Human Motivation and Behavior Change

Human Motivation and Behavior Change

Introduction

Organizational behavior is the study and application of knowledge about how people act in organizations. Its goal is to make managers more effective in the description, understanding, prediction and control of human behavior. The organizational behavior emerged as a field interdisciplinary valuable for administrators. It builds on ideas and conceptual models of many of the behavioral sciences. The fundamental concepts of organizational behavior have to do with the nature of people and the nature of the organizations. Administrative actions should be directed to meeting the goals of employees, organization and society. The Effective management is easier to achieve if understood and approaches used by human resources and system contingencies.

Discussion

Human Nature and Behavior

Any manager, who uses Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory, plans to initially meet the lower needs of the employee. The purpose is to motivate and satisfy the worker. Furthermore, once the lower needs are fulfilled, then it becomes essential to address the higher needs. However, as a manager progresses to higher needs, he expects more productivity and efficiency from the worker (Allinson, 1996).

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a significant model to assume the human nature or behavior at work. It is significant because, it provides ideas that how a worker will behave if his needs are fulfilled or not. Furthermore, a manager can make use of concepts from Maslow's and McGregor's theory, to identify attitudes, personality and behavior of the worker.

Application of Maslow's Concepts

Moving on to Maslow's theory, it is assumed that when an individual has the knowledge and skills to perform his or her job, a manager can influence their motivation to achieve levels of excellence. Hence, a manager can apply Maslow's theory to motivate his employees.

Maslow's five needs are arranged in a hierarchy of importance that can be described as prepotency. The higher-level needs are not important and will not manifest till lower-needs are met and satisfied. This hierarchy can also be divided into two orders of needs. The lower-order needs are physiological, safety and social concerns, and the higher-order needs are esteem and self-actualization concerns (Beyler, 1992).

Physiological needs include food, water, air and shelter. A manager gives jobs to employees so that they can earn money and provide shelter and food for themselves. That would satisfy their physiological needs. Next, security and safety needs mean feeling secure and un-threatened. For instance, a female cashier in a store may feel threatened when her supervisor yells at her. Hence, the manager of the store should tell the supervisor to be more polite and courteous to the employees. A manager should also install security alarm systems to help the employees and customers feel safer. Lastly, social needs are the needs to feel love and belonging. A manager arranges staff meeting to introduce himself to the employees and vice-versa. This helps the staff to feel like they belong to the organization and feel at ease with each other. It also strengthens their working relationship and creates a more harmonious work ...