Human beings are complex and unpredictale. Under the same environment not only that various persons react differently, but it is also a fact that the same person in similar circumstances at varying occasions respond dissimilarly, such that it is not possible through any rational process to define or predict the human mind and the ways it responds to the environment.

What is the elemental factor that shape human behaviour. The engine that influences man to different ways of behaviour is his 'attitude'. Attitude can be positive or negative. It can be friendly or hostile, optimistic or pessimistic, narrow-minded or broad-minded etc. But a set attitude of a man can be influenced and changed through the process called 'motivation'.

Mahatma Gandhi can refine the attitude of his followers and inspire them to accept supreme sacrifice for a noble cause. A biased sectarian leader can on the other hand can dominate and pervert the attitude of his followers to disruptive and destructive course of action focussing on a norrow and unprincipled issue. Motivation may be defined as psychological forces that determine the direction of a person’s behavior in an organization.

How motivation enters management philosophy? The findings of the Hawthorne experiments resulted in the widely accepted human relations approach to management. "human relations promised a land in which everybody accepted it was socially and economically desirable that there should be the greastest degree of competition outside of the firm, but that any competition or contentious elements within it were both socially and economically undesirable" ^@

"The growth of human relations was fostered by the problem of motivating employees, that is, of persuading them to share the goals of the organisation. When in the 1920s and 1930s Elton Mayo addressed himself to the problem of workers not behaving in the way the management would like, he convinced managers of the idea that the way to deal with this difficulty was to retain both hierarchy and specialisation while forming the equivalent of the 'family' in the workplace. Authoritarianism would remain but would take the guise of a paternalistic interest in the worker who would respond ina filial manner."^&

A regular theory of motivation was however espounded much later in 1943, when Abraham Maslow presented his theory of human motivation based on sevenset of needs. He classified human needs into three categories viz. physiological needs, safety needs, self-actualisation needs.

Motivation modifies the behaviour of subordinates in a positive manner. But how to motivate? Employee has some needs, which shapes his behaviour and actions. It is the strong-felt needs and desires that bring about motivation. As needs and desires of the employee are subject to change, so too his motives. Motivation is thus the inner-urge that results in willing release of extra energy towards action in a particular direction intended to achieve a concrete and accepted goal.

Motivation with reference to a motivated and unified team is defined by E.F.L.Brech as under:

"Motivation is a general inspirational process which gets the members of a team to pull their weight effectively, to give their loyalty to the group, to carry out properly the tasks that they have accepted and generally to play an effective part in the job that the group has undertaken."

Stated differently motivation or motivating employees is the job that a manager performs to inspire subordinates willingly release extra effort/energy, and to direct their performance, in this process of achieving organisational goals. It is the process where there is total convergence of the individual objectives of the employee and the objectives set for the organisation. This process of motivation happens when the felt-needs of the employee are satisfied. Motivation is shaping the behaviour, enersiging it, directing and sustaining it.

Intrinsically motivated behavior is behavior that is performed for its own sake; the source of motivation is actually performing the behavior. Examples-

1. Many managers derive a sense of accomplishment from helping their organizations to achieve their goals.

2. Jobs that are interesting and challenging are more likely to lead to intrinsic motivation than are jobs that are boring.

Extrinsically motivated behavior is behavior that is performed to acquire material or social rewards or to avoid punishment. The source of motivation is the consequences of the behavior, not the behavior itself. Motivation comes from the consequences one receives as a result of their work behaviors.

Some of the popular theories of motivation are discussed in the succeeding pages as listed in the table of contents given at the top of this article.

^@Andrzej A. Huczynski - "Management Gurus - What makes team and how to become one" (p.16)
^&ibid