EXTERNAL MOTIVATION

External motivation comes from outside, such as money, societal approval, fame or fear.

 Fear Motivation 

•  Examples of external motivation are fear of getting spanked by parents and fear of getting fired at work. A company wanted to set up a pension plan. In order for the plan to be installed, it needed 100% participation. Everyone signed up except John. The plan made sense and was in the best interest of everyone. John not signing was the only obstacle. John's supervisor and other co-workers had tried to persuade him without success. The owner of the company called John into his office and said, "John, here is a pen and these are the papers for you to sign to enroll into the pension plan. If you don't enroll, you are fired this minute." John signed right away. The owner asked John why he hadn't signed earlier. John replied, "No one explained the plan quite as clearly as you did."

The advantages of fear motivation are:

1.  It gets the job done quickly.
2.  It is instantaneous.
3.  It prevents loss, by meeting deadlines.
4.  In the short run the person's performance may improve.

 Performance Goes Up It is not uncommon to see the prey outsmarting the predator, because one is running for its food and the other for its life. We learn from history that the pyramids were built by slaves. They had to be constantly watched and reprimanded for nonperformance.

 The disadvantages of fear motivation are:

1.  It is external, which means the motivation is there while the motivator is there.When  the motivator goes, the motivation also goes.
2.  It causes stress.
3.  Performance is limited to compliance.
4.  In the long run, performance goes down.
5.  It destroys creativity.
6.  They get used to the stick and then need a bigger stick.

A customer asked an employee, "When did you start working here?" He replied, "Ever since they threatened to fire me."

Incentive Motivation

External motivation can also take the form of incentives, bonuses, commission, recognition, etc. What are the advantages of incentive motivation? The major advantage is that it can work very well as long as the incentive is strong enough.

 Think of a donkey with a carrot dangling in front and with a cart behind. Incentive motivation will only work if the donkey is hungry enough, the carrot is sweet enough and the load is light enough. From time to time, you have to let the donkey take a bite of the carrot; otherwise it is going to get discouraged. After the donkey takes a bite, its stomach is full, and you need to wait for the donkey to get hungry again before it will pull the cart. This is typically seen in our business environment. The moment salespeople meet their quota, they stop working. This is because their motivation is limited to meeting their quota. That is external, not internal.