Three bakers at 2 a.m.: The night shift at the Mill Lane bakehouse starts at 2 a.m. Priti, the head baker, watches three of her bakers.
Tom checks the clock every half hour. He baked 400 loaves before the vans left yesterday and wants 420 today. Maya is happiest when the whole shift is chatting over the mixers, and goes quiet when two bakers argue. Ade keeps offering to organise the 5 a.m. van loading, and likes it when the others come to him for a decision.
Same bakehouse, same pay, same hours. Three different things keep them going.
David McClelland, an American psychologist, said that three needs drive people at work. We are not born with them: we pick them up from our lives, from family, school and past jobs (acquired needs theory). Everyone has all three, but in most people one is stronger than the other two (the dominant need), and that one shapes what they want from a job.
Achievement: Tom
- Wants to do a hard job well and beat a standard, his own or someone else's
- Likes clear targets, quick feedback and a challenge that is hard but possible
- Would rather do it himself than share the credit
- Bored by routine work with nothing to measure
Affiliation: Maya
- Wants to be liked and to belong to the group
- Likes teamwork, a friendly shift and working with people
- Avoids conflict and finds it hard to say no or to criticise a friend
- Unhappy working alone or in a team that argues
Power: Ade
- Wants to influence others and be responsible for what they do
- Likes leading, deciding and having a say
- Enjoys status and being the one people come to
- Frustrated when he has no say in how the work is organised
Not a ladder, and not bossiness: Maslow's needs (2.4.1) are climbed one level at a time. McClelland's three are not in any order: they sit side by side, and which one is strongest differs from person to person.
A need for power is not the same as being bossy. Power used for yourself (personal power) wants control for its own sake. Power used for the team (institutional power) wants to organise people so the whole bakehouse does well. McClelland thought the second kind makes good managers.
Because the needs are learned, they can change. Maya may become more driven by achievement after a course that shows her she is good at pastry. So Priti cannot read a need off a person once and for all. She watches what each baker chooses to do when they have the choice.
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McClelland's practical point is simple. People work hardest when the job feeds their dominant need. This month Priti has three jobs to hand out: trialling a new rye loaf, showing a new starter the ropes, and running the 5 a.m. van check. Who gets which?
Matching the job to the need
The rye trial goes to Tom (achievement)
A clear goal (a rye loaf that sells 60 a day), a real chance of failing, and feedback every morning from the shop sales. That is exactly the kind of challenge a high achiever wants.
The new starter goes to Maya (affiliation)
Welcoming someone into the shift, working side by side, building the team. Maya would hate a job that meant telling friends off, but she will make the new starter feel at home.
The van check goes to Ade (power)
He organises three other bakers so every van leaves full at 5 a.m. He has responsibility for others and a say in how it is done. Priti checks he runs it for the shift, not for himself.
| Dominant need | Motivated by | Demotivated by | A job that fits at Mill Lane |
|---|---|---|---|
| Achievement | Challenging but reachable goals, feedback, credit for results | Routine tasks, vague goals, no way to see progress | Trialling a new loaf against a sales target |
| Affiliation | Teamwork, friendly colleagues, being accepted | Working alone, conflict, having to discipline friends | Training the new starter; team tasks |
| Power | Responsibility for others, influence, status | No say, being closely controlled | Leading the 5 a.m. van check |
Why the best baker may not make the best manager: If Priti leaves, Lena might promote Tom, the best baker. McClelland would warn her. High achievers want to do the job themselves and be judged on their own results, so a manager like Tom may keep baking instead of leading.
McClelland found that good managers usually have a strong need for power, used for the organisation, and a weaker need for affiliation, so they can make decisions that upset people.
The theory has limits. A need cannot be measured like a loaf: Priti is guessing from what she sees. Most people show all three needs at different times. And a small bakery cannot design a separate job for every baker. Used carefully, though, it tells a manager why the same reward or task lifts one person and leaves another cold.
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Rosa's seeded loaf: Rosa, another of Priti's bakers, spends part of her break trying seeded loaf recipes. Nobody asked her to and nobody pays her for it. She does it because she enjoys it.
Last week her loaf went on sale in the High Street shop and sold out by ten.
Doing something because the activity itself is satisfying is intrinsic motivation. Doing it to get something outside the task, such as pay, a bonus, praise or avoiding trouble, is extrinsic motivation.
Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, two American psychologists, asked what keeps intrinsic motivation alive. Their answer (self-determination theory) is that every person has three basic psychological needs. When work meets all three, people are motivated from inside, and that motivation lasts longer and produces better, more creative work than motivation that comes only from rewards.
