Values, Learning and Motivation

Two probationary officers join the same public-sector bank branch on the same day, after the same training. At the first quarter-end, one treats the deposit target as a game to win; the other is anxious for weeks. Same job, same rules, different behaviour.

Understanding it helps a manager explain people's reactions, and improve how the organisation works. Kurt Lewin put the idea as a formula in 1936:

Neither part works alone. The same person behaves differently in a different setting, and the same setting draws different behaviour from different people. The factors fall into three groups.

Back to the bank branch. The two officers are of the same age and in good health, so biology explains little here. Psychology explains more: the first officer is optimistic and sees the target as a challenge. The environment adds the rest: perhaps she grew up in a family business where targets were dinner-table talk. Both work under the same branch manager, whose style also shapes them.

Don't confuse behaviour with personality. Personality is the stable pattern of traits a person carries; it is one psychological factor. Behaviour is what the person actually does in a given situation, and it depends on the setting too.

Where it breaks. The three groups act together, so their effects can rarely be separated. Factors that are easy to see, such as age and gender, tempt managers to stereotype; reviews of the research find few consistent differences between men and women in job performance. Culture labels such as "collectivist" describe averages across a country, not any one person.

In practice. A manager cannot change a person's heredity or upbringing, but can change the environment: the job, the team, the targets and the rewards. So the useful question is which part of the situation to change.

For exams. Know the three groups of factors with their examples, and Lewin's B = f(P, E). Individualism and collectivism come from Hofstede's work, covered in Workforce Diversity and Cross-Cultural Behaviour.

A borrower whose loan file is pending brings the branch's loan officer an expensive Diwali gift. Politeness says accept it; honesty says refuse it. Which way she goes depends on her values.

Values guide actions and decisions: what a person considers right, desirable or important. They:

• are stable and enduring, often formed early through family and culture;
• act as standards for judging actions and people;
• influence ethical behaviour and responsibility;
• shape priorities in life and work.

Rokeach's definition has two halves, and they give his two types of value. An end-state of existence is a terminal value; a mode of conduct is an instrumental value. His Rokeach Value Survey lists 18 of each and asks people to rank them.

Back to the loan officer. Two of her instrumental values, honesty and politeness, pull in opposite directions. The ranking settles it. If honesty ranks above politeness, she refuses the gift, politely.

Don't confuse values with attitudes. A value is broad and stable: "honesty matters". An attitude is an evaluation of one particular thing: "I dislike the new gift policy". Attitudes change more easily. Nor terminal with instrumental: ask whether it is a state you want to reach (terminal) or a way you behave (instrumental).

Where it breaks. Stated values do not always predict behaviour. Pressure, incentives and the situation act too, so a person who ranks honesty first on a survey may still bend under a tough target. Values are stable, not fixed: they shift slowly across a life, and rankings differ between cultures and generations.

In practice. Organisations turn instrumental values into rules, such as a gift policy with a clear limit, so that no one has to weigh honesty against politeness at the counter. Values printed on a wall poster change little unless people are rewarded for living them.

For exams. Terminal values are ends, instrumental values are means, and the Rokeach Value Survey has 18 of each. Another classic scheme, by Allport, Vernon and Lindzey, sorts values into six types: theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political and religious.

Terminal values are ends; instrumental values are means.

A new machine operator at a Pune auto-parts plant is safe and fast within three months. Part of that came from training, part from watching the senior on the next machine, and part from the supervisor's praise. Learning theories separate these routes.

"Relatively permanent" rules out changes that pass, such as tiredness or illness. Learning comes from experience, observation or practice, and it builds adaptability and competence. It can be active or passive, intentional or unintentional; it is lifelong; and it changes thoughts, attitudes and skills. Four theories explain how it happens.

Classical conditioning. Food makes a dog salivate without any learning. Ivan Pavlov sounded a bell just before feeding, many times. In the end the bell alone made the dogs salivate. The response is involuntary: the person, or the dog, does not choose it.

Operant conditioning. B. F. Skinner showed that behaviour followed by a pleasant result tends to be repeated, and behaviour followed by nothing, or by an unpleasant result, tends to fade. A manager has four ways to use this.

Social learning. Albert Bandura showed that people also learn by watching others and seeing what happens to them. It works through four processes: attention to the model, retention of what was seen, reproduction of the behaviour, and reinforcement that makes it worth repeating.

