FOUR DRIVE THEORY

The Four Drive Model of Employee Motivation was presented by Lawrence and Nohria in 2002. The model is a holistic way of looking at employee motivation beyond the typical pay model that is prevalent in the corporate world today.

The Four Drive theory is based on research that shows four underlying drives the drive to Acquire & Achieve, to Bond & Belong, to Learn & Comprehend and to Define & Defend. Each of these drives is important if we are to understand employee motivation.

While companies typically focus on the drive to Acquire & Achieve (i.e., base pay, incentives, etc), the other three drives play an integral part in fully motivating employees. Thus, the new theory provides a model for employers to look at when they are trying to find ways to increase employee engagement and motivation.

The Four Drive model shows that team building relates directly to the drive to Bond & Belong which in turn can influence an employees motivation. Thus conducting a team building session should no longer be just about having fun for a few hours, it should help a companys employees positively build and enhance the bonds they have with their coworkers.

The drive to Learn & Comprehend highlights the fact that we perform better when we are not bored or not challenged and learning on the job. Instead of trying to automate and simplify all work, leaders should look at how they can enhance or create challenges for employees and provide them opportunities to learn and grow. With this in mind, organizations must look at how they are structuring their jobs, their projects, their incentives.

Organizations do not typically think of the drive to Define & Defend when they are thinking about motivation. The Four Drive model indicates that a companys reputation, its moral bearing, the culture and what it does can all be significant factors in how motivated employees are. Think of the different motivation an employee would have working for a pharmaceutical company that is providing life saving medicines for people or a one that is out
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to maximize shareholder returns. Which do you think would have the more motivated workforce? In order to maximize motivation leaders need to provide an opportunity for employees to satisfy the four drives: Acquire & Achieve, to Bond & Belong, to Learn & Comprehend, and to Define & Defend. Leaders can begin to influence and start to fulfil each of these drives by using some of the systems and processes they already have in place. Alterations and enhancements to those systems and processes can help the organization be one in which employees can satisfy their drives and become highly motivated!

The connection between each of the four drives and the different organizational systems/processes that impact them can be explained as follows:

1) Achieve & Acquire:

This drive is primarily satisfied through a companys Reward System. This drive is met when companies have a total reward system that: highly differentiates top performers from average performers and average performers from poor performers; clearly ties rewards to performance; recognition is given for outstanding performance; pay is above competitive benchmarks in the city/industry; and top employees are promoted from within.

2) Bond & Belong:

This drive is mostly met through an Organizations Culture. Organizations whos culture is one that: embraces teamwork; encourages the development of friendships and bonding; one in which employees can depend on their peers to help them; a culture that values collaboration; a culture that celebrates and shares; and a culture that is focused on the employee first are crucial to this drive being met.

3) Learn & Comprehend:

This drive is fulfilled primarily through Job and Organizational Structure. Organizations need to ensure that the various job roles within the company provide employees with stimulation that challenges them or allows them to grow. Job roles that satisfy this drive should: be seen as important in the organization; jobs should provide
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personal meaning and fulfillment; roles should engender a feeling of contribution to the organization; organizational structures that provide growth opportunities within the company; learning offerings (training, seminars, etc) that provide employees with new skills and knowledge, job sharing/rotational opportunities that can provide new challenges are the key to fulfilling this particular drive.

4) Define & Defend: This drive is met mostly through an employee feeling alignment and connection to the organization. This can be done through a companys Vision/Reputation and their Performance Management System. Organizations that have a strong vision or positive reputation in the marketplace can help create that alignment with employees. The company should be perceived to be: fair; providing a valued service or good; ethical; and good stewards. Organization performance management systems can also help through giving insight into the companys vision. Performance management system should be one that is: open and transparent; perceived to be fair; provides direction; and that is trusted by employees.

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How the drives will cause emotion in the employee???

The four 'drives' are universally innate, all humans from all walks of life will express these characteristics in one way or another.

The drives are neither dependant on one another nor are each of them superior or more important than the other.

The four drive theory draws current neuroscience knowledge to explain how drives translate into goal-directed effort. According to the four drives theory, emotions are immediately drawn from a particular drive.

For example, if you come to work one day to see a man sitting in your office char, you might feel worried or curious, or both. These emotions are automatically created by one or more of your four drives.

These emotions drawn from the drives cause us to act in the work place.

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What great leaders need to do:

Rightfully or not, many employees look to the company to provide them their motivation for work. While many of these motivations are inherently in a company, good leaders know that they have to work at it constantly to ensure that they are satisfying all four drives.

1) Focus on all 4 Drives:

It is important to understand that all the good work that a company or leader does in these four areas can be ruined if one of the four drives is lacking. Research shows that weakness on fulfilling one of the 4-Drives castes a negative halo on how the company or leader performs on all the other 3 drives. It is important then for a leader to ensure that they are identifying and addressing any issues that they see in any of the four drive areas.

2) Individualize motivation:
It is also important to know that individual employees each have a unique 4-Drive Motivational profile. In other words, some employees will respond or require greater satisfaction of the A drive, while others will focus in on the C drive (or B or D). Each employee will perceive how the company or leader is performing on these differently. Good leaders are ones who understand those differences and can focus specific employees on the satisfiers of their specific needs.

3) Communicate effectively:
Leaders need to be able to effectively communicate how their systems, policies and structure align with the four drives. In other words, they need to be able to explain to map out the connections between what the company is doing or providing and how that would satisfy one or more of the drives. For instance, a leader could discuss the reason that they are sponsoring a community service event is not only to help the community (drive D) but also to provide an opportunity for employees to get to know each other and their families (drive B) and to give them a chance to learn a new skill (drive C).

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4) Experiment:
Good leaders need to constantly look for ways of enhancing each of the four drives. This is an ongoing commitment that requires leaders to be focused on looking for different ways in which they can provide the opportunities for employees to satisfy their needs. They should implement new structures and processes and see how they work.

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CONCLUSION:

The four drive theory is heavily based on emotional intelligence, therefore gives a deeper and more holistic understanding of emotional intelligence.

The theory is far from complete as many argue that other drives such as personality and social identity play a larger role in the emotions and proceeding actions of people and employees.

The most important part in workplaces analysis of the four drive theory is to understand and ensure that a balanced opportunity to fulfil the drives to acquire, bond, learn and defend are provided.

This opportunity comes with two main recommendations, one is that workplaces offer condition suitable for employees to fulfil all four drives, and the other is that the fulfilment of these drives is kept in balance, that organisations should avoid too much or to little opportunity to achieve one of the four drives

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Bibliography:

1.

Driven:

How

Human

Nature

Shapes

Our

Choices

by Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria

2.

www.lanterngroup.com

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