Re: INCENTIVES

["Tom O. Dienya" <tdienya@kilimo.go.ke>]

DEN
John Dowd, on the subject: FW: Incentives wrote,"This motivation business is a controversial subject" and goes on to invoke Deming's Point 11 on "Eliminate Arbitrary Numerical Goals" to suggest that motivation is one such "Arbitrary Goals" that managers should not pay much attention to. I beg to disagree.

Motivation, indeed as Dowd says, has been one of the most crtical themes in organizational behaviroral discipline to explain why it is perhaps the only theme with the largest share of theories and cases. Why, we have to ask, is motivation (not just incentives)is such a massive issue? Because we know that organizations are people and the best organizations get the best from the people.

It may be that we are yet to find the perfect theory that explains the process of motivation. But I am sure it will not come until the day we shall be in a position to explain how every neuron and cell in the human brain works.

That however does not rest the case for motivation. From the available theories and cases, I am sure managers have opportunities to dig through and come out with something that works on individual basis. In may view, motivation is in the thick of psychological knowledges that Deming supposed ought to be key ingredient in management. I don't think motivation deserves to be discarded to the archives of "Arbitrary Goals." I have to pose this, though: was Deming explicit on best ways to handle motivation? This is not for John, it's for all DENs.


Tom Dienya
National Food Security Programme
Ministry of Agriculture
P.O Box 30028
NAIROBI
KENYA.