Motivation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 2

Motivation - Essay Example KeySpan is the surviving entity of a merger between Brooklyn Union Gas and Long Island Lighting Company. It was Kenny Moore's job to bring together the personnel of the IT departments of the two merging companies. He decided to do it through an "open space" meeting, wherein the 400 IT staff members would come together to voice topics they would want to discuss in subsequent breakout sessions. Initially, the CIO was apprehensive that nobody would suggest any topic, and proposed planting topics with the directors in advance to "make sure some people came forward". Kenny discouraged this and said it was better to risk this chance and show the employees that the management trusted the process. In the end, some 50 topics for breakout session were proposed, and the breakout sessions were enthusiastically and energetically undertaken, making the open space meeting a huge success. Kenny observed that the key to success was the "Ownership for a successful merger from the hallowed halls of serious management into the cubicles of the ordinary work." He attributed the success to the freedom inherent in a business "invitation". A careful reader will note that the word 'motivation' is not used once in this case and yet, the case clearly has a lot to say about motivation and how it is managed in the workplace. Use the previously discussed theories to explain why people were motivated. While the word "motivation" was never used in the case, it was clearly such a case. Management intended for people to perform in a certain manner and act a certain way to yield a particular result. Through the process of the "open space" meeting, management was able to motivate the people to do just that. There are several motivational theories that may explain why the process worked. Herein we shall discuss the case from the point of view of four of these theories, for the sake of conciseness and relevance. McGregor's Theory Y In 1960, Douglas McGregor began a long-standing debate (that incidentally still exists today) with the publication of his book The Human Side of the Enterprise. He introduced in this work his theory for which he is famously credited, Theory X and Theory Y. Essentially, he posed the question, "Could employees be trusted and empowered to do good work, or did they have to be closely directed, monitored, and controlled to act in the interests of the firm'" (Kochan et al, 2002, p. 2) Theory X, which is defined as the authoritative management style, posits that employees need to be closely monitored and controlled. On the other hand, Theory Y, popularly known as the participative management style, answers this with the first alternative, that is, that employees, may be counted on to do good work on their own and thus may be empowered to act on their own initiative. Theory Y makes the following assumptions: 1. Given the