Motivation

Abstract

Project success depends on your ability to organize, coordinate, and support a diverse team working toward a common goal. The assembled team comes from different areas of the organization and most team members will not report to you administratively. By understanding what motivates individuals, you can create the opportunity for others to become motivated insuring the project’s success.

The function of a project manager is to complete a task on time and within the allotted budget. The task or project may be very simple or vastly complex and technically challenging. A project manager must find ways to motivate the people working on the task. In order to understand how to motivate the people, a project manager must understand the difference between management and leadership. An understanding of motivation methods, including the traditional theories from the early to mid twentieth century to more modern theories of motivation, is crucial to meeting project goals. Motivating team members to be personally committed to the project success will create the best opportunity for achieving goals.

Leadership and management are two related but distinctly different sets of behaviors used for guiding and supporting team members through the stages of a project. Management establishes a plan and dictates how to carry out the plan using metrics to assess performance. Management creates order and predictability by focusing on systems, procedures and information. Leadership emphasizes defining a vision and taking actions to increase the chances that the vision will become a reality. Leadership focuses on the people and helps them navigate changes. Leadership and management take different approaches to the same activity with the main difference coming in the form of team member motivation. The leadership approach to planning will be to create and share visions and strategies; the management approach will be to specify objectives, schedules and budgets. There is also a difference in the personal influence between a leader and a manager. A manager has “ascribed power”, this is when the project manager has the authority to reward and punish team members. A leader has “achieved power”; this is when the project manager has earned the respect and allegiance of team members. The difference is the leadership approach seeks to elicit commitments from team members so the overall buy in is greater. Team members who respond to ascribed power usually do the least amount necessary to get the rewards they want or to avoid the consequences they fear. When achieved power motivates team members, the results are much higher because the team members have decided it is in their best interest. Team members would rather perform for a good leader than a great manager.

Project managers must have a basic understanding of traditional motivation theories. Two popular and well-known theories of motivation are Maslow’s motivation theory and McGregor’s X-Y theory. Maslow’s theory states that behavior is controlled by internal and external factors. These factors drive needs, which are hierarchal in nature, meaning that some needs are more basic or more powerful than other needs. When the basic or more powerful needs are satisfied, other higher order needs will emerge. Maslow proposed a hierarchy of five needs: Physiological (food, shelter, sex), Safety (insurance, security, protection from harm), Love (peer groups, recreation, affection, acceptance), Esteem (achievement, status, self-respect, recognition) and Self-Actualization (creativity, growth, achieving one’s potential). (Maslow, 1954) Project managers using this model see that the team members who have met the four lower levels and reached Self-Actualization have everything and can maximize their potential. McGregor took Maslow’s work and devised the X-Y theory, which directly relates to working environments. He separated the five hierarchy needs into two levels. Physiological and safety needs are lower level needs and labeled them Theory X. Love, esteem and self-actualization are higher level needs and are considered Theory Y. McGregor believed that management styles were centered around meeting the needs in theory X or theory Y.