Negative Reinforcement and Motivation

¶ … organizational culture and in particularly emphasize the need to design a better Strategic Intelligence, wherein motivation, foresight, vision and partnering are united in a cohesive alignment that fosters leadership and knowledge building (Maccoby et al., 2014, p. 62). In my current organization, co-workers are all too often motivated by selfish principles -- they want the lightest schedule, they want to avoid heavy lifting, they try to get the ear of the managers so as to improve their own working condition at the expense of others. This type of behavior is reflected in management as well. The culture is very dog-eat-dog, and I feel that in a hospital, the culture should be more caring, with more emphasis on solidarity than on selfish desires.

Thus, in my organization, I would promote a culture that is rooted in teamwork and putting patients first; I would promote happy interactions with co-workers and patients by supporting people who embrace the spirit of the law rather than the letter. I would want to give incentives to people to motivate, but I would always want to encourage a philosophy of servant leadership, that puts the needs of others before the needs of oneself. I would want everyone to continue education so that they can have healthy foresight and vision about how to lead and how to deal with particular circumstances that might arise in the hospital. All of this would really help to solidify the workplace environment and lead to better quality of care being provided to patients and to helping nurses achieve a more positive experience at work overall.

Unit IV Essay 2

Three theories on motivation are Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, Equity Theory, and Reinforcement Theory. Maslow's hierarchy of needs posits that individuals' basic needs must be met before they can proceed to achieve more substantial goals in life. For instance, if persons do not have access to shelter, food, or love, they will be unable to self-actualize and become self-sufficient. They must proceed up the ladder of self-actualization through the process of having these basic needs met first. Thus, motivation becomes a need fulfilling exercise.

Equity Theory holds that perception of effort and reward is what motivates people. For instance, if person A is given a 2% raise while person B. is given a 5% raise, person A may feel slighted and lose motivation. Other persons may take different perspectives on equity ratios, and there is no universal way in which this theory is applied, as there are many factors that can influence a perspective.

Reinforcement Theory states that different types of reinforcement will motivate people -- positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment and so on. Positive reinforcement consists of a reward for performing the appropriate behavior. Negative reinforcement consists of a punishment for inappropriate behavior (Theories of Motivation, 2015).