ORGANIZATIONAL LEVERS OF MOTIVATION

To fulfill the drive to acquire, an organization must discriminate between good, average and poor performers by tying rewards clearly and transparently to performance and giving the best employees opportunities for advancement. This rewards system must provide competitive employee compensation relative to the industry. Lawrence and Nohria (2002) show that these reward systems improved employee engagement and satisfaction.

The drive to bond is fulfilled when a culture promotes teamwork, collaboration, openness and friendship. Management is encouraged to care about their employees, and employees are encouraged to care for each other so that there is a sense of collegiality and belonging. Employees are also encouraged to form new bonds. 

Job design involves creating and specifying jobs that are meaningful, interesting and challenging to support the drive to comprehend. Employees are also challenged to think more creatively and broadly about how they could contribute to make a difference to the organization, customers, and investors. 

The drive to defend is met when there is increased transparency, fairness and equity over all processes. To emphasize these characteristics, performance management and resource allocation processes are used. These processes make evaluation and decision processes transparent, fair and clear. 

Although fulfilling all four of employees’ basic emotional drives is essential for any company, Harvard Business Review (2008) suggests that each drive is best met by a distinct organizational lever. 

For each of the four emotional drives that employees need to fulfill, companies have a primary organizational lever to use. This below table 01 matches each drive with its corresponding lever and lists specific actions your company can take to make the most of the tools at its disposal.

Table 01 

(Source-Harvard Business Review • July–August 2008)

References

• Lawrence, P. R., & Nohria, N. (2002). Driven: How human nature shapes our choices. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Michael, T. L., Robyn, L. R.(2016). Understanding employee motivation and organizational performance: Arguments for a set-theoretic approach. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge.
• Nohria, N., Groysberg, B., & Lee, L. (2008). Employee motivation: A powerful new model. Harvard Business Review, 86(7/8), 78–83.