• Well, not everyone cares about baseball or the local team.How is that going to be seen as a reward, much less affect motivation?I have seen this many times.A company provides employees rewards for jobs well done and the rewards are not really what the employees desire.The rewards even can become a joke.Remember that sometimes the most valued outcomes might be intrinsic.A simple Great job could make someone’s day.What intrinsic rewards do you want from your job?Are you getting them?How does that affect your motivation?The motivations of people in the workplace are different.Some people are more highly motivated than others.Not everyone necessarily wants the same outcomes from their work.Not everyone necessarily feels fairly treated, valued, and rewarded.There are many things that can affect motivation beyond what we have discussed, such as difficulties in one’s personal life, health issues, anxieties, frustrations, stress, or even psychodynamic issues from one’s upbringing.These are factors about which we might have no clue.Seek to understand your own motivations.Use your knowledge of motivation to try and understand the effectiveness of those for whom you work.If you are a manager, or become a manager, perhaps the insights here will make you more effective.Beware the Unwritten Rulesof the WorkplaceJonas was excited about his new position.He had been invited to join the practice of the top law firm in the city.The senior partner had told him that he would be considered for partnership in a few years.He enjoyed his work and his colleagues.Two weeks after beginning work in the new practice, the senior partner called Jonas into her office and motioned him to the window overlooking the parking lot.Is that your ’57 Chevy out there? questioned the senior partner.Jonas answered, Sure is.I prefer to drive it instead of garaging it.That’s fine, replied the senior partner, just don’t drive it here and park it in our parking lot.Although this might seem unreasonable, we intuitively know the reality and pervasiveness of group norms.Norms do not disappear as we move through life.Norms are behavioral standards that evolve in groups and influence the behavior of group members.You violate group norms at your own risk.If you are new to the workplace and you are working harder than others around you, you might be violating a performance norm.If so, a coworker might give you a friendly hint, Hey, slow down.You’ll make us all look bad. Failure to adjust will lead to increased pressure from your coworkers and the danger of being alienated.Mayo found that workers could produce more than they chose to produce.Workers informally determined a performance standard and did not let on to management that they could do more.Workplace norms can develop about appropriate dress, speech, quality of work, quantity of work, hours expended at work, and on and on.Not every behavior in the workplace has a norm, just those that have evolved for whatever reason as being important to the group.1 Some norms are more important than others.Sometimes a norm that has existed for a long time can transition to a rule or regulation, such as a dress code that is put in writing.Furthermore, norms vary from workplace to workplace, group to group, and situation to situation.Explicit norms usually are not hard to recognize.You are told what they are or they are readily apparent.Scarlett wanted to make a good impression on the first day of her new job at a major financial firm in Chicago.Office hours were 8 a.m.Scarlett got up early and was in the office by 7:30 a.m.As she walked in, her new boss snorted, Where have you been?You’re late.I thought our hours are from eight to five? Scarlett questioned.Her new supervisor looked at her, smiled, and said, Yes, technically you are right but no one here works those hours.You’ll find most of us here from seven to six.Implicit norms, conversely, can be difficult to recognize.We might not even know that we have violated them until it is too late.The first time I gave this presentation, I arrived five minutes early.My boss was waiting for me.You’re late, he said.Now imagine that my boss had not been there to clarify this norm.What would the general’s secretary have thought of me?What would his other administrative staff have thought?The young officer is disrespectful, doesn’t understand how we do things, doesn’t care.In short, I’d have risked creating a negative impression because of an implicit norm that I did not know existed.Both of these examples involved time and the same behavior, being late. In the Chicago firm, the norm was explicit and would have been easy to identify even if Sharon’s boss had not pointed it out.In my Air Force story, the norm was implicit and I could have created a bad impression by my ignorance or if I had not taken my boss’s counsel.Ethan was a little nervous.As a young analyst, he had been invited to give a presentation for the first time at a meeting of the senior management team.Roger could see this was going to go on for a while.After another ten minutes, they concluded their discussion.Ethan moved back to the podium and completed his presentation.We don’t need people in our organization who lack common sense.Ethan probably never was told the real reason he lost his job, but rumors probably would have circulated in the organization about what happened.Those rumors would clarify this norm for other employees.Although Ethan’s situation might seem unfair and extreme, these things happen.Because Ethan was giving a presentation to the senior leadership team for the first time, Ethan’s boss should have prepped him on what to expect, what to do, what not to do.Ethan, however, also has responsibility here.He is the one giving the presentation.Ethan should have asked his boss if there was anything he needed to know or