Autonomy
- A sense of choice: feeling that you decide how you do your work
- Rosa chooses which recipe to try and how to shape it
- Starved by rigid rules, close checking and being told exactly how
Competence
- Feeling capable, and getting better at something that matters
- Rosa sees each loaf improve and hears that it sold out
- Fed by training, stretching tasks and useful feedback
Relatedness
- Feeling connected to others and cared about by them
- The night shift tastes Rosa's loaf with her at 4 a.m.
- Fed by teamwork and belonging, starved by isolation
The same three needs in everyone: This is the big difference from McClelland. McClelland says people differ: one need is dominant, so the job should match the person. Deci and Ryan say the three needs are the same in everyone: any job that meets autonomy, competence and relatedness will motivate.
Autonomy does not mean working alone or without rules. It means feeling that you have a choice and agree with what you are doing.
You may meet Daniel Pink's book Drive, which made these ideas popular as autonomy, mastery and purpose. The theory itself is Deci and Ryan's: when you use it, name them and their three needs.
Lena sees Rosa's loaf sell out and has an idea: $50 for every new recipe a baker gets into the shops, with Priti counting each baker's recipes every Friday. For a month the recipes pour in. By the third month Rosa only experiments when a bonus is on offer, and when the budget runs out she stops altogether.
The reward changed the reason: Before the bonus, Rosa baked new loaves because she enjoyed it. After it, she baked them to get $50, counted and checked every Friday. The reward felt like control, so her sense of choice (autonomy) fell, and the enjoyment went with it.
Deci and Ryan call this the crowding out of intrinsic motivation: an extrinsic reward for work people already enjoy can replace their own reason for doing it. Take the reward away and the motivation does not come back.
A reward that feels like control
- Promised in advance. Do this and you get that.
- Tied to counting and checking. Priti tallies recipes every Friday.
- Message. We decide why you work.
- Effect. Autonomy falls, intrinsic motivation is crowded out.
A reward that feels like recognition
- Unexpected or shared. A thank-you breakfast when a new loaf sells out.
- Tells you how well you did. The sales figures, shown to the baker.
- Message. You are good at this and we noticed.
- Effect. Competence and relatedness rise, motivation holds.
Self-determination theory does not say never pay a bonus: Pay must feel fair, or it becomes the only thing anyone thinks about (Herzberg's hygiene factors, 2.4.2, make a similar point). And for dull, routine work that nobody enjoys, such as washing the trays at 5 a.m., a bonus can raise effort without harm, because there is little intrinsic motivation to crowd out.
The danger is a controlling reward on work people already find interesting.
| A measure at Mill Lane | Need it affects | Likely effect on motivation |
|---|---|---|
| Bakers choose one special loaf each week | Autonomy | Rises: they decide what to bake |
| A two-day pastry course paid by the firm | Competence | Rises: they get better and feel capable |
| The monthly team breakfast is cancelled to save $300 | Relatedness | Falls: less time together as a shift |
| Every recipe step checked against a card | Autonomy | Falls: no room to choose how to work |
| A bonus per tray baked above target | Extrinsic, not one of the three | Short-term effort may rise; enjoyment may be crowded out |
That table is the whole method. For each thing the business does, ask which of the three needs it feeds or starves, and whether it is an extrinsic reward that could push out the bakers' own reasons for doing the work.
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How this comes up: The long question gives you a list of changes a business is making and asks you to discuss their impact on employee motivation, with reference to Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory and the information given, for ten marks.
Short questions give you a situation or a table of survey results and ask you to explain one reason, or describe one need being met, using a motivation theory, for two marks. McClelland's achievement, affiliation or power, and Deci and Ryan's autonomy, competence or relatedness, all fit those.
The ten-mark pattern
- Set out the theory in two sentences. Three basic needs, autonomy, competence and relatedness; when they are met, people are motivated from inside (intrinsic motivation).
- Two measures that feed a need. Name the measure from the case, the need it feeds and why that lifts motivation.
- Two measures that starve a need. The same, the other way, including any reward that could crowd out intrinsic motivation.
- A judgement. Overall, does motivation rise or fall, and for whom? Say what it depends on.
- A limitation of the information. What the case does not tell you that would change your view.
Two traps: Listing the measures without the theory. Saying the course is good for the bakers is not using the theory. Say it feeds their need for competence.
One side only. Real changes usually help one need and hurt another. Two measures each way, with the theory named in every paragraph, is a balanced answer.
With reference to Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory and the information above, discuss the impact of Lena's measures on the motivation of the Mill Lane bakers.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.