Enter the works of Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, and David McClelland. And later, the works of Vroom, Locke, Latham, Deci, Ryan, and others. Their contributions can feel like the articulation of common sense thinking. However, the frameworks they put forward, individually or seen together, remain helpful tools today.
The Models
Maslow’s Hierarchy (not Pyramid) of Needs
Abraham Maslow is a pivotal figure when it comes to the needs topic. He introduced the hierarchy of needs in 1943. According to him, the classes of needs are:
- Survival or physiological
- Security or safety
- Social
- Ego-status (the need to be recognized, power, prestige, and self-confidence)
- Self-actualization (the desire to maximize one’s skills and talents, self-expression, self-realization and self-fulfillment)
For Maslow, when one need is satisfied, it no longer is a motivator. After that, motivation is generated by another need further up the hierarchy. This view drove others to represent Maslow’s theory as a pyramid (the survival needs at the base and going up from there). However, Maslow himself didn’t represent the hierarchy that way, or indicated a rigid order of needs.
He didn’t think we had to satisfy lower needs totally (survival) before satisfying higher needs (self-actualization). He thought a lower need had to be satisfied at some level. However, one person can well forgo a lower need for the fulfillment of a higher one (for example, the painter that skips a meal to buy painting materials).
Clayton Alderfer, later built over Maslow’s concept. He simplified the need categories into three: Existence, Relatedness and Growth.
Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
Frederick Herzberg focused on workplace satisfaction. His book, published in the late fifties, puts forward that needs can be divided into two categories:
- Lower-level needs: The basics (food, shelter, financial safety)
- Higher-level needs: Those fitting the more psychologically complex human being
Herzberg thought that both categories had to be satisfied in the workplace, and identified two types of factors influencing satisfaction:
- Hygienic factors: Context and environment, including workplace setup, rules, supervision, status, security, and pay.
- Motivator factors: Job-related aspects like achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and growth.
He sustained that maintaining excellent hygienic conditions prevented dissatisfaction, but that it didn’t necessarily led to satisfaction. On the other hand, he argued, motivators could bring true satisfaction.
McClelland’s Human Motivation Theory
David McClelland introduced this framework in the sixties. Based on his theory and research, individuals are motivated by their need for:
- Affiliation,
- Achievement, or
- Power
McClelland used that framework to identify who is more likely to lead, and how to motivate others. He firmly believed that people could be trained towards the level of affiliation, achievement or power that characterizes successful leaders, overcoming cultural or personal upbringing biases.
Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
Also during the sixties, Victor Vroom recognized that individuals’ needs are not fixed. He focused on studying motivation from the point of view of choice, and the factors that lead an individual to be motivated and act. For him, individuals’ motivation depends on:
- Expectancy, the belief that the effort will produce a positive outcome
- Instrumentality, the level at which the effort will be rewarded
- Valence, the degree to which the individuals values the reward to the outcome
Locke and Latham’s Goal Setting Theory
Edwin Locke ( also in the sixties, but adding to his theory over time) focused on the idea that clear challenging goals lead to better performance. In the early nineties, with Gary Latham, he published a book with a refined version of the theory. They put forward that motivation and performance emerge from the perfect mix of:
- Clarity
- Challenge
- Commitment
- Feedback
- Complexity
- Incentives
Locke’s theory thought that goals and intentions (the fuel of commitment) influence how incentives impact performance.
Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory
This theory was developed in the seventies, but was fully published in the eighties. Edward Deci and Richard Ryan say that motivation (self-initiated motivation) emerges when we satisfy our need for:
- Autonomy (to be or do)
- Relatedness (social acceptance, recognition, and connection)
- Competence (seeking of control of an outcome or mastery)
Other Useful Frameworks
A lot happened between the 40’s and 80’s. Since then, the body of work on motivation has grown and grown. It is impossible to cover it all. However, three articles closer to our time provide additional frameworks.
The work of Nohria, Groysberg and Lee (HBR, 2008) puts forward that leaders need to pay attention to the employees’ drive to:
- Acquire (scarce goods, tangible and intangible)
- Bond
- Comprehend
- Defend (protect oneself, our loved ones, possessions and values)
Bailey and Madden‘s (MIT Sloan Review, 2016) propose that meaningful work is a motivator, and thus there’s reason to protect that. They indicate that meaningful work is typically:
- Self transcendent
- Poignant
- Episodic
- Reflective
- Personal
Organizationally, they advise leaders to stay tuned to their employee needs of meaningfulness in their:
- Organization
- Interactions
- Tasks
- Job
In their work, Bailey and Madden also share that it is hard to manufacture meaningfulness (though they think there are paths to it), but it is easy to destroy it (they suggest actions to avoid that in their article).
Finally, according to Goler, Gale, Harrington, and Grant (HBR, 2018), beyond the basic needs, what motivates employees to perform is their satisfaction of their need for:
- Career
- Community
- Cause (purpose)
That’s a lot of psychology…
For sure! And here we skipped other theories by Adams, Skinner and McGregor. Companies’ success hinges on human motivations and social relations. It makes sense for psychology to be woven into the fabric of management. However, at times, the focus on psychological management topics overshadows the focus on the technical side of management, and viceversa. Successful managers strive to keep the right balance, developing skills and knowledge on both.