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Hertzberg – One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?


There are two ways to make jobs more interesting – Horizontal and Vertical Loading.

Horizontal Loading – Adding territory, reports, et al – “Job Loading” – “enlarges the meaninglessness of a job”, “reduces the personal contribution of employees”.

Vertical Loading – Increasing employees’ autonomy, accountability, variety/challenge, support staff, opportunities to become experts – “Job Enrichment” – control over a complete natural unit of work

Two presuppositions:

1) Hygiene items, when absent, are de-motivating, but their presence is not motivating;
2) Affinity for the job is a motivator

How to make people like the job?

Steps for Enrichment:

1) Select jobs in which change is low-cost, attitudes are poor, hygiene is costly, motivation will make a difference;
2) Approach with the conviction that the job can be changed;
3) Brainstorm
4) Screen the list for hygiene items
5) Screen for generalities
6) Screen for horizontal loading
7) Avoid employee participation
8) Experiment with a control group of employees
9) Prepare for a drop in productivity
10) Expect anxiety from first-line supervisors.



Race


American slavery was distinctive because of its economic dimension, and because one race of people had enslaved a different race. Political rights were granted after the emancipation proclamation, but there was rollback in the South; American blacks had to fight for rights they were entitled to by the Constitution. They also fought for economic rights, or full participation in the American economy, e.g. participation in Labor Unions.
What other struggle do American blacks face? A cultural recognition, or valuing “things African-American”, is a struggle against negative stereotypes. Racial markers are more obdurate; it takes longer for an African American to be regarded as an individual rather than as a member of his or her ethnic group.

Almost all Americans have to negotiate race; one place race is negotiated is at work. How do we do it? Networking, mentoring in the workplace is limited because of its social component, and blacks and women are often not included. Why are whites not fluent in the Asian network, though Asians are fluent in the white network? Why are blacks excluded from both?

Discussion on How Race is Lived in America

Shared Prayers, Mixed Blessings – Georgia Pentecostal Church

Best of Friends, Worlds Apart – Ruiz and Valdez, Two Cuban immigrants

Which Man’s Army – Accusations of Racism in the same Army Company

For Next Week, read the first five chapters of Talking From 9-5.

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For next week, read chapters 1-5, 9 and 13 of How Race is Lived in America. The book is a compilation of articles the New York called for on the subject of race.

Ellis Cose – Ten years ago, Cose identified subtle forms of racism at the workplace, success was superficial, high-level jobs not often given high-level responsibility. In 2002, he wrote a Newsweek article that suggested things have changed, read for next week.

For next week, identify the tensions in each article, and prepare to discuss or lead a discussion on each.

Managers and Leaders – Zaleznik

Kotter would say that management and leadership are different functions, and leadership can be learned; Zaleznik thinks that leaders and managers are different kinds of people. Zaleznik does not create a hierarchical relationship by making managers less than leaders, but distinguishes between them w/ 4 categories:

1) Their attitude about themselves
2) How they relate to others
3) How they view work
4) What are their goals

Zaleznik uses William James comparison between once and twice born. Once-born means that there is continuity between early development and current situation, he or she is in harmony with past, not in conflict with environment, is socialized; “The line of development from family to schools, then to career is cumulative and reinforcing”. Twice-borns are ill-at ease with surroundings, seem listless or directionless, sometimes bored or angry; they undergo a crisis, or rebirth, that results in a new sense of self. They are thus transformed, become determined and clear in their purpose. Twice-borns are often indifferent students, and develop as leaders later with one-on-one relationships with mentors. A clear example of such a transformation would be acknowledgment of homosexuality; after their sexuality is acknowledged, the person’s behavior changes, usually in favor of healthier behavior.

Steve Jobs refused to license its OS, which many considered a mistake; Jobs wanted to maintain the integrity of his products (He is doing the same with ipod, refusing a relationship with Real Player). Jobs was replaced with Jim Scully from Pepsico, the Gil Amelio, et al. Apple crashed and burned because under other leadership because there is too much theoretical/conceptual underpinnings to the work, not enough procedure. Jobs is brought back to run the company again. Jobs buought Pixar from George Lucas, and succeeds in non-linear fashion prior to coming back to Apple; now does both. Jobs also created ipod and itunes when other big-name computer companies avoided the online music business.
Managers relate to work like Alfred Sloan did; the dominant water-cooled car engine was what others in GM supported, but Kettering wanted Sloan to fund work on an air-cooled engine. Sloan manipulates circumstances to make everyone appear to get what they wanted; the air-cooled engine died on the vine.

