaviors, we must not lose focus on productivity as the intended result. It is as wrong for a manager to place his or her needs for affiliation over organizational productivity as it is to engage in selfish or arrogant behaviors at the expense of the organization’s long-term goals.

Positive Management and the Need for Power

Those with a high need for power want to be in charge and to direct the activities of others. We can see how a person with a high power need might be inclined to use a negative framework in subordinate relationships because it positions him or her as the judge of other’s actions and puts him or her strongly in control. This leads to a context in which the important outcome is whether the manager is pleased, and that opens the door to negativity.

It is possible for a high-power-need manager to use PM as an overlay set of behaviors on top of the underlying desire to be in charge. This set of behaviors incorporates positive techniques, such as increasing the use of praise and consulting subordinates about courses of action, and puts limits on the use of blame for outcomes that are not pleasing to the person in charge. It is possible, though perhaps difficult, for a high-power-need individual to engage in these behaviors, especially if he or she can believe that they will result in others doing as he or she wishes.

It is important to mention again, however, that PM will not work as an “act.” A manager cannot successfully pretend to embrace positive techniques over the long term. If a power-oriented manager uses but does not embrace PM techniques, one of two undesirable outcomes is likely to occur: either he or she will slip and contradict positive techniques with a dose of negativity or he or she will grow increasingly uncomfortable with the process due to cognitive dissonance. For a person with high power needs, PM will never be a comfortable marriage. It can be workable, though, if the manager sees it as an efficient path for influencing the actions of others.

Theory X and Theory Y

Douglas McGregor first published the Theory X and Theory Y idea in 1960.³ I point that out because 50 years is a pretty long time to look back at a theory and find remarkable compatibility with ideas that are being developed now. Too often in business schools, Theory X and Theory Y are taught simplistically, focusing too heavily on managers’ attitudes and not enough on employees’ reactions, attitudes, and behaviors.

Theory X says that managers perceive workers as generally not liking or wanting to work. Theory Y says that managers perceive workers as generally wanting to work and wanting additional responsibility in it. Assumptions about employee attitudes in advanced and democratic economies have moved strongly toward Theory Y in the last 50 years. Flattened hierarchies, employee empowerment, and increased prevalence of managers possessing similar technical expertise to those being supervised are related to this trend. The broad strokes of organizational life in first-world countries have turned toward a more positive view of workers. There remains, however, a significant range of attitudes across managers. Some are more trusting and comfortable with empowerment; others are less. Some are more willing to delegate authority and responsibility, and others are more interested in conserving it for themselves. This is where the PM aspect intersects with Theories X and Y.

If the fundamental framework by which a manager perceives the workplace is the avoidance of failure, then there will be more Theory X attitudes and behaviors. If the manager perceives the work environment as a set of opportunities to be utilized, then there will be more Theory Y attitudes and behaviors. If these behaviors could exist in isolation, we would not need to be very concerned about them. But, of course, just the opposite is true. They are highly visible and have a significant impact on the attitudes and behaviors of subordinates in a way analogous to trust and honesty in the workplace. Theory X managers send messages of low trust and respect, both of which are unlikely to stimulate increased effort or commitment. Theory Y, while not a panacea, sends fewer such messages.

Theory building and empirical testing based on McGregor’s work highlighted the importance of contingency approaches⁴ as they relate to Theories X and Y. If the work is actually unpleasant and difficult, a Theory X approach might be more appropriate because assumptions that employees do not want to do it are more likely to be correct. Analogously, some of the high expectations of workers associated with Theory Y can be explained by incorporating situational contexts. Some highly creative and scientific jobs need little supervision because internal motivations are strong and lack of content expertise makes the involvement of a supervisor unproductive. This example represents the extreme, however. For the overwhelming majority of supervisory situations, internal motivation to perform will coexist with a need for information, feedback, and guidance from a supervisor.

Reinforcement Theory

Many people associate reinforcement theory with stimulus-response theory and think of Ivan Pavlov’s conditioning of dogs to drool upon hearing a bell. A definition much more compatible with reinforcement theory was created in 1911 by E. L. Thorndike,⁵ who said that behavior that is rewarded is more likely to be repeated. The largest advances in the field, both theoretically and empirically, were made by B. F. Skinner.⁶

Reinforcement theory proposes four basic actions to modify behavior:

• Positive reinforcement is the giving of a reward following a behavior that we would like to see repeated. Bonuses are a classic type of this kind of reinforcement.
• Negative reinforcement is frequently a companion to positive reinforcement in work environments, especially where a reward system has been made known in advance. A salesperson who does not meet the quota receives no bonus and soon realizes that this negative outcome can be avoided by meeting the quota. Please note that this is not punishment, which is the application of a negative condition in response to unsatisfactory performance (e.g., a cut in base pay).
• Extinction is the withholding of a response to a particular behavior. For example, people with high needs for attention can be controlled if undesirable behaviors are ignored. The lack of response to their behavior can cause it to die out over time.
• Punishment is the application of a negative response to a particular behavior with the expectation that the behavior will be reduced in the future. Giving an employee an unpaid suspension for improper workplace behavior is an example. Other than for serious violations of company rules or for performance that is so poor as to put the employee on a path toward dismissal, punishment is not widely used in most first-world organizations. Most of the negative responses that organizations might want to convey toward substandard performance can be accomplished via negative reinforcement.

In practice, reinforcement theory is complicated because the pattern of rewards, nonrewards, punishments, and nonresponses influences its effectiveness.

