Motivation is one of the most important problems not only in administration, but in- every day life. Students are to be motivated for hard work; workers are to be motivated higher achievements; employees are to be motivated to achieve the aims and objectives of the Five Year Plans; unemployed educated people are to be motivated to set up their own industries; and so on.
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It has been observed that the performance of the persons either as individuals or as members of a group is less as compared to their actual capacities.’ Finer has demonstrated that performance generally never exceeds more than fifty percent of individual’s capacity to perform.
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Thus to increase performance and to bring it near to the capacities of an individual, motivation is required. Mathematically, speaking zero anywhere, either in motivation or in capacities, will bring the performance to zero.
Robert Dubin has classified human behaviour into two categories Voluntary and necessary behaviour. Voluntary behaviour is that behaviour which a person is doing of his own volition. He is interested in that behaviour and draws happiness and pleasure out of it.
The necessary behaviour is that behaviour which a person is required to do out of some compulsion, say to earn his livelihood. It can be observed that much of our daily life in industrial business or government organisation is caught up in necessary rather than voluntary behaviour. Voluntary behaviour requires little motivation. It is only necessary behaviour where the need for motivation is felt.
The concept of motivation is used by psychologists, administrators, and managers as much as it is used in our every day life. The term motivation has been derived from Latin word ‘movere’ which means to move.
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This thus, implies moving toward some object or goal. Webster’s Dictionary has defined “Motivate” as that him to action, any idea, need, motion, or organic state that prompts to an action.
According to Robert Dubin, “by motivation we usually mean mechanism inside the person that sustains his, continued activity as a human being”.
According to Abad Ahmad, “motivation being a function of interaction between internal propensities of an individual with the stimuli and incentives which affect the employee motivation”.
According to Campbell and others an individual’s motivation involves following three things-direction, amplitude and persistence. Direction means choosing of one action out of possible alternatives.
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Amplitude means the strength of the response or the intensity with which one feels about the action once the choice is made. Persistence means how long a person sticks with it. Motivation to be complete in all ways requires all these three things.
For motivating the workers to work, it is necessary to understand the phenomenon of motivation. Need may be regarded as a starting point of motivation.
The behaviour of a person is generally determined by his strongest need, when an individual feels the need of any things strongly, he starts his action. This action is directed towards some goal. Reaching the goal satisfies the need and this completes the mechanism of motivation.