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... vs. punishing undesired behavior. In other words me or other workers at Merrill Lynch see that if they work well they will get reinforcement (reward) or if they fail to work well they will be dismissed (punished). Thus, I can personally contact my manager and tell him about the positive reinforcement.
Negative reinforcement: removing negative consequences from workers who perform the desired behavior. The workers should not be immediately fired if something goes wrong with the person, but rather be given one or more chance this will make a person understand that the company is thinking of them, and the workers will work well. Extinction: removing whatever is currently reinforcing the undesirable behavior. This is usually related to the undesired behavior of my own. Thus, I can remove any temptations that discourage my productive work at Merrill, such as pesky porn pop-ups by installing special software, or various parties with my friends, by prioritizing what is more important to me at that given time. Reinforcement schedules: variable, erratic reinforcement schemes are more effective than steady reinforcement schedules.
Whenever I am awarded I should reinforce my bosses with a small present explaining it as a return favor. This will help me manage my career even more effectively. Classical conditioning: if one gets sick after eating tacos, from that point forward one may get sick from the smell of tacos. People are genetically hard-wired to make certain associations. For example, sickness is associated with food. After each work day I should buy myself a bar of chocolate, thus, conditioning myself that work at Merrill bring sensual pleasure to my tongue and mouth.
Another point worth mentioning is the Principal-Agent Problem. In a company like Merrill Lynch, stockholders are principals and managers are agents. The goal of a compensation system is to align principals' and agents' interests. In other words I personally should always consider the activity that is in the best interests of Merrill shareholders (which is also me), and work even better.
Executives who are compensated based on financial performance may favor diversifying the company since it evens out their incomes. But shareholders can diversify their portfolios on their own if they want. Thus, in order to manage my career properly I should already behave like executive in financial portfolio management, thus to appear useful to the executives who are directly responsible to my career management and advancement. I would also like to comment on the salaries issues as presented in the Promotion Tournaments.
The purpose of high executive salaries is to motivate those at lower levels by giving them a goal or prize for which to strive. If eight people are competing for a position, only one of them has to be paid the big prize, but they all are motivated. In order to work well a person also needs great working conditions, therefore good job design is of great importance. Scientific management took all authority away from the workers no thinking was needed. Skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback all were missing.
Giving people choices, in my opinion, provides more job satisfaction. One way of doing this is to propose an alternative or two that is inferior, and ask for the employee's opinion. An exaggerated example that illustrates this point: in selecting the foundation of a building, the manager, knowing concrete is better, can propose wood. The employee proposes concrete and gains satisfaction from "convincing" the manager of the right decision. I also believe that each job should present equal treatment to the employees. People care about fairness and are willing to give up money to avoid unfair treatment.
An example of this idea is a game in which one person is handed 100 dollars, and this person must propose to give part of the money to a second person. The first person must propose the amount that he or she will give to the second person, and the second person can accept or reject the offer. If the second person accepts the offer, then it stands as proposed. If the second person rejects the offer, neither of the two people get to keep any of the money. Assuming that the two people never will deal with each other again, the rational decision of the second person is to accept any amount that the first person offers.
However, if the first person offers only one dollar, the second person may refuse this low offer simply to punish the first person who is not offering a "fair" split. Apparently, the rewards deployed at companies should also not be underestimated. Employees like performance rating distributions in which almost everyone is at the top, but in which a few really get punished. Employees hate systems in which only a few get top ratings. My duty is to tell the managers of this system during our weekly meetings, and thus not only assure better corporate advancement, but also proper personal achievement. When people are given higher rewards than what they deserve, at first their performance improves, but then they start reasoning that they really are worthy and begin to slack off.
The employers also know that, thus if I do not slack like everybody else who should according to the employer reasoning, then I would certainly have some advantage over other employees. For lower-level workers, performance increases with increased wages. Efficiency wages are wages set at a higher-than-market clearing wage, set by employers to (Belmar, 2001): discourage shirking by raising the cost of being fired encourage worker loyalty raise group output norms improve the applicant pool raise morale Cognitive dissonance is the state of conflict that one faces when one's attitudes are contradicted by the situation that one is experiencing. In this situation, people often rationalize anything that is inconsistent in their minds (Pederson, 2002). For example, one may come to love the things for which he or she is poorly compensated in order to resolve the inconsistency of doing something that one does not want to do for below average pay.
I should personally behave better than people around me while also being noticed by my bosses in order to get proper recognition. I should not be pushy, yet should always be in the sight, when doing good job, in order to manage my career more effectively. In flat organizations like Merrill Lynch strives to become, there are fewer opportunities to formally manage the work of others. In this situation, people may become de-motivated because they feel that they are not advancing. However, some environments have characteristics that can substitute for more formal leadership opportunities.
These characteristics in my opinion are: Professional orientation Performance feedback provided by work itself Cohesive, interdependent work groups and advisory panel Written goals and rigid procedures Also I would like to mention the expectancy theory of motivation deployed at Merrill Lynch and that has become a commonly accepted theory for explaining how individuals make decisions regarding various behavioral alternatives. Expectancy theory at any work including Merrill Lynch offers the following propositions: A worker when deciding among behavioral options, individuals select the option with the greatest motivation forces. I should also select the work with better centrality (or physical location near the executives or bosses) in order to manage my career in the organization more effectively. The motivational force for any work, action, or task is a function of three distinct perceptions: Expectancy, Instrumentality, and Valance. Expectancy is what the employer believes of his job. Will he / she be motivated if they work harder?
Because the motivational force is the product of the three perceptions, if any one of their values is zero, the whole equation becomes zero. Expectancy theory generally is supported by empirical evidence and is one of the more widely accepted theories of motivation. The instrumentality is the belief that if one does meet performance expectations, he or she will receive a greater reward, while valence refers to the value the individual personally places on the rewards. In other words is the person is not motivated at all with the valence equal to zero, than regardless of the other parts of the equation he / she will not be motivated at all.
In conclusion It should be noted that the work at Merrill Lynch provides great challenge to me and other workers as well as motivation and encouragement for innovation and education. I believe that although there exist some bureaucracy at Merrill, the company constantly strives to be among the first and largest investment firms in the USA that also pay great attention to the individual employees considering them the most valuable assets that a company can ever have. I can manage my career more effectively by doing good job, by getting noticed by the bosses when doing good job, and by self-education that is already supported and encouraged by Merrill. Bibliography: Jonathan Pederson, Motivation theories summarized, Oxford University Press, 2002.
Steve Belmar, The companies we need to work for, Penguin Books, 2001. Peter Drums, Corporate motivation for Dummies, NY Random House, 2000. George Gray, The corporate management, Prentice hall, 2001. web (official web site of Merrill Lynch) Analyst Responsibilities manual 45 a (ARM- 45 a), Issued for the employees of Merrill Lynch investment bank, dated Dec. 2000.
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Research essay sample on 5career Management At Merrill Lynch Investment Part 2
