“On More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?” by Frederick Herzberg is one of the must read articles about leadership. Its main claim is that there is a difference between the things that motivate employees and the things that make them dissatisfied.
According to Herzberg environmental factors, like boss’s attitude, structure of the workplace, and salaries can surely by demotivating, but the changes in those factors to the better does not create a motivation in the employee.
According to Herzberg it is challenge, interests, and responsibility that do motivate people to do better in their workplace. He even claims that as a fact that:
Motivated people seek more hours of work, not fewer.
Herzberg’s article is valuable, not as a fact study about motivation (though it surely has some value) but to open our minds to the complex systems that are to be found in all structures.