Another motivation theory? Not precisely, this time I am blogging in continuation to my previous post. I have recently concluded my MBA studies and I had the opportunity to give the speech on behalf of my peer students at the completion ceremony. I thought of sharing an excerpt from my speech, but before that maybe I should explain a bit about Herzberg's two-factor theory. This theory is related to human motivation and consists of two factors:
- Motivation factors: Of which availability would motivate humans; such as the sense of achievement, recognition and an having a space for self-development
- Hygiene factors: Of which absence cause dissatisfaction (though if available would not motivate humans); such as finding a parking space at work and having a safe working environment.
Back to my speech:
"...Recently, I had a debate with a close friend where we had two contrasting points of view. Our debate was objective, yet eventually at the end of our debate neither one of us was able to change the opposing opinion, therefore each had concluded sticking to his initial position. I would say that usually such an incident would make me feel a bit uncomfortable as I could not win someone else’s support towards my opinion, but this time the case was different. I realized that I was happy that we concluded our debate with two independent mindsets, and neither one of us tried to impose his point of view on the other, to me this was surprisingly more fulfilling than winning another supporter for my opinion. But how does this relate to my first point?
Going back to academia, to our organizational behavior module in specific, we came across two theories about human motivation; namely Herzberg’s two-factor theory and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Without going into details about these two theories, at first glance, the two theories look different; after all they both have different names. Nevertheless, and upon further exploration, one would realize that both theories actually present the same elements but in two different forms*. Similar to my story, sometimes truth holds more than one form and if one side is right, it does not necessarily mean the other side is wrong..."
The main purpose of writing this post is to act as a tribute towards my instructors who tried hard to instill the principles of critical thinking in their students and to set a reminder to oneself that evaluation of thoughts differs according to different perspectives - therefore one should always try to accept other people's opinions.
