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ACKNOWLEDGMENT: This is a precis of an article of the same title, which was originally published in Management Review, November 1995, pp. 56-60. The author was Dean R. Spitzer, president of Dean R. Spitzer and Associates Inc., Lakeland, Florida, USA.
Demotivators defined
Why do employees who really want to feel enthusiastic and energetic about their work end up withholding effort, showing little initiative, arriving late, extending breaks, criticizing management, stealing and even taking part in violence, vandalism and sabotage? An important factor is the presence of demotivators in the workplace.
Demotivators are those nagging, daily occurrences that frustrate employees and cause them to reduce, consciously or unconsciously, the amount of productive energy they use in their jobs. Demotivators are counterproductive practices that have crept into an organization and become part of its normal operations more as a result of neglect than design. Demotivators exist because they are allowed to and they remain because little has been done about them.
Too many managers are isolated from the daily frustrations of the rank-and-file workforce and simply do not appreciate the seriousness of the demotivation problem. They underestimate the importance of what they consider to be "minor irritations" and fail to realize that a demotivator tends to affect people far out of proportion to its actual size. In time, demotivators can even harm employees' health.
Competition for scarce resources
Every organization seems to have its own ways of demotivating employees. The following are some of the most potent demotivators common to most companies:
Politics
There is a political side to almost every organization. It involves competition for power, influence, resources, favor and scarce promotions. It usually operates according to unwritten rules of success that send subtle, ambiguous and anxiety-producing messages to employees about politically "correct" behaviors such as whom to fear, whom to appease, whom to avoid and whom to blame.
A few employees may pride themselves on their political savvy. But organizational politics leaves most people feeling helpless and demoralized.
Politics thrives on subjectivity and secretiveness. Defeating it therefore demands...