What Motivates People?

Motivation is an important phenomenon in Administration and in  Humanistic Psychology. In administration, it helps in better job designing for employees leading to increase in production whereas in Psychology it helps in understanding human behaviour.

People tend to make larger-than-life decisions in their life. Some of these decisions fail miserably, others help people attain new heights. What motivates them to take the big step? Well. I am not the first one to ponder about it. Abraham Maslow has analysed it threadbare in his famous hierarchy of needs theory. There have been many refinements, most noticeably by Frederick Herzberg in his two-factor theory. Maslow said human needs follow a hierarchy from lower order needs to higher order needs; physical, security, social, esteem and self-actualisation needs, in that order. While Herzberg said, the motivating factors are different from demotivating (hygiene) factors. That is, he classified Maslow's lower order needs into Hygiene Factors and higher order needs into Motivators. While their theories are enticing, I find them incomplete and too simplistic.
I believe, they tremendously undermined the complex nature of motivation in human beings. I would propose my modification as the following:

1. We tend to take the bigger step when we are more-or-less assured of the possibility of the parity being restored in case of failure. That is, we tend to evaluate the possibility of rewards in case of success and possibility of damages in case of failure. If we find, it is not too difficult to go back to where we began from, we generally take the plunge. I call it the 'Principle of Retrospective Parity'.

2. There are exceptions to this phenomenon. Some extremely entrepreneurial people don't adhere to this principle. They simply take the plunge - come what may. Generally, they are driven by the possibility of much greater rewards outweighing the costs involved. I call it the Principle of Sanguinity.

So to restate Maslow in context of above two principles,

If human beings are reasonably satisfied with their current level of lower order needs, they will be ready to temporarily abandon them in pursuit of higher order needs, when they are almost sure that they can restore the lower needs to their previous level of existence.

Just a thought. How appealing is it?

Update:
I later found out it that it is somewhat similar to what Victor Vroom proposed in his Expectancy theory. In this theory, he proposed:

Valence = Expectancy x Instrumentality

Which basically means that people are motivated to perform a task when they believe it will lead to positive rewards. Possibility of such rewards coming their way is an important part of that consideration.
But as you might see, Vroom's theory doesn't compare itself with need based theory]ies of Maslow and Herzberg.

Did You Know? BATA and few others..

Okay, this is just an FYI post. Some of the facts presented here may surprise you. But they are, as I mentioned, facts. More facts will be added as I find them out. Let's begin:

1. Bata Shoes is not an Indian/Asian company. It is a large, family owned shoe company based in Bermuda but currently headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland.

2. Adidas and Reebok are not competitors. They merged way back in 2006 when Adidas acquired Reebok for about $12 bn.

Diplomacy gone wrong?

"We have taken up the matter with Indian minister for sports.", said Pakistan sports minister. The IPL snub to Pakistani players has turned into a huge diplomatic issue. Depending on who you ask, most Pakistani elite are calling for cutting off sporting ties with India. Most people in India don't care much about the issue but for omnipresent Indian media and elite sportsmen! They feel Pakistanis deserved better. Clearly, BCCI and IPL completely failed at assessing the impact of the snub they gave to Pakistani players.

Now let us put this in context. IPL is a private league run by a private organization, BCCI. Third edition of IPL is expected to generate revenue of 800 Crores. People who own IPL teams are sophisticated businessmen and businesswomen. They prefer making decisions that make business sense. This one, to ignore members of world T20 champion team Pakistan for their teams, makes perfect sense. After all, relations between India and Pakistan haven't been the healthiest in past one and half year. Any new terror strikes against India can create even more tension between these two south Asian nuclear armed nations. Who would guarantee Visas to Pakistani players to play in the IPL if all hell were to break loose? Which businessmen would invest their money for such players whose availability is not even                 guaranteed? Not Vijay Mallya and Mukesh Ambani, for sure.                                                   

Where it gets interesting though, is the fact that, none of the franchises bid for any of the Pakistani player at all. And it all started looking suspicious. People assumed that franchises might have, by covert consensus, decided not to bid for any Pakistani player. Media picked up the issue and it became one of gigantic proportions.

I also have my version of speculation. Franchises asked IPL to advise them on bidding for Pakistani players regarding logistical issues they foresaw. IPL warned them against bidding for these players for Visa and security issues. Franchises decided to tow IPL line.

Doesn't sound too fishy to me. But they failed to present it well. As many "elite" later suggested, IPL could easily have disqualified Pakistani players citing above reasons and depict themselves as transparent in this regard. Lalit Modi's effigies would still have been burnt in Lahore, but for a different reason and MEA, Sports Ministry, BCCI and IPL would not have had to issue clarifications.

Cleary, India lost some brownie points on diplomacy!

Let me know your thoughts in comments section.

Sid and 3 Idiots

..all four of them teach us at least one common thing. Listen to your heart while choosing your profession. Siddhartha (Ranbir kapoor) in Wake Up Sid is not happy to take over reigns of a successful business established by his father (Anupam Kher) and Farhan (Madhvan) in 3 Idiots wants to be a wildlife photographer but he is studying engineering! They try the profession advocated by their parents and find themselves in miserable state. They don't enjoy it at all. Sid runs away from Dad's office in a week and Farhan consistently ranks last in his class.  Ultimately they listen to their hearts and lead a happy life (Bollywood, remember! But that's not the point.).

So choose early and choose wisely. After all, It's YOUR life.

Welcome 2010

The year in which terrorism was eradicated from India.

The year in which India saw tremendous prosperity across all sections of society.

The year in which corruption was brought to abyss.

The year in which Indian infrastructure development scaled new heights.

The year which defined the direction in which my career took off.

The year that took all of us towards light from darkness!

This is how I would want to remember The New Year. Welcome 2010!

Mahabharat

Indian epic 'Mahabharat' is too complete to be real. It has action, romance, thrill, violence and complete guidance on human behavior!