Managers:

1) Try to go from win-lose to win-win situations, attention to procedure rather than substance;
2) Communicates with subordinates indirectly;
3) Plays for time.


Managers try to avoid risk, and act conservatively, whereas leaders do not. “Leaders may work in organizations, but never belong to them.” Manager is the most representative character in modern life, the most distinctive figure of modernity. According to Kotter, managers manage complexity, which is growing in business. (George Washington was a good manager, but Jefferson, a visionary and inventor, was often bankrupt.) Technologies used to handle complexity create more complexity, and leads to the depreciation of leaders because skill, rather than leadership, is necessary to manage technology. What happens when change is introduced to managers? They are stumped when their routines are interrupted; therefore, a different skill than the ability to manage complexity is required, leadership. Psychologist Eric Ericson wrote books on Gandhi and Martin Luther; Gandhi had a deep crises before becoming a great soul, and Luther was conflicted before creating the schism.

Kotter – Power, Dependence, and Effective Management

Managers are dependent on others; they cannot accomplish their work without the cooperation of others. How does a manager get cooperation? Exercise power. But in America, the idea of exercising power is an uncomfortable one, Americans want to camouflage the exercise of power. Why? A democratic sensibility? Other cause? The idea of parity is what makes he exercise of power unpalatable; we are moving toward an increasingly persuasive means by which we exercise power in America.

The military command structure is sacrosanct; the chain of command is clear, and based on rank. Persuasion is the opposite of military order, the other “pole”; the person of whom a request is made is free to make another choice, not obliged to comply. Persuasion takes time, but can be used to get more out of employees than prescribed by formal rules; the use of formal power gives a manager a range of options to make things happen with speed, but its scope is narrow, applicable in limited circumstances. (e.g. Dilip can ask Brenda Williams to make copies of an article, but not pick him up if his car is broken)

Establishing Power in Relationships – Face to Face Methods

1) Persuasion, by means of doing favors or “making friends”, helps create a sense of obligation, enables exchange of favors;
2) Identification with a manager can help persuade an employee to do more, e.g. Dilip can ask things of students with whom he shares ethic background that he couldn’t ask others;
3) Belief in a manger’s expertise gives manager leverage with people who may need them to grant them a favor later;
4) Perceived Dependence on a Manger indicates that one can be persuaded by a manager in exchange for promises of help, or to avoid being hurt by the manager (Tim Babcock story of flash-firings at a division of a manufacturing company);
5) Formal Authority – helps develop the other four types of power.
6) Combine methods

Indirect Methods

1) Manipulate Environments using any or all of the face-to-face methods;
2) Change the forces that continuously act on the individual – formal organizational arrangements, informal social arrangements.


Oncken and Wass – Who’s Got the Monkey?

How does a manager manage keep his or her work time sacred, and take the monkeys of subordinate-imposed time out of self-imposed time, in order to do planning and training, the boss- and system- imposed time?

What kind of report do you want? Choices are:

1) Wait until told:
2) Ask what to do;
3) Recommend, then take resulting action:
4) Act but advise at once:
5) Act on own, then routinely support.

The manager should outlaw the use of 1 and 2, then assign agreed-upon levels of initiative to each problem.



Care and Feeding of Monkeys:

1) Monkeys should be fed or shot
2) The monkey population should e kept below the maximum number the manager has time to feed;
3) Monkeys should be fed by appointment only
4) Monkeys should be fed face-to-face or by telephone, never by mail
5) Every monkey should have an assigned next feeding time and degree of initiative.


Managing Your Boss – Gabarro and Kotter
To “manage a boss”, employees must recognize, understand, and adapt to manager’s style. “Attend and Monitor

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Reaction to the Posner and Kouzes credibility reading:

- Credibility is a relational concept, people have to attribute integrity, competence, and leadership to a person, who must “communicate” their credibility.

- Credibility is displayed during periods of challenge, change, and crisis.

- Can credibility be taught? (Are leaders made, rather than born?) Cultural elements influence development of credibility; varieties of environments, gender differences make a difference, but people can be trained to “read social situations” as well as those who have a natural aptitude for it, have social efficacy as a “natural trait”. (So much of MSC is common sense, but people often fail to use it).



