Self-study
A manager cannot extract the best performance from employees by threatening them with termination or offering financial rewards for high productivity. ███████ █████████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ██ █ ████ ███ ███ ███ ███ █████ ███ ██ ███ ████ ████ ███ █ ███████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ██ ████████ ██████████████ ██ █████ ██████████ ███ █████████ ████ ██████████ ███ ██ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████████
Summary
A manager can’t make employees perform their best by threatening to fire them or offering them money for being productive. Instead, employees must want to do a good job for the sake of doing a good job. One way to achieve this is by giving employees responsibility, especially for decisions that the manager used to make.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
In some situations, some external motivators are less effective than some internal motivators.
In some situations, a manager can give up some of her own responsibilities and control in order to more effectively motivate her employees.
Delegating responsibility to employees can lead them to develop a desire to do a good job, which can lead them to perform better at work.
9.
Which one of the following ████████████ ██ ████ ███████████ ██ ███ █████████ █████████ ██ ███ ████████
a
Increased responsibility can ███████ █ ████████ █████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ██ █████
Unsupported. Increased responsibility may cause employees to want to do a good job for the sake of doing a good job, but we have no information as to how this might relate to a person’s “sense of how power should be used.”
b
It is often ███ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ███ ███ █████████
Unsupported. The stimulus says that threatening employees with termination is not an effective way of making them perform well. But it does not compare this to an employee’s desire for prestige or discuss whether the desire for job security or prestige is more powerful.
c
In some cases █████ █████████████ ██ █ ██████████ ████ ███ ██ ████████ ██ █ ███████ █████████████ ██ ████████
Strongly supported. This is illustrated by the situation in the passage: In this case, the manager’s effectiveness in making employees want to do a good job is enhanced by giving those employees responsibility that used to belong to the manager (i.e. relinquishing some control).
d
People who carry ███ █████████ ███ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ██ █████████ ████ █████ █████████ ██████ ███
Unsupported. We do not know who is being referred to as the “people who carry out decisions” here or which decisions are being referenced. This is too vague to be an example of something that is illustrated by the passage.
e
Business works best ██ ██████████ ███ █████████████ ██ ███████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █ ██████
Unsupported. The stimulus doesn’t discuss which methods make business “work best.” It only talks about one of the best methods to get employees to want to do a good job for its own sake. Also, we don’t know that anyone is motivated by self-interest in the situation described.