Motivation is one of the most recommended tools today because it is firmly believed that surprising results can be achieved by encouraging the individual. Examples are abundant, the market is saturated with books whose content highlights the force that motivates people. There is no doubt, motivating is the key, the fuel that moves staff. However, there have been so many and so varied recipes designed to motivate that usually, when preparing "the dish", the most important ingredient is left aside: expectations.
It is constantly taught that a pat on the back, given at the right time, in the right place and in the right situation, will increase the motivation of the worker and with it his performance, and it is true, people need a minimum recognition let this be. But the meaning of the phrase "raising motivation" is often overlooked, because if it is studied objectively it can be seen that in order to raise motivation it must be present, otherwise it would have to be generated first.
It is also customary to hold planning sessions to establish motivational mechanisms that end up being long and repetitive meetings whose culmination coincides in responses very similar to those known or in proposals where the costs end up turning them into unattainable or short-lived projects, this due to that the fact that motivation is linked to several elements that if not included in the process little or nothing will achieve to maintain or increase it is obvious.
As usually happens, in such days of creativity to achieve motivation in companies, the human resource is spoken of as an external entity, using pronouns such as "they" when in reality they refer to themselves, as if those who plan the motivation did not require get involved in the process. Although it is true that experience indicates that "it is impossible to please them all" it is no less true that there are two options in the face of such an assertion: either the norm is real and we should not worry about trying to keep the whole motivated, or the norm is what has prevented reaching the desired goal.
Ideally, companies would like to have highly motivated and identified personnel, which, if it were a fact, would leave unemployed all those who have the specific responsibility of motivating people, but this is not the case, management constantly faces employees whose factor Demotivation is common, which leads to quality problems, attention, omission and responsibility in the processes.
But is it a constant cycle? Isn't it possible to keep people motivated? Can't you really please everyone?
To develop the theme it is important to note that the root of the word motivation is none other than motive, this in turn is closely linked to the word purpose. Therefore it is in the motive-purpose binomial that part of the key to motivation can be located.
Motivation and the work environment
When the individual starts the employment relationship, they can have several reasons to do so: study, earn money, gain experience, meet people and / or self-fulfill, among other things; But it will not necessarily be their purpose to connect with the company and optimally carry out their work, since it tends to happen that the average performance is considered normal in certain organizations. For there to be a positive link between the employee and the company, there must be a relationship between the purpose of the individual, the expectations that the latter generates in him and those that the employer has.
As it can be seen the reason is what generates the purpose and this in turn expectations, therefore, while satisfying these three factors the individual will be "motivated" and it is at this point where the questions are more numerous than the answers.
Obviously, the work is the answer to the satisfaction of an expectation originated by a reason, this has its genesis in the person and she is the only one capable of establishing in what percentage it has been covered. If the motive belongs to the person and in turn it is she who must satisfy it, why has motivation always been linked to exogenous elements? As the reason is somewhat personal, why are third parties held responsible for the lack of motivation?
When studying the theories of needs, it is practical to conclude that they are on the rise and that once the first ones are satisfied, it will be necessary to do the same with the subsequent ones, but the fact that they cannot be imagined as a graph is not emphasized. on a Cartesian plane, since human reality is multidimensional and both their motives and the expectations they generate behave in geometric progression, and it is precisely the lack of awareness, consciously or not, of this reality that prevents satisfying the whole, since motivation is indeed an expansive but totally individual cyclical process.
The Company, the Manager and the motivation
Until now it has been maintained as a concept that the company is the one who must generate motivation in its employees and for this, areas and budget items have been created to carry out studies that lead to achieving it, however it is feasible to warn that such a statement is only possible if The organization is seen as an entity outside the personnel and the premise that says "people are the company" is ignored.
Organizations through their managers have the responsibility of generating the necessary scenarios so that what initially served as a reason becomes an agent that drives them to increase the level of expectations and with it the productivity and added value of the employee, but it is humanly impossible to guarantee that the efforts made by a company are effectively motivating elements, since this will depend on the individual perception of the person who experiences it, their reality and the way in which they can meet their needs.