Don't confuse negative reinforcement with punishment. Both involve something unpleasant. Negative reinforcement removes it, to make a behaviour more likely. Punishment adds it, to make a behaviour less likely. Nor classical with operant conditioning: classical works on involuntary reactions to what comes before; operant works on chosen behaviour, through what comes after.

Where it breaks. Conditioning theories grew from animal experiments and say little about thinking; cognitive and social learning fill that gap. Punishment tells people what not to do, but not what to do, and it can breed fear and resentment.

In practice. Reward the behaviour you want soon after it happens. Give each new joiner a good model to watch, such as a buddy. Build practice and feedback into training, not only lectures.

Pavlov associates, Skinner reinforces, Piaget thinks, Bandura watches.

A two-wheeler showroom pays all its sales executives under the same bonus scheme. Three months later, one sells twice as many bikes as the others. Same scheme, different effort: motivation theory asks what moves people, and how.

It is an internal or external push. It energises behaviour (intensity), guides it (direction) and sustains it (persistence). The theories fall into two families. Content theories ask what motivates: Maslow, Herzberg and McClelland. Process theories ask how motivation works: Vroom.

Maslow (1943). Physiological and safety needs are lower-order needs; social, esteem and self-actualisation needs are higher-order. A new executive worried about rent responds to a steady salary; one secure in her job responds more to recognition and growth.

Herzberg. Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not two ends of one scale. The opposite of satisfaction is no satisfaction; the opposite of dissatisfaction is no dissatisfaction.

McClelland. The three needs are learned, and one usually dominates. A person high in the need for achievement likes moderate risks, personal responsibility and quick feedback, so give that person a target and a scoreboard.

Vroom (1964). A person weighs three links before putting in effort.

Worked example. The showroom offers ₹20,000 to anyone who sells 30 bikes in a month. One executive judges her chance of reaching 30 with extra effort at 0.8 (E). The showroom has paid such bonuses reliably, so she puts I at 0.9. She would rather have time off than money, so V = 0.5. Each is scored from 0 to 1, as an illustration.

• Motivation = 0.8 × 0.9 × 0.5 = 0.72 × 0.5 = 0.36.
• If the showroom had never paid a promised bonus, she would put I at 0. Then motivation = 0.8 × 0 × 0.5 = 0, however reachable the target.

Because the links multiply, one weak link pulls the whole result down.

Don't confuse content theories with process theories. Content theories list what motivates; process theories explain how the decision to make an effort is made. Nor hygiene factors with unimportant ones: they do not motivate, but get them wrong and people become dissatisfied.

Where it breaks. Research gives little support to Maslow's strict order; people pursue several needs at once. Herzberg drew his factors from interviews about good and bad times at work. People tend to credit themselves for good times and blame their surroundings for bad ones, which may have produced the split. McClelland's needs are measured with projective tests such as the Thematic Apperception Test, which are hard to score consistently. Vroom assumes people calculate; real choices are rougher.

In practice. Diagnose before acting. Is the problem dissatisfaction, which better hygiene factors would remove, or missing motivators? Under Vroom, which link is weak: E, I or V?

For exams. Know Maslow's five levels in order, Herzberg's two lists, McClelland's three needs and Vroom's formula, and which theories are content and which process.

Reinforcement theory. B. F. Skinner's view, applied to work, is that behaviour is a function of its consequences. A person repeats what is followed by a pleasant result, and drops what is not. The idea rests on Thorndike's law of effect. A manager can steer effort by changing rewards and penalties, without asking what happens inside the person's mind. The four tools and the schedules are in the Learning block. This is the main contrast with Vroom's and Locke and Latham's theories, which put thinking, belief and goals at the centre.

The basic motivation cycle. Many textbooks describe motivation as a loop. An unsatisfied need creates tension. The tension drives goal-directed action. When the need is met, the tension eases. Content theories such as Maslow's name the needs. Self-determination, goal-setting and self-efficacy theories are covered in the three blocks that follow this one.

A college fest committee runs on volunteers who stay late for no pay and enjoy it. Then the college starts paying a small amount per hour and checks attendance. Some volunteers begin to treat it as a chore. Self-determination theory explains why.

The theory separates two kinds of motivation by their source. Intrinsic motivation is doing an activity for its own sake: interest, enjoyment, the satisfaction of the work itself. Extrinsic motivation is doing it for a separate result, such as money, a prize, praise or avoiding a penalty. Both are real, and most jobs use both.

