Marquis Story

MG 323 Organizational Behavior- Section IN01

Assignment: Motivation: Intrinsic or Extrinsic

Motivation is something you can struggle to have or something that simply comes easy to

you. It is the reason someone acts a certain way with work or outside activities. Intrinsic

motivation is doing something no matter if there is going to be an award giving at the end of the

task. A couple examples of intrinsic motivation would be learning new languages, playing a

sport, or volunteering at a school. With all these examples you are not necessarily going to gain

something at the end. Most of the time one will know if something is pursued through intrinsic

motivation due to factors like curiosity and liking new challenges. When one is curious it can

drive you to learn about something just for the satisfaction of mastering something different.

Wanting to do something challenging usually stems from aiming to keep the momentum towards

different sets of goals. Extrinsic motivation is doing a certain job or activity because you know at

the end there will be an award waiting on you. Some examples of extrinsic motivation would be

doing overtime at work to be entered into a drawing for a new car or posting an expensive

vacation on social media for likes. Extrinsic motivation is a strong tool that can be used to get

people to complete a task but may not always be effective.

As a manager you must know what type of employee you are dealing with in order to

know what would best motivate them to excel at their job. If I had an employee that leaned more

towards intrinsic motivation, I would focus more on what they are looking for in their current

career. I will want to find if they find their current task have a feeling of meaningfulness,

selection, expertise, and advancement. With having meaningfulness, I would explore their

thoughts of if the job they are doing has real value to them and if they feel like it is worth their

energy. Second, do they feel like they have free range in choices of how they are to complete
Marquis Story

MG 323 Organizational Behavior- Section IN01

Assignment: Motivation: Intrinsic or Extrinsic

their work. Having ownership of you work is very important because it makes a person feel

responsible the end results. Third, I will want to know if they feel they are handling their

workload as best as they can. This would include both the persons individual standards as well as

company standards. Lastly, I want to know what this person’s progress and future trajectory

looks like for them as an induvial rather than a managerial standpoint. The intrinsic rewards type

of worker may not come by as often, but I feel as a manager these are an important group of

people to look out for.

On the other hand, I feel like an employee that leans towards extrinsic motivation might

be easier to motivate because they are the ones that are always looking for a reward. Luckily

which can easily be put into place. As a manager for someone who prefers extrinsic motivation I

would put into place things like certificates, peer recognition, lunch parties, and lottery raffles.

Over the years as a supervisor, I have found that more and more people do not count high salary

as a reward anymore. I have seen people take pay cuts to go to company where they feel more

appreciated as a person than a number. I once heard a woman say she took a significant pay

decrease to be with a company who did small quarterly bonus and constantly offered chances of

winning paid family vacation and extra PTO days based on production and overtime. There will

always be times where you cannot please someone with what is offered but I do feel more times

than none that a lot of people rely on extrinsic rewards.