Fourth Theory

The fourth theory of

worker motivation

BY J.J. HAEFNER

ExECuTIvE SuMMARy
Motivating your work force always has been the key to keep businesses humming. The simple act of moving from an authoritarian environment, where managers act as if workers cannot be trusted, to an environment where workers can be autonomous and trusted collaborators, can make a world of difference. Going beyond thethree primary theories of motivation, a fourth theory of motivation includes three subsystems in systemic motivation — leadership, environment and personalities — linked by positive core values. In the case studied, factors of that fourth theory helped an underperforming work shift not only meet expectations, but shatter production records.

The role of engineers in manufacturing is criticalfor solving day-to-day production issues, but in the new economic era cited by W. Edwards Deming, it is imperative that engineers function as leaders who exhibit profound knowledge. To do this, they must become aware of a broader array of skills and knowledge. Deming cited

part of the knowledge for the new economy as statistics and psychology. This article shows how both helped correct a $10million dollar production shortfall. The technical issues at the root of the shortfall were not complicated and lost production was recouped quickly. But producing an extra million dollars of product on an annual basis

Producing an extra million dollars of product on an annual basis was unanticipated.

was unanticipated. The reasons for the increased production were described as a new theory ofmotivation that I call the fourth theory of motivation. Although academia includes numerous motivational theories, in general, the three theories of motivation are Theory X, which does not trust workers; Theory Y,
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which trusts workers; and Theory Z, a Japanese holistic management approach. The fourth theory described in this article is a model of how motivation factorsinteract to form systemic motivation.
Systemic motivation

In 2008, Towers Perrin consulting group published a white paper based on extensive international research of worker motivation and productivity. They found that 38 percent of the world’s workers are not engaged in their work, not motivated, and consequently not performing to their potential. Only 21 percent of the world’s workers wereengaged fully. Millions, possibly billions, of dollars of productivity are wasted. In early 2009, a published case study examined the motivation factors affecting a team of production workers trying to recover a significant production shortfall. Part of the team was an engineer supervisor who applied statistics and Deming’s principles such as driving out fear and removing barriers that rob people ofpride of workmanship. These worked to correct the production shortfall, but after that something unanticipated occurred; the production workers began to break production records week after week until they were producing more than $1 million of additional product annually. An analysis found that the engineer supervisor introduced several motivational queues during the problem solving process. Whenproduction was restored, another series of work environment motivation queues was introduced, and the queues interacted with the needs and personalities of the production workers to form a motivation system (see Figure 1), or systemic motivation. Workers became self-motivated and reached a tipping point where they eagerly devoted more thought, time, energy and self-sacrifice to attain productionrecords week after week. The engineer supervisor introduced leadership motivation factors that constituted one subsystem of the motivation system. The system is a hierarchical relationship with leadership responsible for establishing

the guiding principles. Leadership is also responsible for maintaining a system of positive core values that link leadership to the other motivation subsystems...