Hello Readers,

I am back from my unplanned absence due to ill health.

Today I want to talk about money as a motivator. Does money motivate people or is it just a temporary reprieve until we demand more money or the main underlying issue of demotivation rises again?

We've all read about Herzberg's Theory of Motivation and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and it has been demonstrated again and again that money in itself is not a motivator. However, you have to ask yourself what about the bankers that have almost taken the world economy to the brink of oblivion through their need to generate more and more profits and the dubious means by which they went about it. Even today politicians in both the US ad UK fight battles to curb the bonus awards by bankers, though they are now part or wholly nationalised entities. Do the bankers at RBS, Lloyds or Bank of America deserve the bonuses their employers are about to pay them on the back of taxpayer bailouts?

Don't get me wrong I am a capitalist through and through and the pursuit of profit is a legitimate cause when pursuing any enterprise that produces goods and services and brings about benefits for society as whole. A lot of naysayers might and are crowing about the faults of the capitalist system and how it creates greed through the pursuit of money as the end result. Yet, it is not the capitalist system that is at fault but those who have abused it in the pursuit of money. The name Madoff springs to mind amongst many others.

It may be that we are having a major shift in paradigm that will shatter the theories of both Herzberg and Maslow. Maybe we are entering an age where people will be motivated purely by receiving an ever increasing amount of money. This is very much evident in the corporate scandals we have been seeing since Enron and today the banks. So it seems that certain individuals who head global corporations are motivated by money and they will take those enterprises under their custodianship to bankruptcy in that pursuit.

Another arena where we're seeing a shift in how people make money and pursue money is in the increasing field of spread betting both financal instruments and sports. Gambling is one of the fastest growing industries and one example of this was when in the first week of February 2009, England was under several inches of snow. Many people who stayed at home logged onto the Internet to engage in sports and financial betting. That one day on 6th February saw one of the highest revenues being generated for the likes of bet365 and Betfair amongst others.

Observers may say well it was just a blip and people were bored. Really? Was that the answer? I don't think so. One has to look at the psychology behind the decision of an individual to engage in a gambling activity. People are trying to win money easily. There is nothing wrong with the gambling industry it employes hundreds of thousands of people globally.

So is it time to rewrite theories of motivation, maybe maybe not but a revisit of what makes people tick in the 21st century is a must. Not only to confirm or not those theories but look at where those shifts are occuring in society and to ensure those findings are used as learning factors within the corporate world.

Till the next time

Shah Alam