What Is Motivation?
The word "motivation" is often used to describe certain sorts of behaviour. A student who studies hard and tries for top grades may be described as being "highly motivated", while her friend may say that he is "finding it hard to get motivated" to study for an exam or to start an assignment. Such statements imply that motivation has a major influence on our behaviour but they don't really tell us how.
A Definition of Motivation
Motivation can be defined as a concept used to describe the factors within an individual which arouse, maintain and channel behaviour towards a goal.
Another way to say this is that motivation is goal-directed behaviour.
While it is easy to see the things that a person does, it is much harder to guess at why they are doing it. As an example let us look at our hard-working student. It may be that that student is working hard because she wants to get high marks, but it might also be that she really enjoys learning that subject. She may be striving for high marks because she wants to impress her friends or because she wants a good job, so that the marks themselves are really a step toward another goal. It is dangerous to assume that you know what is motivating someone because you really can't "read their mind".
Since it is part of a manager's job to get their work done through others, managers need to understand why people do things (that is, what motivates them?) so that s/he can convince their employees to work towards the goals of the organisation.
A good first step towards understanding what motivates people is to ask "What do people want from their jobs?" We might answer, "money" or "power" but really it is very difficult to judge because depending on our own individual values and beliefs, we are not all motivated by the same things to the same degree. Managers need to be aware that the things that motivate them may not necessarily motivate their employees. Consider the following discussion...
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