Money is an uncontested motivator in all societies, but we Americans surely head the list. It is always more fun to get what you want when you want it than merely to make do, to have to deny yourself and delay gratification. But in the workplace, money symbolizes more than the obvious means to an end and the reason everyone works.
• Making more money is a tangible, objective, and visible measure of growth and success—a more concrete process than just hoping to gain status in other people's eyes.
• Money shows your peers what your superiors think of you. Therefore, the prospect of not making more—of not being given the raise, the bonus, the obvious proof of a job well done—seems like a
concrete rejection and creates fear and anxiety.
• Making less money or none is the biggest fear you have. The prospect of losing your job and its attendant, unthinkable consequences is one of the biggest factors affecting how you communicate on the job.
You know, as I write this, I imagine you reading it. I hear some of you thinking: "Hmm, you know, that's really true." But I also imagine others thinking: "Mm,mm—nope. You haven't got me." The fact is that these are very basic motivational forces but they're also broad generalizations. They're intrinsically true for all of us, but one or another need is much more important to each of us, so it may be hard for you to identify with all of them. But there are other reasons why you
may not readily be able to identify with these motivators:
• Denial, Perhaps you've spent your whole working life trying to deny them, burying them deep so they don't interfere with the seeming
outward coolness and businesslike approach of the workplace. Probably
even before working, you had already developed a pretty good sense of
what's seemly and unseemly, of what you show in public and in private.
So to dredge up your innermost drives and fears at this stage and then to
confront and relate to them may be a bit uncomfortable.