Mintzberg’s Folklore and Fact:

Post-anthroponorial work:

1) Pressure to do many kinds of tasks;
2) Rapidly changing work environment



An empirical study of managers combined with secondary research, 4 myths:

1) Management is systematic planning – their work is actually characterized by brevity and action-orientation, they don’t favor reflection.
2) Managers have no regular duties – they actually do, and they rarely see a plan materialize
3) Senior Managers need aggregated information – decisions are based on anecdotal information
4) Management is a science and a profession, and becoming increasingly scientific – it is an art.

The article emphasizes that management is a communicative skill.


3 Categories of Manager’s Roles:


Interpersonal Roles: Figurehead, leader, liaison.- The laison role is the crucial outward-looking role

Informational Roles: Monitor, Disseminator, Spokesperson - Monitor is connected to liaison role, constant scoping of the horizon/environment

Decisional Roles: Entrepreneur, Disturbance handler, resource allocator, negotiator - Entrepreneur role is a reflection of independent thinking and ownership.




Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s New Managerial Work

Hank – changes make reports feel a loss of power, confusion about status of line managers.

George – change in customer relationship strategy at bank, cross-departmental teams where there was once heirarchy

Sally – analyst, benefits from changes in relationships with external suppliers


1) Greater variety of channels for action and influence;
2) From vertical to horizontal, peer networks;
3) Distinction between manager and managed diminishing, esp. access to external relationships, information, and control over assignments;
4) External relationships are more important as sources of power, influence;
5) Career development has become less intelligible but less circumscribed.


Entrepreneurial opportunity is used to motivate and attract talent. Problem-solving, initiative-taking employees are sought.

Tools to encourage high performance and commitment:

1) Mission – people believe in the importance of their work
2) Agenda Control – control over own work
3) Share of Value Creation – share in returns
4) Learning
5) Reputation

In the absence of monetary motivators, learning and reputation are the best motivators, because they help one develop a career or the regard with which they are held in a company. The new security is “employability security” – value in the internal and external labor markets.

Is the “new work” sustainable?

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Why is credibility important? Trust is a component; it was a factor in the ’04 election, Bush claimed he never wavered from a position, while Kerry was known as a waffler. The president was once the country’s most credible person, but that conception has eroded; it may have begun with the U2 incident and President Eisenhower. Eisenhower claimed a missing U2 spy plane was not used to spy on the Russians, but after a 3-day delay, Khrushchev revealed that pilot Gary Powers was in Soviet custody.

Kouzes and Posner (Credibility) discuss a credibility deficit in American corporations. A feature of a manager is that he or she is a dependence junkie, and his or her success depends on the cooperation of others; every function of every employee depends on others. Reciprocity is a way of inducing cooperation. The command structure of the military makes a lack of cooperation actionable by superiors. Though 9-5 jobs are no longer the rule, a manager’s ability to get an employee to stay until 5:01 or 7:00 is a matter of credibility. Money does matter, but only to a degree, e.g. marginal returns will have to increase a great deal if an employee is highly compensated. Increasingly, a manager can’t increase a financial upside adequately to motivate an employee to stay until 7:00, so credibility is important is more is needed from an employee.

In political campaigns, a politician can build on a record, or rely on a constituency that knows him or her for support. Almost 78% percent of executives have their resumes in circulation; executives who move need the cooperation of others quickly, and start leadership campaigns to get it. In corporations, the temporal dimension is missing; people are not known for long, the temporal element that builds trust is missing. (Strange’s Time/Space compression)

Competence, Trustworthiness, and Goodwill are the components of credibility. As Michiavelli says, competence is not enough; to be known as competent is at least as important. With less time to know a manager, President, or other person, how can appearances be relied upon? Did Kerry really care about a draft, or was it just campaign rhetoric? Does my boss care more about me or Wall Street?

A social instinct at work is inhibited by a lack of time. According to Skinner, people can only do 3 hours of effective work per day; even creative work puts strain on a worker. Stress and a lack of time put a strain on sociability. Goodwill is the element that assures credibility, but it is difficult to attain because time is short.

Credibility is also a cultural concept. Aristotle’s Ethos is really credibility, but the audience in ancient Greece was limited to full-born Athenians, a homogeneous group. The American workplace is heterogeneous; how does a manager get credibility in this environment? Time spent together can help bridge gaps between managers and employees from different backgrounds.
For the 15th, Read essays, comment on one of the essays.