An example of this can be found in salary increases, even when the organization makes efforts to compensate its workers in the fairest way, the increases end up appearing extraordinary to some, acceptable to others and insufficient for the majority, and it makes sense: People whose main reason was to use themselves to meet a need later face the birth of others who usually demand higher incomes, which brings with it the appearance of expectations higher than the initial ones.
Elements such as the work environment, good management, wages, benefits and other labor factors must serve as ingredients to keep the employee motivated, not to motivate him, since such condition is his sole responsibility and only he can determine if the efforts he makes the company meets their needs, otherwise the burden of demotivation would fall on a third party that has little or nothing to do with the need or the reason, but with expectation.
It is simple, organizations offer growth, development or occupation opportunities, income and job stability are linked to this, which will depend on the performance of those who are employed in it, likewise companies must offer an environment according to their reality which has to be oriented to facilitate the tasks, nurture creativity and promote mental and physical health for the staff for the benefit of all its members and the processes it has, elements that when combined effectively can motivate interest in belonging to that organization, but not the need for it.
The needs vary in intensity depending on the individual, even though they may be the same each will rank them in a particular way, this is what prevents organizations from achieving satisfaction when using tools whose purpose is to motivate instead of maintaining motivation. The individual will remain motivated when they observe that their expectations are level with those of their environment and vice versa.
Co-esteem as a motivator
Once understood that motivation is something individual, whose responsibility falls on the person who experiences it, who can only be fed and, in some cases, when a need is created, it can be induced through the appearance of new expectations; Another vision is being given to tackle the issue and, at the same time, the bases are being created for the appearance of a new concept: co-esteem.
Co-esteem is that attitude or process that allows motivating the individual through the exchange, orientation and leveling of expectations.
The cost may be of a personal or business nature. The staff is one that seeks to maintain motivation by relating the individual expectations of the team with those of its leaders and / or the total of its members, while the business co-esteem is aimed at leveling the expectations of the employee with those that have
But to better understand the concept of co-esteem it is important to differentiate it from other existing elements in the administrative language, such as: Esteem and self-esteem, empathy and rapport, according to what the Vox dictionary of the Spanish language defines..
The action of estimating is understood as the condition or appreciation that is made of a person or thing for its quality or circumstance, as well as self-esteem refers to the same action but with itself, while self-esteem seeks to generate a leveling out between what the individual hopes to achieve and what his environment expects him to achieve.
Likewise, it has no relationship with Empathy, understood as the affective and usually emotional participation of a subject in the reality of a third party, since the leveling of expectations generated by co-esteem is done under an environment of objectivity and certainty, where the result must benefit both parties without the emotional element intervening.
It also differs from Rapport because with it it is intended to achieve harmony, harmonize with the third in order to keep pace with that person, in other words go to the rhythm of it, while co-esteem is aimed at knowing and leveling the expectations of the individual without that this means a change in the rhythm of the operation that adjusts to it.
When co-esteem is used in a conscious and planned manner in an organization, it is much easier to achieve extraordinary results without this entailing additional efforts in terms of motivation, since this will manifest itself as expectations are leveled according to the increase in challenge proposed by both the individual and the company.
The continuous process of co-esteem
Co-esteem must be constantly present in the entire administrative process of a company, before, during and after hiring, because both the reason and the expectation usually vary in the individual, as previously mentioned.
During the talent recruitment period, all the motives, purposes and expectations of the candidate must be scrutinized sufficiently, and at the same time, those that the organization has have to be unequivocally stated, this must be recorded and filed as part of the personnel file. and reviewed with the periodicity established by the company in order to establish its variations or make them known.
Likewise, and on the basis of expectations, plans must be established to keep the employee motivated through their scope or their reorientation.
For all of the above, it can be said that co-esteem is also the name that management receives from the expectations of the personnel that make up a company and, therefore, as it is an administrative process, its results should be oriented towards obtaining profits, represented in this case. for increased motivation and related benefits.
While companies only dedicate themselves to motivating their employees through isolated mechanisms that are not related to the expectations that they have, they will hardly be able to fully achieve it, nor will employees be able to stay motivated if they insist on feeding expectations that are alien to those the organization has with them, therefore the responsibility to make use of co-esteem as a motivational tool falls on both parties equally.
