360 Feedback Blog

A recent article in Harvard Business Review (July-August 2000/Nohria, Groysberg and Lee) on Employee Motivation identifies 4 basic emotional drives that motivate human beings. 

Here’s a summary of that article:

The key drives that motivate people are:

The drive to acquire: this includes status and reputation, as well as pay and benefits
The drive to bond: i.e. people derive satisfaction and motivation from forming relationships with other
The drive to comprehend, that is, to make sense of what’s happening around them and to learn
The drive to defend; this is about protecting ourselves and people or things we value against external threat

The authors’ research shows that that organisations which were able to meet one of the four drives showed an increase in employee motivation of 5%, but those that enhanced performance on all four drives effectively showed an increase of 21% in motivation (and by implication, engagement and therefore performance).

So what kinds of specific actions can organisations take to help employees fulfil those key emotional needs? Here are some examples from the article:

Acquire = rewards = clear differentiation between good, average and poor performance 
Bond = culture = building a culture that really promotes teamwork and openness
Comprehend = job design = designing job roles that are clear and meaningful
Defend = performance management and work allocation practices = making processes more transparent so people feel they are being treated fairly

How can we do more with our current skillsets and tools to increase motivation as described in this model?

Do you have any ideas to share about how we could increase motivation using this model?

How do you think this model will be affected by the current climate of uncertainty and change in the workplace?  

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