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

Motivation - Essay ExampleKeySpan is the surviving entity of a merger between Brooklyn Union fluid and Long Island Lighting Company. It was Kenny Moores 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 cd 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 primeval to success was the Ownership for a successful merger fr om 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 apply 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 plastered 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. in that respect 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 succinctness and relevance.McGregors Theory YIn 1960, Douglas McGregor began a lon g-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 possibleness 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 assumptions1.Given the