Book Review: Intrinsic Motivation at Work: Building Energy and Commitment

This book review is part of a series that covers the topic of Motivation. The Official SelfGrowth.com Guide to Motivation is Keith A. Shaw. Motivation refers to the initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of behavior which demonstrates desire and willingness to do something.

Intrinsic Motivation at Work: Building Energy and Commitment is a valuable resource for people interested in motivation, and it is available through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

From the Publisher
Management styles of the past were often based on bureaucratic models requiring compliance from workers. Today, many employees must "work smart" and make their own decisions. This means that new motivation models must depend on "intrinsic" motivation, based on psychological rewards workers get from the work itself. In this comprehensive and accessible book, Thomas describes his new model for psychological empowerment, based on four rewards that encourage self-management: a sense of meaningfulness, a sense of choice, a sense of competence or quality, and a sense of progress. He outlines how managers can identify areas of low satisfaction for workers and set up rewards to reenergize them.

Barnes & Noble
What motivates people to do their best work in any endeavor they undertake? Management theory and practice has traditionally focused on elements that Kenneth Thomas calls ‘extrinsic motivators’: pay, benefits, status, bonuses, commissions, pension plans, expense budgets, and the like. While these are powerful motivators, particularly in command/control job situations where workers have little or no say in how the job is managed, by themselves they are no longer enough. In today’s organizations, where managers expect workers and teams to self-manage their work, intrinsic rewards are essential.
This breakthrough book provides the first comprehensive treatment of intrinsic motivation in the workplace—the psychological rewards workers get directly from the work itself—offering clear advice on how companies can harness its tremendous power to develop a more committed, self-managing workforce. Written in an engaging, accessible style and grounded in solid academic research, the book provides a diagnostic framework for addressing problems of intrinsic motivation and essential ways to build it. Thomas describes four intrinsic rewards needed to energize today’s employees:

•A sense of purpose or meaningfulness •The ability to choose how the tasks are performed •A sense of competence from performing work activities well, and •A sense of progress.

Thomas offers detailed information on these rewards, together with the building blocks leaders and workers can use to create them. Finally, he spells out the practical implications for executives, managers, and employees themselves. Intrinsic Motivation at Work makes a major contribution to the topic of work motivation—one that is based on a keen understanding of the changing requirements of today’s workplace and the limitations of other motivational models. The paradigm and practical approaches this path-breaking book provides will help business leaders build motivation at every level of their organizations.

About the Author
Kenneth W. Thomas, Ph.D., is a professor of management at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He has also served on the management faculties at UCLA, Temple University, and the University of Pittsburgh, where he was director of the doctoral program. He is internationally known for his research and training materials on conflict management. He is the author of several training instruments, including the bestselling Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, and is featured in the prize-winning training video Dealing with Conflict.