The Spirit of the SquirrelBy observing the hard work of squirrels in a spruce forest, Bowles and Blanchard teach lessons about the nature of work and motivators which are linked to it. For employees to be motivated to work, it must be worth it. (Bowles, 1998 p29) For squirrels, survival depends on the ability to hide enough food for the winter. Greenberg presents an entire chapter on what motivates people to work. (Greenberg, 2010 pp 160 - 190) Greenberg presents several theories of motivation, including the hierarchy of needs theory, equity theory and expectancy theory. While Bowles and Blanchard present their program as indifferent to the objective content of work, Greenberg goes out of his way to identify job characteristics (as opposed to managerial interventions) that affect employee satisfaction. It presents a model of job characteristics (Greenberg, 2010 p186) which takes several points from Gung Ho! This is not to say that Greenberg ignores management's ability to influence the motivational potential of jobs. He discusses several interventions that can lead to more satisfying jobs. First, it suggests that employees be assigned a complete job, rather than using multiple workers to perform separate parts of the job. This allows for greater skill variety and task identity, which helps improve job satisfaction. Second, Greenberg suggests that jobs be organized so that the person performing the service has direct contact with the recipient of the service. This serves to establish a link of accountability with customers. And finally, Greenberg suggests that jobs be organized to provide as much feedback as possible. When people know how they are doing, they are better equipped to take corrective action middle of paper......themselves and others. Businesses generate vitality by giving people the feeling that what they do every day makes a difference. (Spreitzer & Porath, 2012)ConclusionsGreenberg, Bowles, and Blanchard are congruent texts that address many of the same questions in different ways. Both are valuable to their target audiences. As a popular commercial title, Gung Ho! has remarkable resistance in the market. The fact that it's the basis of a popular consulting firm probably helps. Many companies attest to the usefulness of the methodology presented. Behavior management in organizations has been on the market even longer. However, as a textbook it is much less visible to the public eye. Both texts present valuable information for the manager. One would expect that they could each continue to succeed in their spheres of influence for the foreseeable future..