Talking about the systemic aspects of motivation in business means taking into account the organization's operational assemblies and sub-assemblies.
It also means defining the links that unite them and the influences that affect them, in order to understand and anticipate the variations that will result.
The first organizational level is the individual himself. Whether he's an employee, a manager or an outsider integrated into the company's activity, he carries out his work within a defined framework and space. They use the company's equipment to produce things that are useful to the company's operations.
He is himself influenced by affects from many sources, in the context of his job, but also of his private life and the overall social context.
The second level is that of the team. The team at the heart of the Model. A small team, a restricted group of no more than twelve people. A mini-organization within the organization, taking on a large number of responsibilities.
The team's mode of operation will be linked to its activity. There is no predetermined method. And it will undoubtedly be the team's own construction, based on existing models and methods.
Nor is team construction defined by the model. It will depend on the reality of activities. It is defined by the link or community of interest that is most conducive to its effectiveness.
In many cases, an individual is a member of several teams. He belongs to a production team (primary team), and also to another team which brings together all the specialists with the same expertise as him (secondary teams), and perhaps also a temporary project team which brings together collaborators from several departments.
What counts here is that each individual knows to which team he or she is linked at the first level, his or her reference team. This is the team to which he belongs and to which he gives his trust and loyalty. If he doesn't know which is his reference team (primary team), he may quickly find himself in difficulty when faced with dilemmas for which he has neither the capacity nor the authority to decide. He will find himself in a conflict of interest, which will directly affect his sense of efficiency.
The third level is the group. The group is what unites teams into a coherent, functional whole.
Often called an "organization", the group can be the entire company, or the department to which the team belongs, or a branch, or any other group of individuals.
This group must, however, be limited in the number of participants. This limit refers to Dunbar's number, which corresponds to the maximum number of individuals with whom a person can simultaneously maintain a stable human relationship. It ranges from one hundred and fifty to two hundred people.
As the idea here is to focus on organizational levels that exert a relevant influence on teams and individuals, Dunbar's number has been chosen as the reference value for determining size.
Does this mean that the manager of a company with a thousand employees has no influence on his staff? Of course not. But this influence is mainly affective and linked to the charisma of this type of leadership.
And in reality, there are only very rare cases where a leader develops a transverse influence, affecting several departments of the company. In this particular case, we need to consider this reality.
However, if the company has no more than a hundred employees and collaborators, it is preferable to consider it as defining this third level. In this configuration, management's attitude has a clear impact on the dynamics and mobilization of the entire company.