Motivation Models

Goal

A motivation model explains why a person commits to their work or withdraws from it: a missing condition, an unmet need, a reward that no longer works. According to the PMBOK, people work better when they are motivated, and different things motivate different people. Whoever knows what motivates each team member and each stakeholder can match the reward to the person and gains firmer commitment.

These models help decide, person by person, what response to give: a working condition to correct, a task to assign differently, a form of recognition, a degree of autonomy, a leadership style. The PMBOK places them in team leadership, where the project manager influences, motivates and adapts their style to each person's willingness and ability. They also work outside the team: a sponsor or a business lead commits for their own reasons, and a response that ignores those reasons has no effect.

The deliverable is a dated table, one row per person or role: the signal observed, the model that explains it, the response chosen and what to avoid. For stakeholders, these rows feed the engagement assessment matrix and the stakeholder engagement plan. For the team, they guide recognition and rewards.

Usage

When to use

• Team formation: find out what each person expects from the project before assigning tasks.
• Falling commitment: tell worse working conditions apart from work that no longer interests the person.
• Recognition scheme: choose rewards that speak to each person rather than the same bonus for everyone.
• Resistant stakeholder in the engagement matrix: look for what they would gain by moving to the desired level.
• Leadership style decision: check your own assumptions about the team before deciding between control and delegation.
• New phase in a long project: redo the team analysis, since expectations shift with the nature of the work.
• Employee seconded from their department: check that the workload has been reduced and the backfill is in place before talking about the work itself.

When not to use

• Assessing a person: the models measure nothing; use a competency framework for skills and performance indicators for results.
• Open conflict between two people: an individual analysis does not settle it; use conflict management.

Description

Four independent models

The PMBOK presents these four models as a small sample and does not merge them into a method. They come from different authors, eras and questions. Herzberg separates what dissatisfies from what satisfies. Pink asks where the power of money stops. McClelland classifies the needs a person seeks to satisfy. McGregor examines the assumptions managers make about their staff.

Hygiene factors and motivators (Herzberg)

In 1959, Frederick Herzberg published an interview-based study with Bernard Mausner and Barbara Snyderman: employees described the events at work that had left them very satisfied or very dissatisfied. In 1968, in the Harvard Business Review, he restated its conclusions on the basis of twelve surveys. The two lists of events do not overlap.

Motivators belong to the content of the work: achievement, recognition for work done, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, growth. When present, they produce satisfaction. Hygiene factors belong to the setting of the work: company policy, supervision, relationships, working conditions, salary, job security. When insufficient, they produce dissatisfaction. When sufficient, they produce no satisfaction.

Herzberg draws two separate scales from this. The opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction but no satisfaction, and the opposite of dissatisfaction is no dissatisfaction. The PMBOK summary also attributes dissatisfaction to insufficient motivators. The 1968 article says otherwise: without motivators, the person is not satisfied, but neither are they dissatisfied.

In practice this sets an order. Correcting a condition settles a complaint about it. Answering the complaint with praise or a team outing does nothing for the dissatisfaction. A person who complains about nothing and does not commit lacks motivators, and better conditions will not make them commit further. Herzberg answers this case by enriching the job: more responsibility and more control over one's own work. Additional tasks at the same level do not enrich it.

The project manager seldom controls the hygiene factors. Salary, the 13th-month salary and the remote-working policy belong to the line organisation or to a collective labour agreement. The project manager does control the workload within the project, the backfill for a seconded person, meeting times and equipment. The project manager refers anything beyond their reach to the person's line management.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Pink)

Daniel Pink distinguishes extrinsic rewards, salary and bonuses, from intrinsic motivations, which come from the work itself. In his view, an extrinsic reward motivates up to the point where the person considers themselves fairly paid. Beyond that point it no longer motivates. For complex work, which makes up much of project work, intrinsic motivations last longer and produce more.

Pink bases this thesis on experiments in which a contingent bonus, "if you reach this, you get that", improves performance on a mechanical task with a clear rule and worsens performance on a task that requires finding a solution. He names three intrinsic motivations. Autonomy is the desire to decide how, when and where to work: flexible hours, remote work, self-organising teams. Mastery is the desire to improve and to do things well. Purpose is the need to know that the work makes a difference. Knowing the project's vision and seeing what one's own work contributes to it meets this need.

The first question is therefore about perceived pay fairness. If the person considers themselves underpaid, Pink's model does not yet apply and the case belongs to Herzberg's hygiene factors. The two authors agree on this point: beyond a threshold, money does not buy commitment. If the pay is accepted, the project manager looks for which of the three is missing. The responses are within a project manager's reach: hand over a problem with its acceptance criteria rather than a solution to execute, set aside time to learn a tool, show who will use the result and for what.

