Let’s Talk About Motivation at Work: What Actually Motivates People?

I’m glad that quite a few people have already taken the survey. You can count on a bit of persistence from me, but I’ll give it a few more days.

Perhaps more will be tempted to join in since more input is always better. Feel free, either way.

Today, let’s talk about motivation, especially work motivation. This topic is still underappreciated in Polish workplaces, including universities.

I realized just how overlooked it is during the Young MBA course at the Warsaw School of Economics yesterday. We sat through a three-hour lecture on the subject and discussed the most common mistakes made by poor managers.

Now, I don’t plan on being a bad manager or lab head, which is why I was there, paying close attention. As I listened, I saw all the blunders made by the “managers” in the projects I’ve been involved in over the past year.

Fortunately, neither of these projects had anything to do with my academic work, as such collaboration wouldn’t have been conducive to a solid master’s thesis. But let’s take them one at a time.

Who Were the Two Mysterious Managers?

Let’s call them Manager 1 and Manager 2. On the bright side, they both seemed pleasant and wore friendly smiles, which got me excited initially. Manager 2 also had a wealth of knowledge, and I was impressed.

However, Manager 1 couldn’t hide after a week that he’d assigned me a task beyond his intellectual capacity. That’s the main reason he avoided my desk, hoping I’d just quietly do the job without bothering him (or disturbing his peace).

This brings us to serious mistake number 1: a lack of authority. When a manager’s go-to response is “I don’t know” and “What solutions do you see?” before escaping, that’s not a good sign.

Another slip-up was both managers seeming to believe that a 25-year-old educated person dreams of working entirely for free. Mentioning the possibility of any rewards seemed to be met with skepticism.

At the outset, there were visions of benefits, especially from Manager 1, who hinted at possible employment after the project. But it soon became clear that he had no intention of hiring anyone.

He was simply dishonest, which a good manager should never be. According to Zhao and colleagues (2007), such broken promises reliably erode trust, commitment, and performance.

The second manager didn’t promise grand rewards upfront, which he boasted about. However, over time, he heaped more responsibilities on me.

Being part of a team where I ended up doing the most despite not holding the title, I timidly protested. He completely ignored it and piled on even more work. When I protested more assertively, he scolded me in front of the entire team, which is an absolute no-no for a good manager.

Why Praise in Public and Critique in Private?

There’s a rule: praise in public, critique in private. According to Xing (2021), *Journal of Organizational Behavior*, negative feedback that induces shame is associated with worse subsequent performance and well-being, which is part of why delivering criticism privately tends to work better than doing so in front of others.

Supporting your team publicly builds trust. Furthermore, the ratio of profit to work contribution should be equitable for everyone in the team, something this manager disregarded.

Next, there’s the matter of ambitious yet realistic goals. Manager 1 assigned me a task he wasn’t sure was achievable and declined help from external experts when I requested it.

Manager 2, on the other hand, suddenly introduced an unrealistic deadline halfway through the project. According to Locke and Latham (2002), specific and challenging yet attainable goals drive the strongest performance.

Some team members knew this from the beginning, while others—including me—didn’t. How did this situation even occur?

No wonder we couldn’t meet the deadline. I had a nagging feeling that it wasn’t entirely my fault.

Should I Have Walked Away?

As I reflect now, I wonder why I didn’t just walk away at some point. Probably out of a sense of decency and commitment to the activities I undertake.

I stuck around till the planned time was up. Until yesterday, I blamed myself for being irritable and incapable of collaborating effectively, especially since both projects stressed me out and ended up being a bit of a fiasco.

But after learning about good management, I’m relieved. I can see it wasn’t entirely my fault. One manager was decent, and the other was knowledgeable but simply not cut out for managing.

Maybe it was due to good intentions but a lack of talent in that realm. And now that saying holds true: you join for the work, but you leave because of the manager.

By the way, I recommend taking such courses. It’s not just about potential employers liking it on paper. These courses offer invaluable knowledge from specialists with decades of experience in business, management, and banking.

Most people can benefit, even if they’re aiming for a scientific career or not planning any career at all. Just like in a family, you need to persuade the kids to brush their teeth. And so on—it’s about managing human resources, after all.

What Was the McDonald’s Case?

Lastly, today we studied a case involving the development strategy of the MacDonald’s corporation. I learned about an official way of measuring a society’s wealth level known as the “Big Mac parity“: how long (in a given country or for a citizen) you need to work on average to afford a Big Mac. According to Pakko and Pollard (2003), Federal Reserve Bank of St.

Louis, Big Mac prices around the world track the fundamentals of purchasing power parity nearly as well as far more comprehensive price-comparison measures. The world is changing, or maybe it’s me.

In my time, purchasing power was compared to loaves of bread, or perhaps a standard consumer basket. But that’s ancient history…

Regardless, I did something spontaneous—I went to the said temple and had my first Big Mac. To be honest, I’m not sure what the Big Mac craze is all about. Maybe I’m not attuned enough to appreciate the inner charm of a bun with something that resembles meat inside.