“Hey man, I am
not feeling like taking class today. Ask the students to go to library and
prepare notes on transpiration. Let them also prepare for their seminar
tomorrow” Dr. Rajesh, Prof of botany said to Gaureesh who was a newly appointed
lecturer. “ok sir” he replied and went to the class to give instructions to the
students. For Gaureesh, it was not a new thing as he is an old student of Dr.
Rajesh and for the professor, it is a routine to tell his students to prepare
notes on one or the other topic, carelessly hearing (not listening) to their
seminars and pass the time in the dept. There are so many people like Dr.
Rajesh, who are not interested to work at the workplace irrespective of
government job or corporate job. Whenever such persons are there in a team, it
is a headache to the team lead, and whenever the number of such people
increases in an organization it is a trouble to the organizational head. They
not only do not work on their own but also do not allow others to work.
Immediate effect is deceleration in the growth of an organization.
What is the reason for disinterest at workplace? It is difficult to give
a one word answer for this question. Because, an organization is a complex
institution in which so many extrinsic factors influence continuously on the
work force. Along with that, if a person is not intrinsically motivated to
work, he will easily be influenced by the things which operate on him to
withdraw from the work. Slowly he will start spreading his boredom to his
neighbours by calling them for tea/coffee very often and within a very short
duration, a team of workers who are not interested to work will be formed who
will be found most of the times in canteens or tea shops than at the workplace.
Finally the whole organization will be filled with such employees and it will
attain ‘stagnancy’. Canteen will attain ‘dynamism’ or ‘exponential growth’ you
can say.
Other significant reason that appears is lack of ‘need for
achievement’ (nAch) and ‘positive goal discrepancy’. If I refer to
the above example again, I would say, for Dr. Rajesh, he is satisfied with a
Ph.D. and professorship. He doesn’t have any further nAch. People with low nAch
get satisfied easily with whatever they have done. They are very happy with
what they are. So there is no chance of discrepancy about their current
position. Definitely they will stop upgrading themselves and also try to hold back
their colleagues.
If I think in Marxian terms, ‘alienation from work’ is also a
probable reason for low motivation at workplace. But many psychological studies
suggest that participatory management is not that successful in India as the
people tend to establish personalised relations. Therefore, hierarchy is
unavoidable, though it can incorporate participation of employees to certain
extent.
As per many Indian psychological studies ‘External Locus of Control’
(ELC) is another major problem of most of the Indians. People with ELC always
believe that if something new has to be done, then that has to be done by
someone else, but not by themselves. For ex: 1. Even though we are facing the
problem of corruption since long time, we needed Anna Hazare and his team to
initiate an agitation. Later huge crowd joined them!!!
2. In cities, we
want city municipality to clean the city. Many of us are not intrinsically
motivated to keep our surroundings clean.
How to tackle
this problem of no motivation?
First
of all people should be ‘intrinsically motivated’ towards work. That
means, work itself should reinforce the employees to work more than the salary
or status what they get for their work. Above that, the person should be
capable of bringing freshness to his daily routines by himself. People may find
it difficult when it is same work place, same people, same schedule etc. Most
of us might not have observed that we are capable to look at the same things as
new things and it is inherent with us. I found out this in my niece, who is
about 1 and half years of age. She expresses her happiness whenever she sees
her doll even though it is with her since many months. She stops crying when we
show that doll to her. She plays with it with the joy as if she has got it just
now. What I inferred from this is that the child looks at the same things with new
vision and with new perception. Every day, every thing is new to it. Then where
or when do we lose this inherent nature of looking the same things in a new or
different way? May be during the process of socialization. Learned
psychologists would answer this question. But I would definitely say, if we
strengthen our inherent capability of looking the same things in a new fashion,
then there is no chance of occurrence of boredom in our life!! If we try to
regain our inherent capability, then work will be interesting, life will be
interesting!!!