One of the key underlying ideas in PM—that people want happiness and positive feelings from their work—ties very closely with reinforcement theory. In fact, it can be difficult to implement a reinforcement framework in an environment where too much negativity exists. The negative reinforcement aspects might be possible, but positive reinforcement—the giving of praise and recognition for a job well done—is to a large extent taken off the table in a negative work environment. As a corollary, negative reinforcement in the form of absence of a reward may be more effective in a positive work environment because employees grow accustomed to positive feedback and recognition.

Motivator-Hygiene Theory

One of the most important and influential motivation theories of the last half-century is Frederic Herzberg’s two-factor theory, also known as motivator-hygiene theory.⁷ It is especially useful in understanding what people like and don’t like about their workplaces and what effects those views have on their motivation at work. Herzberg and his coauthors argued that factors external (extrinsic) to the employee can have only two effects on employee motivation. These factors, which include pay, benefits, supervision, and working conditions, can either dissatisfy or not dissatisfy an employee. They are not able to truly motivate an employee—a condition that Herzberg said was necessary to sustain exceptional performance over the long term. The contrast is between satisfying (or failing to satisfy) an employee versus motivating (or failing to motivate) an employee. The distinction between satisfying and motivating is important. Being satisfied means that everything is OK and nothing is wrong. From the standpoint of an employer, extrinsic rewards present a challenge because failing to satisfy means that everything is not OK (i.e., something is wrong) and that the person may be unhappy and less motivated in his or her work.

This argument leads to an important question: “What about pay for performance?” Pay can be motivational in certain limited circumstances, including where very large bonuses are in play and where all or most of a person’s compensation is dependent on performance (e.g., commission sales). But those situations are rare, and most jobs are not (and cannot be) compensated in that way. Even jobs with incentive compensation do not consistently offer pay that can reliably influence employee motivation over time. If incentive compensation is routine and repeated over time, employees can grow to believe that it is a normal part of what they are paid and the effect starts to slide back toward the satisfaction-dissatisfaction context of what Herzberg called “hygiene factors.”

Perhaps the most telling insight that can be derived from two-factor theory is that most people believe that they deserve all the pay they get. Especially when increases are not recent, employees don’t feel particularly “rewarded” by their paychecks. They may view their pay as satisfactory, which is a desirable outcome from the organization’s standpoint. They may view it as unsatisfactory, which usually portends outcomes that the organization does not want. They typically cannot, however, sustain a feeling that they are lucky to have their current level of pay. Some managers, on casual observation of this argument, leap to the conclusion that pay is not important. On the contrary, Herzberg argued that if it is improperly handled it can lead to negative employee attitudes.

The other part of Herzberg’s theory deals with internal (intrinsic) factors. These include recognition, enjoyment of the work itself, achievement, and being perceived as valuable to the organization. They emerge from how the organization interacts with personality characteristics of the employee and can be significantly influenced by managerial actions. Motivational factors can cause people to exert extraordinary effort, to build an inner fire to excel in their work, and to make extraordinary sacrifices for the organization.

Managers who say, “These people are well paid and should work like they are well paid” are missing an opportunity to increase productivity and retention by providing employees the psychological rewards available through PM. Employee desires to make a difference and to play an important role can be stimulated by praise and encouragement. Negative management, with its frequent focus on blame, cannot easily tap in to those powerful desires to achieve. In addition, it can do something that organizations don’t want to happen: cause people to believe that they are not appropriately compensated for their work. How does that happen? If the work environment is unpleasant and unrewarding and if intrinsic rewards are unavailable, employees may begin to believe that additional pay will help them to put up with jobs they don’t like. Actually, the additional pay rarely compensates for a highly negative workplace. This is a tough problem to manage. If it occurs, expect increased turnover and absenteeism, along with decreased quality and cooperation.

Goal Setting

In pursuit of improved productivity from every organizational function, we find an old ally that can also work well with PM, goal setting. PM, as a strategy for guiding the culture of the whole organization, can increase the effectiveness of well-known goal-setting approaches.

Increased productivity in first-world economies can come from only two sources, both of which are tightly linked to PM:

• Voluntary agreement by workers to produce more for the same amount of inputs
• Increased creativity that generates innovative products and processes that are not immediately susceptible to production in lower-wage economies

Peter Drucker’s management by objectives (MBO)⁸ is probably the most widely known and accepted goal-setting model used in modern organizations. It uses a cooperative system of setting goals between managers and subordinates and structured follow-up and feedback to monitor progress. Drucker’s system is one of the best ideas in the history of the field and is widely respected by managers, nonmanagement employees, and people who study management processes. The question facing companies in high-wage economies, however, is whether goal-setting practices such as MBO can be further optimized.

We’ve established that fear limits risk taking and openness and, through them, creativity. We can extend that argument to say that fear can limit employee willingness to set ambitious noncreative goals. After all, most goals are not about something very new and different. The bulk of what we do on a day-to-day basis is routine and has been done many times. We need to make sure that we are creating an environment that encourages people to do their best and to attempt to reach “stretch” goals, which are slightly larger or more ambitious than would normally be set by the employee, without fear of unfair criticism and loss of security.

Persistent surpassing of goals is uncommon. To increase performance, we should raise goals to a higher level rather than hope that people will continuously exceed a lower goal. “Stretch” goals provide a path to higher levels of accomplishment by allowing employees to incrementally expand their ability to perform. PM provides a supportive environment for setting stretch goals by eliminating unnecessary criticism and limiting the fear of negative outcomes because of failure to reach a stretch level. A persistent pattern of stretch goals can increase productivity, but it must be achieved via cooperation with employees. Merely imposing stretch goals can lower motivation and commitment.