Herzberg’s 2-FACTOR MODEL
In Herzberg’s 2-Factor Model of motivation, there are things we want in order to feel somewhat normal. If we don’t have those things, we are dissatisfied. Yet having too much of those things does not mean we will become satisfied. We call those things hygiene factors.
Hygiene as Motivation
Hygiene factors as a source of motivation vary somewhat across people. Some people will regard having wifi as important, while others regard a comfortable chair as an absolute essential. Lee Kuan Yew once remarked that the air con was the best invention he needed. These are all hygiene factors because once obtained, any further increase in these items will not motivate someone any further.
Take earning money for example. When one lacks money, it is a great reason to work hard. But after one has ticked all the right financial boxes, all of a sudden, one goes into soul-searching mode. There are only this many good meals one can have in a day. And even the most savoury morsels become bland after a while.
Motivators
This is where the other component of the 2-Factor model of motivation comes in. To be driven to achieve, one must have purpose, derive meaning from daily activities, have nourishing friendships, and be able to do meaningful things. These are examples motivators in Herzberg’s model. Surprisingly, motivators can operate even in the absence of hygiene factors. Case in point is the story of Victor Frankl, whose book “Man’s Search for Meaning” powerfully captured how he survived the horrors of the German concentration camps. Hence, the Herzberg 2-Facter model is not a linear spectrum whereby one must obtain hygiene before one can be motivated. Both factors operate somewhat independently of each other.
Unlike hygiene, motivators are somewhat more universal. What matters at a deep level to one is more likely to matter to many others. Working on discovering and strengthening one’s motivators is always good value for money. It’s a wonder why we don’t invest more in motivators.
The Languishing Plateau of Hygiene
It is easy to focus on the wrong type of motivation. When we focus overly on providing all the hygiene that people need, (and bear in mind that different people have different sets of hygiene expectations), all that we can ever hope to achieve is the neutral state of languishing.
Sociologist Corey Keyes coined the term “languishing” to describe that liminal state of being neither here nor there, somewhere between being depressed and flourishing, accompanied by a sense of stagnation, monotony and emptiness. It is not quite a dark night of the soul but it also not the Garden of Eden. Instead, it is a tundra, spotted with life grimly hanging on, worn, weathered, whimpering.
Many people are in languishing mode. “You mean this is all there is to it?” “What is the purpose to life?” It’s such a common yet profound phenomenon that there is even a bestseller by Bob Buford called “Half Time: From Success to Significance” detailing how you can help yourself.
The Hygiene of Participating in Causes
These days, the strive for hygiene factors can take other forms. A trend I notice is the sheer number of causes available for one to be part. More access to COVID vaccine for the poor, less discrimination against the unvaxxed, more rights to minorities such as the LGBTQ+ communities, less tolerance against cancel culture (notice the irony of that turn of phrase) – there are so many causes that it will not be too long before someone creates a Tinder-like app to matchmake causes to hygiene warriors. (You heard the idea here first).
Anyway, I digress. My point here is not to argue for or against all these movements or even to promote a better way to argue, I mean, have discourse. Even after we win one fight, there will always be another hygiene factor to fight for in another community. And yet, after the cause is won, people do not live happily ever after. Bills still have to be paid, lives to be lived, things from which to move on, relationships to be mended. And after that? What next?
The best we achieve from the hard-fought battlefield of hygiene warfare is the languishing plateau of uninspired normality. Once the dust settles, we see in the landscape a gaping vacuum that the recently won hygiene factor cannot fill. At some level within us, we know this. Yet sadly, many people fight for hygiene while avoiding the more significant struggle. The fight for other peoples’ causes can in time become a hygiene factor.
What is Your List of Motivators?
The solution to filling a divinely-shaped vacuum is not more bread, water (or wifi). These things do assuage our hunger and thirst for a while, but ultimately, they run dry.
I have found that discovering one’s list of motivators is a worthwhile journey in and of itself. Just as motivators can degenerate into hygiene, the search for motivators can be a powerful motivator as well. It’s all a bit meta, but essentially, when we keep moving, we continue to be moved. In the meantime, we make a list of what moved us to discover those in the list that are immovables.
My Motivation List
Thus far, I’ve my list as such:
- Love-filled life, being able to love others, to receive love, to operate from love. It is hard to love others when one does not know how to love oneself properly.
- Purpose-driven season, having worthy goals to strive for, that I won’t regret investing in. Most people know what are time-wasters (and still indulge in them). But I wager that many have not found that pearl of great price worth dying for. We only have one life. Make it count.
- Celebrating milestones, punctuated by humor. I’d like to think I am funny (or punny), but humor is about being able to laugh at oneself, to take oneself as seriously as blowing soap bubbles. Do your best to blow the biggest bubbles, knowing that they eventually will burst, but still have fun doing it anyway.
- Perfecting oneself, the joy of simply becoming better. I find joy in making progress and achieving mastery. Not all things are worth the time investment, but the investment is for the joy of perfecting. While perfectionism is an unhealthy obsession, perfecting is a celebration of progress.
- Contentment with oneself, the peace that comes with the understanding that I am happy with who I am. I realize I am not a great lover, or nice friend, or a great juggler. Neither am I handsome, or rich, or influential. But contentment is to drink the water served and savouring it fully.
- Creating things – exploring ideas and putting them into words, and not necessarily having to turn them into action, but to give it time to birth naturally.
- My work to tie it all together. The work that I do ties it all together in a nice bundle. Though it will not make me a millionaire, I am content not to chase after that hygiene factor.
Refining My List
Instead of New Year resolutions, I have been working on my motivation list. I am sure I will refine the list over time. Eventually, some of these motivators may become hygiene factors that I will drop. Others will become immovable. I think the key is to make the list more succinct over time, so that I don’t overly invest in hygiene factors and use the remaining time I have left on earth for the really important stuff. What do you think?
Update
For those who attended the 20 Oct 2022 Mental Health Summit and want a copy of my presentation, you can find it here:
