MotivationMotivation is the process of stimulating people to act in ways that satisfy the needs of the organization providing the stimulus. Simply put, motivation is discovering and applying whatever is necessary to get the employee to perform designated tasks in specific ways. However, a clear distinction is made between attitude, which is a state of mind, and behavior, which is a state of action. A milestone in the relationship between the behavioral scientist and the manager was the "Hawthorne Experiments". In that project, behavioral scientists were invited into a large plant to help explain some employee behavioral phenomena that were puzzling managers. The success of this collaboration was achieved in a context that included the following elements: 1) The study was a joint endeavor between behavioral scientists and practicing managers. 2) The location of the study was the factory, not the psychological laboratory. 3) The problem studied was not staged; consisted of real life.4) The tools used for the study were the analytical tools of behavioral scientists, not the empiricism of managers. Motivational Theories All behavioral scientists agree that humans act in response to stimuli that appeal to their internal needs and drives. Obviously, it is important to understand what types of stimuli are effective. While behavioral scientists agree that needs are multiple and unequal in importance, they do not agree on the order of priorities or the relative importance of potential stimuli. According to Maslow, people have and tend to satisfy the following five basic needs: Physiological: food, clothing. Shelter, which people please before everyone else. Security: Security and stability, absence of pain, threat and illness. Affiliation: Desire for friendship, love and belonging. Esteem: self-respect, personal fulfillment and recognition from others. actualization: personal growth, self-realization and realization of one's full potential. Although Maslow's theory helps greatly in understanding the growth processes of individuals from birth to maturity, the relevance of his model in the workplace seems somewhat questionable. By the time most employees start working, many of their lower-order needs have already been met. Additionally, the nature of many jobs makes it nearly impossible for many employees to achieve self-actualization, the most important need in the hierarchy, in the workplace. The strongest criticism of Maslow's approach is that it was developed from Maslow's clinical experience and that empirical work has consistently failed to find major support for the theory. These critics argue that while the theory may have described Maslow's patients, it does not reflect the reality of people at work..