should be aware of when giving a presentation to the senior team.Furthermore, Ethan could have checked with his peers and others who might have already had this experience.If Ethan’s office had an administrative assistant or secretary who had been there for a while, the secretary might know the ropes or know a secretary for a member of the senior team who would know them.Understanding that informal norms might exist in a situation is a first step toward identifying them.The motto of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Be prepared, is a useful guide.The more you know about a situation you are getting into, the more effectively you can perform.Norms are about behaviors, and are not about your feelings or your thoughts.2 People need informal rules to be able to work together.The norms that affect us the most are those of our immediate work groups or teams, the people with whom we work and interact.Imagine the chaos if we eliminated every workplace norm from where we work.Picture an office where there are no norms for things such as dress, appropriate speech and conduct, or performance.There also might be norms about what we say in public that are different from what we say in private.You might or might not be able to express that opinion to your fellow workers.You might want to be careful, however, about with whom and in which situations you express this opinion.There usually are some thoughts we have as individuals that are best left unsaid in the workplace.A group might or might not care what you actually think as long as your behavior is consistent with that of other group members.The Air Force has a rule about members not having beards.Some of our greatest military leaders wore beards.So what’s the big deal?I remember being an Air Force Academy cadet and watching protests against the Vietnam War.It mattered not how we as cadets felt about the war or whether we agreed with the protests on our nation’s campuses.These were matters about which we could not take a public position as long as we were serving in the military.It might seem disingenuous to think one way and then say something else.More likely it is not a matter of saying something else but rather not expressing an opinion that could be problematic.We make many decisions about what we give and do not give to the organizations of which we are a part.Each of us has an unwritten psychological contract with the organizations in which we participate, regardless of whether we have ever thought about this contract.These compromises between thought and deed are adjustments we make as part of that psychological contract.We can be ourselves in the workplace.We just need to understand the rules by which we play, learn, and work with others to get along and be effective.The nature of norms varies by group, type of organization, and level in the organization, with norms becoming stronger as you advance in an organization.Sheryl Sandberg stated in Lean In, The blunt truth is that men still run the world.3 In the past two decades, significant numbers of women have moved into leadership positions in corporate America.They continue to do so in many organizations.Where men comprise most of the groups in organizations, the norms are more masculine.In organizations or parts of organizations where women are dominant, the norms are more feminine.Does it matter whether a man or a woman leads an organization?Not to the bottom line.It makes no difference to the bottom line whether the leader is a woman or a man.4Even so, a disproportionate percentage of women drop out of corporate America as they near the top of the corporate ladder.Being aware of norms should make this easier.There are social engagements, dinners, parties, plus the work that must get done, the decisions that must be made.You will entertain, you will be at these functions, you will see that our main client has a great time.When you are on all the time, disconnects between thought and deed are more likely to be revealed.Your actions must fit the group norms or you will not remain part of the group.The question becomes, At what cost? Some women endure very stressful working conditions that impact health and productivity just to keep a job.Changing norms can be difficult, but the costs here impact not only the individual but also the organization.Groups enforce conformity and tend to ostracize those who deviate.6 Most people go along with most group norms.When the group norm and an individual’s personal values conflict, that individual must make a decision.Jack was part of a team working temporarily in the deep South in the early 1960s.One day the team stopped for lunch at a local restaurant known for its excellent barbecue.Jack noticed the words, We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.Asking his team members, Jack said, Does that sentence mean what I think it means? A coworker replied, Probably so.When the server arrived, Jack pointed to the sentence and questioned, I noticed these words on your menu.Do you serve blacks?Without hesitation, she replied, No, we don’t.Jack thought for a moment and replied, Then you don’t serve me. Turning to his coworkers, Guys, make your own choices.I’ll be outside.Where is that line for you?What will you tolerate?At what point is a practice too shady?An action too questionable?This, too, is part of your unwritten psychological contract.Some norms we have no trouble in accommodating.Others could pose personal dilemmas.For me it is the newspaper test.I ask myself, if the action were the featured story in my hometown newspaper, or a headline in Google news, how would I feel?How would those I love feel?So, what happens if you don’t follow a norm?When people deviate from a norm, it highlights what the norm is for others.

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