Motivation: three levels

“The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is to increase the productivity of knowledge work and the knowledge worker.”

                            - Peter F. Drucker

The C3 Management Framework describes three levels of interaction between managers and subordinates — each with its own approach to motivation and its own impact on organizational performance.

Each has advantages and disadvantages.

• Compliance (C1) — we focus on compelling people to do what we want them to do. Advantages: simple. Disadvantages: requires constant monitoring so it is expensive to sustain and it can obtain only a minimum level of performance.

• Cooperation (C2) — we focus on motivating people to want to do what we want them to do. Advantages: requires less supervision, can foster higher levels of performance. Disadvantages: does not tap all the talent and passion people have to offer.

• Contribution (C3) — we focus on inspiring people to do all they can to help us achieve our common goals, including helping us develop those goals. Advantages: requires very little supervision, fosters optimum involvement, development and performance. Disadvantages: requires mission-centered leaders who see themselves as stewards of the dignity, talent and potential of the people in their charge, and who see the development of people as the key factor in organizational performance and development.

In summary, obtaining compliance is the simplest approach — although with the end of slavery and the subsequent development of labor law, many of the most draconian methods once used by ogre employers are no longer available.

More important, from a practical perspective within the constraints of law and human decency, the best one can expect is a minimum level of performance. In today’s “knowledge economy,” that is generally a critical competitive disadvantage.

Copyright © 2007 by Owen Phelps, Ph.D., Midwest Leadership Institute. All rights reserved.

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