The theory adds that extrinsic motivation is a range, not one block. At one end a person acts under pressure: "my manager is watching". At the other end the person sees the value of the task and accepts it as their own: "this audit protects customers". When the three needs are met, outside demands tend to move towards that second end.

Back at the fest. The volunteers chose to help. Hourly pay and attendance checks can make the work feel controlled by others, so a choice starts to feel like an obligation. This is an illustration, not a prediction for every group.

Don't confuse intrinsic and extrinsic motivation with Herzberg's motivators and hygiene factors. Herzberg sorts features of the job, such as pay and recognition. Self-determination theory sorts the reason the person acts. Nor autonomy with working alone: autonomy means a sense of choice and ownership. A person can feel autonomous inside a team and under rules they understand and accept.

Where it breaks. Pay still matters, and many routine tasks are hard to make interesting. A manager cannot give someone intrinsic motivation; the manager can only remove what blocks it.

In practice. Explain why a task matters. Offer choice over how the work is done, and set tasks that stretch without overwhelming. Be careful when adding rewards to work people already enjoy.

For exams. Name the three needs (autonomy, competence, relatedness; some books write "connection") and the authors, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. Be ready to tell intrinsic from extrinsic in a short case.

Autonomy chooses, competence grows, relatedness belongs.

At a Diwali sale, one sales executive is told, "Do your best." Her colleague is told, "Sell 40 sets by Sunday, and send me the count each evening." The second executive usually does better. Goal-setting theory says why.

Goals work in four ways. They direct attention to the task, raise effort, keep people going longer, and push them to look for better methods. Locke and Latham named five principles for making a goal work.

How it fits together. The goal sets the direction. Commitment decides whether the person follows it. Feedback shows whether the effort is working. Confidence in one's own ability, the topic of the next block, also helps people accept hard goals.

Don't confuse goal-setting theory with the SMART checklist. SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound; some books say Relevant) is a way to word a goal; see Strategic Intent in Unit 6. Goal-setting theory is the research on why goals motivate. They partly pull apart: "achievable" warns against impossible goals, while the theory says hard goals beat easy ones, up to the limit of ability.

Where it breaks. A single goal can narrow attention. Staff may chase the number and neglect quality, or cut corners to reach it. On complex, unfamiliar tasks a tough performance target can cause panic. A goal to learn the task first often works better. Goals imposed without explanation may get no commitment at all.

In practice. Write goals with a number and a date, set them a little above current performance, involve the people who must reach them, and give feedback often. Pair a quantity goal with a quality goal.

For exams. List the five principles: clarity, challenge, commitment, feedback and task complexity. Name Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, and be ready to say what is wrong with "do your best".

Clear, challenging, committed, checked, and mindful of complexity.

Two probationary officers have the same training. The regional manager asks each to present the branch's results to the zonal head. One agrees at once. The other finds reasons to be elsewhere. Their skills are equal; their belief in themselves for this task is not.

The link to motivation is direct. If you doubt you can succeed, you are less likely to give the task your full effort. People with high self-efficacy set higher goals, try harder, and recover faster from setbacks. The belief belongs to a task, not to the whole person: a clerk can be sure of herself at balancing accounts and unsure of public speaking.

Bandura named four sources of self-efficacy, which a manager can use.

Past mastery is usually the strongest source, because it is real evidence. Persuasion alone is a weak source; praise from someone who does not know your work carries little weight.

Building it. For the nervous officer, start with a short briefing to the branch team, which gives a first success. Let her watch a colleague of similar experience present. Have her manager give specific, honest encouragement. Teach her to treat nervous energy as readiness.

Don't confuse self-efficacy with self-esteem. Self-esteem is a general sense of one's worth. Self-efficacy is a belief about one task and changes from task to task. It is also closely related to expectancy in Vroom's theory, the belief that effort leads to performance. Self-efficacy goes further by explaining where that belief comes from. Vicarious experience is Bandura's social learning, from the Learning block, put to work on confidence.

Where it breaks. Too much confidence can lead people to take on tasks beyond their skill, or ignore warnings. Empty praise does not build efficacy, and it can backfire when the person fails. Efficacy helps only where the person has some real ability.

In practice. Break a big task into steps that can each be mastered. Pair beginners with a capable buddy who is close to them in experience. Give feedback that points to specific evidence of skill.

For exams. Know the four sources and which is strongest. Some books call the last one "arousal" or "physiological feedback". Bandura is the author.

Do it, watch it, hear it, feel it: four roads to "I can".