Question:Provide responses of at least 100 words each that extend or provide alternate views for other entries in this discussion.
Discussion 1:
Hierarchy of needs put a lot into perspective for me, and I truly believe could be a life long lesson. Abraham Maslow's work really came to life when I read "Individuals are motivated to satisfy a number of needs that money can directly or indirectly satisfy only some of these needs". When I read that, I pull away "Money is not everything". The hierarchy of needs lead through several levels of the pyramid, Physiological- basic necessities, Safety-protection against danger both physically and mentally, Social-emotional needs for belonging, Esteem or Ego-shared esteem within the workplace, and the final stage is Self-Actualization-which is a reaching ones full potential in applying their abilities. What strikes me as the most interesting portion of this pyramid is clearly the top. One can simply continue to raise the bar on self actualization to continue to have goals that need to be achieved. The hierarchy of needs itself is very interesting because they stress that a job is not solely based on monetary value. This gives more meaning to the job than just a pay check.
The perfect counter part to the hierarchy of needs is the scientific management approach. The scientific management approach insist that an individual can solely be motivated by money. The substance of the job does not matter when using the scientific management approach. Just having a specific goal set to be reached and once the goal is reached the individual will receive a premium for all work done after the goal has been surpassed. These two theories vary widely because the path they travel, one is directly based on money, the other has many factors that can outweigh the value of money. The end result is all the same though. The focus on setting a goal and at the very least managing to strive for that goal is realized in both forms.
I believe that both of these are true to some very extent. I actually had never heard of the hierarchy of needs prior to this chapter but plan to use it in future work and potentially in my career.
Discussion 2:
The reinforcement approach of motivation is concerned with the fact that when people do things that results in something positive they are more likely to do it again, but when people do something that has a negative result they most likely will not do it again. With the equity approach people simple want to be treated the same as someone that is doing the same job at the same level of performance. The reinforcement approach involve the use of negative, positive, or null consequences to inspire desired behavior or minimize undesired behavior. This is done by rewarding, punishing, allowing people to not have negative consequences or denying positive consequences. An example would be if a person have a negative attitude that is not conducive to the work environment, that person may not be assigned many work shifts. On the other end of the pendulum, if a person is a top performer that person may be identified as the employer of the month. With the equity approach to motivation the focus is more on professional attributes that the employer has that are beneficial to the company. They include stuff like education, being bilingual, and job related skills. In return for their attributes the company may pay them a certain amount of money, Therefor the equity approach is the employee feeling that what they are getting from the company is fair based on what they provide to the company and is not focused on every employee receiving the same amount of pay. They are both very effective methods that depending on the type of organization can be used simultaneously.