Need theory (McClelland)

In The Achieving Society (1961), the psychologist David McClelland mainly studies the need for achievement. The book also measures two other needs, power and affiliation. Everyone is driven by a mix of the three. Their relative strength varies with the person's experience and culture: these are acquired needs.

• Achievement: the person seeks difficult but attainable goals and wants to know quickly whether they have succeeded.
• Power: the person likes to organise, influence and lead. Extra responsibility motivates them.
• Affiliation: the person seeks acceptance and belonging to a team.

The most reliable signal is what the person chooses when they have the choice. Someone who volunteers for the hardest work package and asks how they are doing leans towards achievement. Someone who asks to present to the steering committee or to arbitrate between two teams leans towards power. Someone who protects the atmosphere, avoids confrontation and prefers working in pairs leans towards affiliation.

The response follows the need. Achievement calls for measurable short-term goals and quick feedback. Power calls for a real decision that the person owns; a figurehead role does not satisfy it. Affiliation calls for pair work and recognition addressed to the team. Individual praise in a plenary meeting embarrasses a person driven by affiliation, and a person driven by power who is kept informed by a plain report feels sidelined. Among stakeholders, a business lead driven by power wants to decide. If they are only informed, they often come across as resistant in the engagement matrix.

McClelland links the strength of each need to culture. In a multilingual Swiss team, the form of recognition also varies: a thank-you that is normal in one work culture embarrasses someone from another, because it singles them out in public. The project manager asks the person how they would like to be thanked.

Theory X, Theory Y and the two Theory Zs

Douglas McGregor, a professor at MIT, described in The Human Side of Enterprise (1960) two sets of assumptions that managers make about their staff. Theory X assumes that people dislike work, seek only income and must be closely controlled. Theory Y assumes that they want to do well and take on responsibility when the work has meaning. McGregor shows that the assumption acts on what it describes: a team treated according to Theory X expects little of its work and in turn holds its management in low esteem.

The PMBOK presents X and Y as the two ends of a spectrum of employee motivation, each with its own leadership style. On the X side sits a directive, top-down style, common in production or in organisations with many hierarchical levels. On the Y side sits a style close to coaching, which encourages creativity and discussion, common in knowledge work. McGregor, for his part, describes managers' assumptions: his model is first about the person who leads.

The PMBOK extends the spectrum with a Theory Z and files two unrelated ideas under that name, one by Maslow, the other by Ouchi.

Maslow's Theory Z is not his hierarchy of needs. Ouchi's draws on large Japanese companies and pursues productivity, morale and satisfaction through job stability. A public administration where people stay for their whole career or an employer that keeps its staff for thirty years is closer to Ouchi's model. In that setting, a short-term reward weighs little against what the person expects from their career.

To apply McGregor, the project manager writes down the assumption they make about the person before choosing a response. If it is a Theory X assumption, "he only does the minimum", they test it against Herzberg: a working condition often explains the behaviour better than a character flaw.

Running the analysis

1. List the people
   The team members, then the stakeholders whose commitment matters to the project, taken from the stakeholder list or the engagement matrix.
2. Gather signals
   Record dated facts: what the person chooses, what they complain about, what they avoid. Add a one-to-one interview with open questions, modelled on Herzberg's: "Which moment in your last project gave you satisfaction? Which one made you lose heart?" In remote work, signals become scarce and the interview carries more weight. For a stakeholder the project manager has never seen at work, the interview comes first and observation follows. No row is filled in before then.
3. Rule out conditions first
   Workload, backfill, pay perceived as fair, workstation. Treat a deficient condition first. No motivator makes up for it. The correction becomes the chosen response (step 6). Review the person's row once the condition is restored.
4. Choose the model that explains the signal
   Pink when the question concerns autonomy, mastery or purpose, McClelland when the signal is a repeated choice: what the person volunteers for, what they ask for. Record the dominant need or the missing motivation.
5. Check your own assumption
   Write down what you assume about the person. An unchecked Theory X assumption leads back to step 3.
6. Choose a response and what to avoid
   The response must be within the project's reach. Anything that concerns salary or career goes to the person's line management.
7. Record and review
   Enter the response chosen for a stakeholder in the engagement matrix. Review the whole table at each change of phase. Review a person's row as soon as the chosen response has produced nothing after a few weeks.

What makes the analysis fail

Labelling people

Everyone carries McClelland's three needs in shifting proportions. A label such as "he's an X" stops observation at the first signal. A personality test gives a score, without the interview that tells what the person cares about.

