Participation and Motivation

Participation and Motivation Alhaji Sule Dauda, National Water Resources Institute, Kaduna Presentation at the 2008 NWRI Retreat, Doko International Hotel, Minna on 11-13 March, 2008.

INSTITUTE MANAGEMENT FOCUS • Encourage Team work and Espirit-de-corp • Motivate Staff • Participative Management Style • Specifically, entrench Committee System • Structural and Administrative Reforms • Improved productivity and Effective Service Delivery • Achieve mandates, realise mission and vision

Teamwork and Espirit-de-corp • Teamwork entails working together harmoniously as a team in pursuance of organizational goal. • Involves social interaction, clear understanding and accommodation of one another’s ideas and opinions • Involves determination to achieve together. Every part contributes towards the goals of the whole. • Loyalty, institutional sympathy, sense of family. Love for one another. Espirit-de-corp.

Structural and Administrative Reforms • Aim of this Retreat is to chart way of reforming and refocusing Institute structurally and administratively. • Why do organizations embark on such reforms? - Look into bad division of labour - Streamline organizational structures - Address bureaucratic red-tapism - Engender espirit-de-corp - Deal with over-establishment - Deal with laxity and indiscipline in service - Loosen undue confidentiality.

Motivate Staff • Motivation: Latin ‘movere’ – driving force. Berelson – “Inner state that energises, activates or moves, and that directs or channels behaviour toward goals.” • How can public servants be motivated for higher productivity? - Monetary reward - Training - Recognition of efforts - Proper working environment - Fair conditions of service - Square Pegs in Square Holes - Participation - Avoid sins of Public Administration

Motivate Staff (cont…) • Avoid sins of Public Administration - inability to set target, - refusal to prioritise, - belief in big is great - failure to do pilot study to test new idea - refusal to learn from experience - not knowing when to fold-up

Motivate Staff (cont..) • Theories of Motivation: • Fredrick Taylor: The economic man. Mechanistic: Do more, earn more philosophy. • Doughlas McGregor: Theory X, Theory Y. Worker Participation. • Abraham Maslow: Hierarchy of needs (physiological, safety, social, esteem, self- actualisation)

Motivate Staff (cont…) • Fredrick Herzberg: Hygiene Theory (working conditions, job content, recognition, quality of supervision) - Victor Vroom: Various reasons – (expend energy, status, interraction, develop skill, financial)

Participative Management • Participation is a system in which subordinates are involved in making decisions with guidance from their superiors – Lowen • Participation is Management by Agreement, Should be noted, however, that the “overall conduct of the organization rests in the hands of the management without confrontation with rival system of representation”. • In case of Institute, participation entails the involvement of staff (junior and senior, academic and non-academic, Union and associations, all interest groups) in one form of decision-making or the other.

Participative Mgt (cont…) • Onus of involving staff rests on all management staff, not only the Chief Executive. The DDs, HODs, HOUs must seek opinons of their underlings and hold meetings with them regularly. • One effective participatory concept is MBO – “managing with the objectives of the organization in mind.” HODs and HOUs must meet subordinates to design objectives, set performance standards, define assessment method for work done.

Committee System • Committee is essentially the same as ‘Board’, ‘Commission’, ‘Team’, ‘Task Force’. • Committee may be classified as authoritative or information collaters; statutory or advisory; formal or informal; executive, standing, adhoc, joint or permanent. It is “a formally constituted body of persons which is collectively assigned management functions in place of an individual”.

Committee System (cont…) • Merits of CS - Organization gains from group deliberation and judgement - Prevent concentration of authority in a single person - Enables representation of interest groups within the organization - Helps in the coordination of plans and execution of programs - Good forum for instant transmission of information, decision - Motivation of staff through participation in decision- making

Committee System (cont..) • Demerits of CS - Expensive - Time-consuming - Atimes, encourages compromise, leading to unanimity - Urgent issues suffer adjournments and thus neglect - Encourages tyranny of the minority; individual dominance - Splits responsibility over members. Feel less accountable

Psychological Effect of Committee System, Participation and Teamwork on Institute’s Staff • Facilitate involvement in management • Engender staff loyalty and commitment • Increase a sense of belonging and commitment • Increase sense of collective responsibility • Increase sense of family, peace and harmonious interraction.

THANK YOU.

Participation and Motivation