Needs and Motivators

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs provides a great visual. He ordered peoples needs/motivators in a pyramid style to reflect how people advance upwards as more basic needs are fulfilled.

Its important to understand the first four levels are deficiency needs, meaning if they are lacking in someone’s life they will go somewhere else to find them.

Notice the bottom of the pyramid contains Physiological Needs; food, water, shelter, clothing…things needed for survival. These things must be met before we can focus on anything else; humans will work hard to fulfill them. Most of you will not need to worry about this level in your teams lives. However, the next 2-3 levels should be your primary focus.

Safety & Security directly involve finances (paycheck, wages, bonuses, etc). Most things under safety and security are financially driven.; housing, income, insurance, health, etc. These are things you have some control over and where the gift cards everyone talks about and uses, can provide a great incentive. However, remember if these things are sufficiently met for a person, they next level becomes the goal.

Social Needs include the belongingness, connectedness and part of a team that we have been talking about. As people find safety & security, as pay becomes more stable, and they feel safe in their job, they start to want a team connection.

Esteem Needs can mean different things to different people. Some people just need to feel valued while others seek the public recognition. In either case, at this level members want respect and they want to feel important. Dale Carnegie, How to Make friends and Influence People, wrote everyone wants to feel important. Regardless of their job or position in life, they want you to make them feel important. The Esteem Needs level is that place where you get to make your members feel important.

Safety & Security, Social, and Esteem are the areas you can have the most impact right now. If you help your people climb the pyramid to this point, they will want Self-Actualization. This is the level that we try to operate in together. In this stage a person wants to be a version of themselves, they look internally, and seek to build others.

** Not every level needs to be completed before a person moves to another level and people can move within levels as needs in lower levels are degraded. The pyramid is not an absolute but rather a guide.**

Notice when you are working on incentives, you never offer your team more water for a good job. Water is a basic need; without water we die. It seems water would be something that would motivate anyone. But because everyone has access to water, in abundance, water is no longer a motivator. It’s important to know what your people really value.

Rewards come in two categories; Intrinsic (internal self-rewarding) and extrinsic (monetary, public recognition, promotions, avoiding punishment). In most cases, intrinsic rewards motivate people to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do (the moral reason). Extrinsic rewards motivate people to accomplish tasks but most often for the reward and not the satisfaction of task completion or self-actualization. Extrinsic rewards are required, people must get paid, they need to provide security and safety to their families. Maslow’s Hierarchy shows that extrinsic rewards help meet many of the needs of people. However, intrinsic rewards and a focus on moving your people up the pyramid, builds the culture we discussed in September…People will apply for a paycheck but stay for the culture.

Use extrinsic rewards to get people in the door and help them fulfill certain needs within the pyramid. However, if you’re finding increased wages, bonuses, and incentives are not keeping people you MIGHT have an intrinsic rewards problem at the Social Needs or Esteem level. In fact, studies show extrinsic rewards can actually have a detrimental effect on intrinsic motivations.