Improspectives

I’ve recently investigated online courses at the MBA level, including taking a managerial accounting course through the University of Illinois. My work and other obligations piled up after I took that course, so I’ve held off taking further for-credit classes until at least January.

To supplement my work through Illinois, I bought a DVD series from The Great Courses entitled Critical Business Skills for Success. The series combines 12-lecture segments on operations, marketing, strategy, organizational behavior, and finance and accounting. The material is presented as an overview of each broad subject, with specific lectures focusing on topics such as the time value of money, rightsizing inventory, and evaluating mergers and acquisitions. There’s very little math and no homework, so the lessons are nowhere near as rigorous as the managerial accounting course, but it’s a great introduction to material I’ll study in depth later.

I’m watching the organizational behavior section now, presented by Clinton O. Longenecker of the University of Toledo. In his lecture “The Motivation-Performance Connection”, he offers some surprising results from a survey of corporate managers. His research found:

• 85% of managers believe an employee’s motivation has a significant impact on performance
• 79% believe that motivating employees is one of the most important leadership functions
• 94% believe workforce motivation is important for overall operational success
• 82% believe management behavior has a significant impact on employee motivation
• 68% believe it is getting tougher to motivate employees

The numbers seem reasonable enough, so where’s the surprise? The surprise is that the first four items aren’t 100% (OK, 98% to account for the 2% lunatic fringe). It’s especially troubling to see the 9% gap between responses indicating belief that motivation impacts individual performance and that overall motivation is necessary for operational success.

I suspect there is a connection between those results and the final figure, that 68% of managers believe it is getting tougher to motivate employees. The economic downturn in 2008 led to significant layoffs and delayed retirements, which artificially flooded the job market with experienced workers who where either seeking employment or couldn’t afford to retire. Now that employment levels have returned to pre-2008 levels and the stock market has restored portfolio values, the labor market has started to tighten considerably, especially for highly skilled workers. When you add easy online communication about employment practices, increased expectations for good treatment, and labor mobility you have an environment where the privilege of coming to work tomorrow morning is no longer sufficient motivation for your employees.