Motivating a Theory Y practitioner!

The chapter ‘Motivation’, during my undergrad, was one of the most interesting chapters to me. During the span of eight semesters, I repeatedly studied motivation in eight subjects (management, psychology, OB, sales force management etc.) After being confident in the theories like Maslow’s need theory, Hertzberg’s theory, Equity theory, and all, I thought I had mastered in this topic. But, when it came to apply in my workplace I then understood the thing ‘motivation’ is more an art than science.

As a theory ‘Y’ believer and a practitioner, I was self-motivated to the work and I was always ready to take on more responsibilities, work more hours, and take everything as an opportunity to learn. I thought this would continue till the rest but, at one point of time, things started changing. Now, at this date (when I am writing this blog), I am not so excited about my work. Nowadays, I seldom check my emails before reaching my office compared to early morning coffee-time reply and I have strictly changed my office time from late night works to general time of 10-5. I am not so interested to take on more responsibilities. The view of “Through increased responsibilities, I am learning more and more” is now changed into “I am making all the hard efforts to make my boss earn more and more”. When I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that this is because of the lack of motivation. And, now I think, practitioners of theory Y also need continuous motivation. 

“What sorts of needs are unfulfilled to get demotivated?” I questioned myself. I had a good paycheck, a decision making authority, a respect from the subordinates, recognition from the clients and a very good appraisal.  There is no point on getting demotivated. And then after weeks of incubation, I identified that my workplace had missed an important component “flow of positive energy/synergy”. One of our team members wasn’t supportive/receptive, was too defensive and didn’t appreciate our feedbacks/inputs. Although we tried a lot, we couldn’t change the person and, to my surprise, our days passed on unwanted arguments to the level which at some point of time disrupted the balance in our team. Despite having other needs fulfilled, this eroded the motivation in our team. That’s not an unfulfilled need but one of the most important things for a group where they work as a team.

This made me understand more that motivation is not only about unfulfilled needs, desire, hygiene, satisfaction but also about the passion of the team, the synergy they create, and the positive energy they pass on. Unlike traditional school of thoughts, it is not only your supervisor or your subordinate responsible to motivate you, but you are responsible to pass on the energy, confidence, and motivate your team. Motivation is not about top-down, bottom-up or across-the-line, in fact it has no approach. One single person is not responsible to motivate you; rather you are responsible to motivate every single person in your team.