The Spirit of the Squirrel In observing the industriousness of squirrels in a spruce forest, Bowles and Blanchard teach lessons about the nature of work and the motivational factors related to that. For employees to become motivated to work, it must be worthwhile. (Bowles, 1998 p29) For the squirrels, survival depends upon cacheing sufficient food for the winter. Greenberg presents an entire chapter on what motivates people to work. (Greenberg, 2010 pp 160 - 190) In it Greenberg presents several theories of motivation including need hierarchy theory, equity theory and expectancy theory. Whereas Bowles and Blanchard present their program as indifferent to the objective content of the job, Greenberg goes out of his way to identify job characteristics (as distinct from managerial interventions) that affect employee satisfaction. He presents a job characteristics model (Greenberg, 2010 p186) that parallels several points in Gung Ho! This is not to say that Greenberg ignores management’s ability to influence the motivating potential of jobs. He discusses several interventions that can lead to more satisfying jobs. First, he suggests that employees be assigned a whole job, rather than using several workers to perform separate parts of the job. This provides greater skill variety and task identity, which serves to improve job satisfaction. Second, Greenberg suggests that jobs be arranged such that the person performing the service is in direct contact with the recipient of the service. This serves to build an accountability connection with customers. And, finally Greenberg suggests that jobs be arranged to provide as much feedback as possible. When people know how they are doing, they are better equipped to take corrective actions wh... ... middle of paper ... ...elves and others. Companies generate vitality by giving people the sense that what they do on a daily basis makes a difference.” (Spreitzer & Porath, 2012) Conclusions Greenberg and Bowles and Blanchard are congruent texts that address many of the same issues in different ways. Both are valuable for their intended audiences. As a popular business title, Gung Ho! has a remarkable staying power in the market place. The fact that it is the basis for a popular consultancy probably helps. Many companies attest to the methodology presented as being helpful. Managing Behavior in Organizations has an even longer tenure on the market. However, as a textbook it is much less visible to the public eye. Both texts present valuable information for the manager. One would expect that they can each continue to be successful in their spheres of influence into the foreseeable future.
Squirrel hunting has long been an American tradition and a tradition that many hunters grew up with. Squirrel hunting has just the right amount of action to keep a young hunter interested and more often than not that young hunter will choose to pursue other game eventually. Squirrels are getting a break from hunters as more and more people are hunting deer and turkey or unfortunately not at all. I remember when opening day of squirrel season was almost like Christmas. I couldn't wait to walk the hardwood ridges and fencerows to hunt a few squirrels and it was as exciting to me then as any deer hunt could be. I have to admit that I do a lot more deer hunting these days but once I tag out or the deer season ends I like to grab my grandfathers old Stevens .22 rifle and hit the woods for a day of relaxation and an old school squirrel hunt.
One of the three main principles of the book Gung Ho is the principal of “The Spirit of the Squirrel”. Two words that are very important in a business are “worthwhile work”. People will work harder at something that they think is worthwhile. The last two summers that I was in High School I was a manager in a Bar and Grille at a local golf course. I enjoyed my job and worked closely with my employees to help the Bar and Grille is successful. I attribute this very method of Gung Ho. We all worked very hard at what we did because we had a worthwhile goal. The Grille had gone through some very rough spots and had changed owners many times in the pa...
Greenberg, J. (2011). Behavior in organizations (10th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ.: Prentice Hall Publishers.
Some of the things that companies could do to improve job satisfaction for example, would be to identify when an employee is bored on the job, address it, obtain feedback from the employee for ideas to make their job more interesting and challenging. This would allow a leader to assist this individual in designing different ways to perform duties or depending on individual’s future career goals and performance level, may need more responsibility or promotion in order for the employee to maintain job satisfaction and retention with t...
Mullins, L. J. (2005). Management and organizational behavior (7th ed.). Harlow, England: Prentice Hall/Financial Times.
Latham G.P and Pinder C.C. (2005). Work Motivation Theory and Research at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century. Annual Review of Psychology 56.
Organizations everywhere use different methods to push members of their organization to complete various tasks on a daily basis. Whether these approaches are successful or not successful, displays how effective the organization’s motivating factors really are. Motivation is an essential element that must be incorporated into every organization to ensure that goals are accomplished and so that members of the organization always stick to their mission. James Porter and Lyman Porter define motivation as “the degree and type of effort that an individual exhibits in a behavioral situation…and has to do with the direction and quality of that effort” (Perry, 2005). People often wonder what factors cause an individual to perform their job in a certain
Ivancevich, J., Konopaske, R. & Matteson, M. (2011). Organizational Behavior and Management. NewYork, NY: McGraw Hill.
When it is discovered that a worker can fulfill the requirements of their job, but are experiencing shortcomings in doing so, many times it is believed that worker motivation may be the root of the problem (Laird 95). What, though, is work motivation? According to Laird (2006), “motivation is a fundamental component of performance “ and “is the reason that someone chooses to do some things and chooses not to do others”. In other words, work motivation is what energizes workers to the level of output required to fulfill a task, directs their energy towards the objectives that they need to accomplish, and sustains that level of effort over a period of time (Steers et al., 2004). In essence, worker motivation is what gets the job done.
Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles outline powerful morale busters in the book Gung Ho which identifies a gung ho game plan where the spirit of the squirrel is celebrated to identify worthwhile work, while the way of the beaver is celebrated as being in control of achieving goals and the gift of the goose is celebrated as cheering one another on. After each animalistic step within the gung ho process there is a time allocated for reassessing, redirecting efforts and cheering on the organizational progress toward reaching vital goals (Blanchard & Bowles, 1998). Using animals as graphic representations to establish human endeavors in business is one way to encourage the heart and motivate employees but there are several others. The best ideas on how to motivate and encourage the heart of your employees should come f...
DONKIN, R (2001) Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Evolution of Work London: Texere. (Ch. 11 – Western Electric Discovers Motivation).
J. Richard Hackman, Edward E. Lawler III and Lyman W. Porter Perspectives on Behaviour in Organisations, McGraw Hill 1983
Motivation can be one of the greatest and most important aspects inside a workplace, as it enables employees to find their incentive to work harder and achieve different types of goals. Motivation can be identified and accomplished by elaborating a job design that helps keep employees happy considering the different environmental factors of the integrative framework when applying organizational behavior. A formal definition states that job design “refers to any set of activities that involve the alteration of specific jobs or interdependent systems of jobs with the intent of improving the quality of employee job experience and their on-the-job productivity” (Kinicki 168). Job designs help structure jobs and the different tasks needed to accomplish
Kovach KA (1987). What motivates employees? Workers and supervisors give different answers. Business Horizons, 30. 58-65. Print. 8 Feb. 2014.
Motivation is an important function in organizations to motivate their employees for their ability to perform well, improving their skills, increasing productivity, job satisfaction and employee extension. Employees also are not a machines that we could just program their task in their brain and they will do it automatically, they require motivation to actually do their job properly. And so, after discussing the process models of the Maslow’s “Hierarchy of needs”, Douglas McGregor theory X and Y, and also the Herzberg’s “two factor motivation hygiene theory.” understanding the ways of motivating people, the human nature, and the substance of nature. I believe that the true motivation can only come from within and also managers can actually motivate all of their employees.