Answering a hygiene complaint with a motivator

A team that has worked uncompensated overtime for a month does not regain its drive after a team dinner. Herzberg predicts this result: as long as the overtime goes on, it keeps producing dissatisfaction, whatever recognition is offered.

Paying for work that requires thinking

A bonus tied to a delivery date on design work pushes people to deliver on the date, not to find the right solution. Pink describes this effect. On this kind of work, pay judged fair and autonomy produce more.

Projecting your own motivation

A project manager driven by achievement assumes that everyone wants a difficult task. A person driven by affiliation experiences it as being set apart from the team. Asking the person what they expect from the task corrects the projection.

Confusing the two Theory Zs

Answering an expectation of meaning with a promise of stability, or the reverse, comes from this confusion. Maslow speaks of what motivates a person, Ouchi of what an organisation offers.

Promising what the project cannot deliver

In a matrix organisation, salary, promotion and the remote-working policy belong to the line organisation. A response promised by the project manager and refused by line management damages trust more than no response at all.

Letting the table circulate

A row stating what motivates a named person is personal data within the meaning of the Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP). The table stays with whoever leads the team. It goes neither into a project wiki nor into steering committee minutes.

AI considerations

A conversational assistant prepares the interviews: a set of open questions per model, neutral rephrasings of a complaint heard. From anonymised notes, it proposes for each signal the model that would explain it and a competing interpretation, which forces a decision instead of the confirmation of a first impression. It also generates forms of recognition suited to each need, which the project manager sorts according to what the project can deliver.

It must not infer a person's motivation from their e-mails, messages or activity data. That is profiling within the meaning of the FADP (art. 5 let. f), and article 26 of Ordinance 3 to the Employment Act (OLT 3) prohibits systems intended to monitor the behaviour of workers at their workplace. An assistant that has never seen the person at work produces plausible labels, and a plausible label is harder to challenge than an absurd one. Interview notes about a named person do not go to an online service.

Examples

Replacement of a health insurer's claims management software, three months before go-live. The concept illustrated: four people on the same project, four different responses.

The first row had been recorded as "unmotivated", a Theory X assumption. The question about working conditions revealed a double workload, and the response changed from close supervision to backfill.

Visualisations

Each model has its own shape: two separate scales for Herzberg, three motivations for Pink, three needs for McClelland, a spectrum and two Theory Zs outside it for McGregor. Drawing them side by side and unconnected prevents adding them up into a single model. The deliverable remains a table: one row per person, dated and reviewed.

Cost

Tooling

A spreadsheet or a restricted-access document is enough for the table. Stakeholder rows go into the tool that already holds the engagement matrix or the stakeholder register. Regular one-to-one interviews are the main tool for gathering signals.

The engagement surveys run by HR give an anonymised trend per team. They locate a problem with conditions without saying whom it affects. Commercial personality tests rest on other models than these. The Johari window complements the analysis. A motivation that the person keeps to themselves sits in their hidden area: only the person can state it, hence the interview.

Sources

• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), 8th edition, PMI: §2.6.2.4 places motivation in team leadership, and Section 5, under the entry Motivation models, describes the four models and their use, matching the reward to the person.
• Herzberg, F., Mausner, B. and Snyderman, B. B. (1959), The Motivation to Work, New York, Wiley: the interview study from which Herzberg derives hygiene factors and motivators.
• Herzberg, F. (1968, repr. 2003), One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?, Harvard Business Review: the author's own account of hygiene factors and motivators, of the two separate scales and of job enrichment.
• Douglas M. McGregor, MIT Sloan School of Management, Institute for Work and Employment Research: MIT's profile of the author of The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), which presents Theories X and Y as two ways for managers to see their staff.
• Maslow, A. H. (1969), Theory Z, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1(2), 31-47: Maslow's Theory Z, distinct from Ouchi's. The article is not freely available in full text.
• Ouchi, W. G. (1981), Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge, Addison-Wesley: Ouchi's Theory Z, an organisational model inspired by Japanese companies.
• McClelland, D. C. (1961), The Achieving Society, Princeton, D. Van Nostrand: the three needs, achievement, affiliation and power, measured in the stories of school readers from many countries, and their variation from one society to another.
• Pink, D. (2009), The Puzzle of Motivation, TED: the author's account of the limits of contingent bonuses and of the three intrinsic motivations, autonomy, mastery and purpose.
• Swiss Confederation, Ordinance 3 to the Employment Act (OLT 3), SR 822.113: art. 26 on the prohibition of systems intended to monitor the behaviour of workers at their workplace.
• Swiss Confederation, Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), SR 235.1: art. 5 let. f for the definition of profiling, which covers work performance and behaviour.