The Drive to Comprehend. The drive to comprehend motivates many employees to higher
performance.
For years, it has been known that setting stretch goals can greatly impact
performance.
Organizations need to ensure that the various job roles provide
employees with simulation that challenges
them or allow them to grow.
Employees don’t want to do meaningless things or monotonous job. If the job
didn’t provide them with personal meaning and fulfillment, they will leave the company.
The Drive to Defend. The drive to defend is often the hardest lever to pull. This drive manifests itself
as a quest to create and promote justice, fairness, and the ability to express ourselves freely. The
organizational lever for this basic human motivator is resource allocation. This drive is also met through an
employee feeling connection to a company. If their companies are merged with another, they will show
worries.
Two studies have been done to find the relations between the four drives and motivation. The article
based on two studies was finally published in Harvard Business Review. Most authors’ arguments have laid
emphasis on four-drive theory and actual investigations. Using the results of the surveys which executed
with employees from Fortune 500 companies and other two global businesses (P company and H company),
the article mentions about how independent drives influence employees’ behavior and how organizational
levers boost employee motivation.
The studies show that the drive to bond is most related to fulfilling commitment, while the drive to
comprehend is most related to how much effort employees spend on works. The drive to acquire can be
satisfied by a rewarding system which ties rewards to performances, and gives the best people opportunities
for advancement. For drive to defend, a study on the merging of P company and H company shows that
employees in former company show an unusual cooperating attitude.
The key to successfully motivate employees is to meet all drives. Each of these drives is important if
we are to understand employee motivation. These four drives, while not necessarily the only human drives,
are the ones that are central to unified understanding of modern human life.
