Better Place to Work. A: A New Sense of Motivation Leading to High Productivity (Ama Management Briefing)

177 Pages·1997·1.6 MB·English

by  Adolf Hassen

A BETTER PLACE TO WORK
A New Sense of Motivation Leading to High Productivity
Adolf Haasen and Gordon E Shea
AMA Management Briefing
AMA MEMBERSHIP PUBLICATIONS DIVISION
AMERICAN MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION

A Better Place to Work : A New Sense of
title: Motivation Leading to High Productivity
AMA Management Briefing
author: Haasen, Adolf.; Shea, Gordon F.
publisher: AMACOM Books
isbn10 | asin: 0814423639
print isbn13: 9780814423639
ebook isbn13: 9780585019505
language: English
Employee motivation--Case studies, Labor
subject productivity--Case studies, Organizational
effectiveness--Case studies.
publication date: 1997
lcc: HF5549.5.M63H33 1997eb
ddc: 658.3/14
Employee motivation--Case studies, Labor
subject: productivity--Case studies, Organizational
effectiveness--Case studies.
Page ii
For information on how to order additional copies of this publication,
see page 98.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haasen, Adolf.
A better place to work: how a new understanding of motivation leads
to higher productivity / Adolf Haasen, Gordon F Shea.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8144-2363-9
1. Employee motivation-Case studies. 2. Labor productivity-Case
studies. 3. Organizational effectiveness-Case studies. I. Shea, Gordon
F II. Title.
HF5549.5.M63H33 1997
658.3'14-dc21
97-7163
CIP
© 1997 AMA Membership Publications Division
American Management Association, New York.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
This Management Briefing has been distributed to all members
enrolled in the American Management Association.
This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of AMA Membership
Publications Division, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Printing number
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Page iii
To our friends at
EM Industries
who inspired this book
Page v
Contents
Introduction vii
1 Jamestown Advanced Products, Inc.: Where 1
Workers Run the Shop
2 The Power of Motivation 8
3 Southwest Airlines: The Culture of "LUV" 13
4 The Apex Group, Inc.: A Learning Organization 22
5 A Closer Look at Motivational Theory 31
6 L-S Electro-Galvanizing Company (L-SE): A 49
Unique Achievement in Labor-Management
Cooperation
7 Opel Eisenach GMBH: Creating a High- 59
Productivity Workplace
8 North American Draeger: Changing the 69
Traditional Workplace
9 Labor and Management in the New Workplace 76
10W L. Gore & Associates: A Company of Leaders 80
Page vi
11 Web Industries: A Commitment to Ownership 87
Conclusion 92
Page vii
Introduction
In our evolving global economy, we tend to look to capital and
technology for competitive advantage. Effective organizations are also
critical to global success. This realization has led us to various
approaches for redesigning our operations. However, in the processes
of "restructuring" and "downsizing"-tactics that provide our
companies with leaner structures and flatter hierarchies-we often tend
to overlook the fact that our people are the most important source of
competitive advantage.
In many instances, the way we have made our operations more cost-
effective has been to lay off workers-based on the simple notion that
people equal costs. Unfortunately, we fail to realize that the success of
cost cutting comes at the price of serious motivational problems for
the remaining employees. The workforce is burdened with new
responsibilities, and, at the same time, must cope with the uncertainty
of further job cuts. Employee loyalty disappears and people's attitude
becomes one of "to hell with this company." A recent AMA survey of
companies that went through downsizing shows that employee morale
declined in 86 percent of those companies. This leads to a longterm
vulnerability for many of the restructured corporations.
In their mission statements, many corporations affirm that "people are
our most important asset." Admittedly there are numerous examples
of sincere efforts to promote participatory management and people
involvement, encourage teamwork,
Page viii
and otherwise draw on the assets latent in human energy and talent.
And more and more companies share ownership with their employees
in the hope of gaining higher levels of productivity. However, we
often do not comprehend that the task of turning employee
involvement into competitive advantage requires profound changes in
the role and philosophy of management, corporate values,
organizational hierarchy, and labor relations. If these changes are not
in place and, consequently, decisions are still handed down from the
top, employee motivation suffers and productivity remains at low
levels.
We need a different approach to unlock people's productivity. This
may be an opportune time to revisit the principles of motivation, to
see what really energizes people and lets them take ownership of their
jobs. Since the 1950s and 1960s, when Abraham Maslow, Frederick
Herzberg, and David McClelland developed their theories of
motivation, we have made significant advances in our understanding
of what energizes people in the workplace. For example, we now
focus on the difference between "extrinsic" and "intrinsic" approaches
and we understand how people's "self," their way of being, influences
their motivational orientation.
This new understanding of motivation is the starting point for the
powerful new concepts of A Better Place to Work, a workplace of high
employee involvement and productivity. At the same time, we offer a
fresh look at eight unique organizations, companies with unusual
workplace structures that have given substance and credibility to the
research on motivation.
It was a memorable and inspiring experience for both of us to travel
around the country and speak to managers and frontline workers at
these companies. The eight case studies included in this book were
chosen to represent a diversity of businessessome small (80 to 150
workers), others large (2,000 to 6,000 employees); some in metal
fabrication or steel production, others in automotive manufacture or
high-technology product areas. In all our visits, we held roundtable
discussions with people at different levels in the organization.
Questions centered on job