Filed under: Frontal Lobe, Schooled. | Tags: Herzberg Theory, Needs, Organizational Behavior, Snails, Wants
Ok, so I am counteracting the immaturity displayed in the previous post with some intellectual discourse regarding a motivational theory I learned in my Behavior Organization class today. Actually, I’m surprised I learned anything at all because I felt like such a zombie this morning. I had only gotten (did u know gotten is not actually a word?) 4 hours of sleep writing an article review that I obliterated with procrastination. How I stayed awake this morning is a shock to me.
While I was dozing off I thought about snails and the stretch of time. I was commiserating with myself on how time seemed to drag on into infinite seconds and how my eyelids felt SO heavy. I imagined a snail inching across my eyelids leaving behind a gross trail of snail juice; he’s pulling down the blinds and forcing my eyes to close, so that I could finally go into a deep sleep. And then I started to do the cross-eyed head-bobbing jiggle, and was tremendously saved by a 10 minute break to get free iced coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts!!!! That’s when I learned about this theory.
The Herzberg “Two-Factor” Theory is basically explained in the following equation:
Satisfied 
Not Dissatisfied
This may seem confusing at first, but it simply means that there is a significant difference between the factors involved with not being unhappy, and being happy. There’s a lot more meat to this theory, with specific applications intended for the workplace (you can read about it here)–however, I find myself applying this concept to my life outside the career frame of mind.
There’s a difference between your extrinsic and intrinsic values that need to be identified. What are your basic primitive needs? Food, water, good health, and family. These are your extrinsic needs. Having these basic essentials around doesn’t really make you giddily happy. However, without them, you probably wouldn’t be so happy. Thus, following Herzberg’s theory, having these basic needs would not make you unhappy.
On the flip side, the things that motivate and drive us to succeed are the fuels of our ambition. This is derived from our human nature to get what we WANT, rather than need. If you want that fancy BMW, that probably means you want recognition–a type of intrinsic need. Achievement, self-actualization, responsibility, true love–these are all types of intrinsic needs, or rather, wants. We don’t need these things to survive in life, but we definitely want them so that we could feel important.
Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out into cyberspace because I feel that it is important to differentiate wants vs. needs.
I need food to survive.
I want double-fried curly fries soaked in ranch dressing and sprinkled with bacon bits.
I need money, and thus a job to have security in life.
I want TONS of money, so that I can buy all the Gucci bags, diamond jewelry, and weekend trips to Europe just for the hell of it.
Those are just very basic examples. This concept is easy, isn’t it? And yet so hard to deal with at the same time….
All I know is that I am damned by this theory because I now realize that I am neither happy, nor am I not unhappy. I am just floating in limbo. Or the line that goes through the equal sign.
So I’m taking this class called Organizational Behavior. It’s a business requirement that basically involves identifying our place within a business societal culture and organization, and how to deal with conflicting personalities that may inhibit the “team” from getting things done. The course is heavy with group exercises and psychological backing.
Anyway, we did this one group exercise that tested how our perception of our selfs, line up with how OTHERS perceive us. We rated what was important in terms of career goals on a scale of 1-9:
Top Management – being a director of a department, or CEO of a company
Competence – being an expert in one’s field; having a high degree of knowledge in a skilled area
Leisure – having the time to enjoy extracurricular activities outside of work
Risk – having a large growth potential with the expectancy that financial loss may occur
Security – having a consistent, steady job with good benefits
Affiliation – to please and make others happy while having a large circle of friends
Independence – being able to be one’s own boss and work independently, having no one to report to
Creativity – being able to produce innovative works
Analysis – being able to be very detailed, analytical, and thorough with one’s own work
For my top choices I selected Top Management as #1, Competence #2, Leisure #3, and Creativity as #4. The others in the group (all who I had just met) had to guess what my top career goals were, in other words, what they perceived my goals to be. The results varied across the board. One thought Affiliation was my top career priority. I was kind of shocked, but could see how I might be perceived that way. I certainly don’t want to be perceived as a person that wants to cater to others and make them happy, just for the benefits of having their friendship. I must remember, however, that this was only one person’s perception of me and he had selected it because I seemed friendly. Anyways, the others had picked out other things such as Top Management, Leisure, and Creativity as my #1’s instead. One person said he picked Leisure as my top priority from the mere fact that he knew I was from California, haha. Because apparently his perception of Californians is that we all just love to lay back and chillllllll, dude. Which might be true, since I put Leisure as my #3.
It was a fun and enlightening exercise. Because we all know that everyone looks at each other; everybody makes a judgment. Our brain has the most natural and INHERENT tendency to automatically categorize and file away first impressions within the first 3 seconds of meeting a person for the first time. All the information from what they’re wearing, to where they’re from, how they talk, what their body language is, and how good-looking they are is subconsciously filed away and categorized under the stereotypes created by man and society.
So according to the 4 people that I JUST met in that class, I come off as a lazy bum that wants to make all of my friends happy while being the top creative manager at the same time. Hmmmm……..
Everybody struggles. Everyone has a battle to fight–if not many. The things that momentarily bring us down and make us temporarily suffer, those are the things that will ultimately make us stronger for the next spout and bump in the road. Unfortunately these things seem to be continuous and cyclical. Whether you’re fighting for your health or you’re just fighting for the truth–the truth is that a battle ends with another battle. All we can really do is alter the reality of the situation so as to bring a falsified hope out of this painful scenario. This is what we call optimism.
Allison Chang 