

95% of Managers Follow an Outdated Theory of Motivation - smalter
http://blog.idonethis.com/management-maslows-hierarchy-needs/

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kazinator
I don't see how the article and the described experiment refutes Maslow's
hierarchy. In fact, it validates it! The workers were motivated more by the
important things at the peak of the pyramid.

I think workers would be motivated by threats to the bottom layers only if
those threats were credible. For instance, a threat related to job security is
only real if the worker believes that he cannot easily get a similar job
elsewhere. Someone who is being actively head-hunted will hardly fall for
that.

Yes, base needs will motivate people to work. For instance, if you're in the
woods somewhere, and you sense that bad weather is coming, you will scramble
to build your tent, whereas if the weather is great, you might take your time.

People are obviously motivated by money, too: for instance, they line up for
hours to take advantage door crasher deals on Boxing Day. They have to believe
that there is an opportunity to get something that will only come once.

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jsun
This is wrong. The reason pay and job security are no longer powerful
motivators is because of the way society evolved in the past few decades. It
used to be common to work for the same company your entire life, forced
separation from that social structure causes a lot more pain back then than
now.

In addition, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a generalized framework, it's not
a guide on how to day to day manage your employees. Saying it's "outdated"
because its previous misinterpretations no longer apply to today's world is
irresponsible.

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incision
_> 'The most important motivator for employees at work is what Amabile and
Kramer call “the power of small wins“: employees are highly productive and
driven to do their best work when they feel as if they’re making progress
every day toward a meaningful goal.'_

I thought Dan Ariely's TED talk _What makes us feel good about our work?_ [1]
did a great job of demonstrating this idea.

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aH2Ppjpcho](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aH2Ppjpcho)

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edoceo
Reid Hoffman is writing about peoples/teams basic needs:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/management-advice-from-
linked...](http://www.businessinsider.com/management-advice-from-linkedin-
founder-reid-hoffman-2014-7)

I think this was also posted on HN in the last few days.

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michaelochurch
Among that 95%, some are actually malevolent and _do_ understand that
punishment doesn't motivate in the long term.

There are neutral-intended but incompetent managers who think "pressure makes
diamonds", but there are also the political adepts who take out talented
subordinates to pre-empt future competition, and the sadists who know that
they're crippling the people under them, but because they "manage up" well,
they can get away with anything.

The sadists (rare) and malignant politically-minded players (less rare) use
"pressure makes diamonds" as a rationalization, and a much larger set of
clueless people (without bad intentions) copy it. And that's how you end up
with Theory X management.

Also, I don't think this contradicts the Maslovian theory. If you start fires
on someone's lower need levels (security, physical health) then those trump
their higher need levels (creativity, esteem). The thing is that, even though
the baser needs are more "foundational", that doesn't mean they drive people
to do better work. Creativity drops, and fatigue sets in, and you get really
awful work because pain and fear rarely motivate; they paralyze.

