The Truth About Motivation
| Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 01-06-2010 | 271 views
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Motivation is an art not a science! I have just watched a video about motivation that is based on a speech by Dan Pink author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us book. Dan believes that motivation can be achieved through three ways: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. he bases his conclusions on many researches conducted by top universities
I have a strong belief that money is not a motivator and I do agree with the Two-Factor Theory that has been devised by Frederick Herzberg, people are interested in money but it is not a motivator, people look for achievement, sense of purpose, self development, career development, more knowledge & experience. A quick look at jobs that need creativity work such as software development ( real software development not the one that involves next, next, next, and finish) or graphics design would tell us that money is not a motivator!
Dan concluded that as long as the work is physical or mechanical, more incentives lead to better results, in contrast studying right brain activities concluded that higher incentives lead to worse performance! psychologists, economists, and sociologists have concluded the same after replicating same exercise on people whose different cultures and mindsets in different zones around the world, bottom line is that “money is not a motivator, and for non-mechanical work more incentives led to worse performance!”
Why to Motivate People
While the question may sound very basic, but believe it or not, many managers believe that motivation is some kind of luxury and people must work without being motivated, they believe that carrot and stick will always work, recession has made this style very common, many companies are sending silent, and sometimes loud, messages to people asking them to shut up and work, and to be grateful because they have not been laid off yet. motivation is the fuel of productivity, it is what keeps people’s morale high and it makes people own what they work on and dedicate themselves till it is delivered in the best possible way. Dan bases motivation on three pillars autonomy, mastery, and purpose, though money is not one of these three, money issue has to be taken off the table, if people are not paid enough they will be busy thinking about getting the pay they deserve and eventually looking for a better opportunity
Autonomy
Freedom at the workplace has become one of the top issues, many organizations create very restrictive polices and procedures that eventually lead to less productivity, in many companies people may be wasting valuable time just to honour compliance and to obey rules that most of times are not justifiable nor comprehensive, restricting people’s creativity and putting physical and virtual fences around them is counter productive, I have discussed this topic before in my post If you put fences around people you get sheep, and received great views from great people.
Don’t spray the apes, if you are an executive who is leading a large number of people, don’t just ask them to obey rules that are not rationale, don’t force people to follow some rules because you simply cannot change them, stand your ground and try to change or drop those rules, people will appreciate what you do. One of the pillars of Google’s philosophy is the famous 20% rule that resulted in innovative products, Google’s engineers are allowed to spend one day a week to do whatever they want or fix whatever they want to, classic management will see this as a waste of time and will prefer asking people to fill timesheets that most of the times are trashed. People do great stuff when they feel respected and no respect can ever be shown to a human being more than freedom and freewill
Mastery
Everyone wants to get better and better, the road to mastery is always under construction, Dan tells us about great open source stories such as Linux and Wikipedia and how people have always dedicated themselves to innovate, imagine, and turn dreams into reality. You can motivate people by helping them master what they do, mastery requires too much effort from people, but hard work becomes a joy once people have passion, mastery can be reached by reading, attending seminars, thinking of new ways to do the same thing, and taking challenges. In fact you can help people master what they do by simple stuff, if you come across a helpful resource and share it with your team, you will be helping them master what they do, passion is the key to mastery, passion is what makes people get emotionally tied to what they do and to always go the extra mile
Purpose
What would you feel if you are working on something and you feel it will not add any value? How many projects get initiated without valid business case and ultimately either get cancelled or deliver useless stuff? Working toward a goal is an automatic motivator, most of managers are task oriented, they only assign tasks and do not tell resources why they have to finish the assignment in the first place, sense of purpose is a great motivator, once people realize that they are major players and feel the importance of what they are working on, they will own what they do. Ad hoc tasks and unjustified requests are devastating and eventually undermine productivity, morale, and quality.
What Motivates You?
No matter how senior or junior you are, everyone needs to be motivated, what motivates you? And what techniques do you use to motivate your team? Do you believe that money is not really a motivator? Share your thoughts!
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Welcome back mate.
Yeah, I agree, Welcome back,
(for the majority of people), then, comes the motivation.
I just want to add, Money is a need not a motivator, maybe it’s the first factor that you may accept or reject a job offer, but, still, money satisfaction is a must
Thank you Kareem
Cool as always
Money is a prerequisite to the above 3 factors, that’s why Dan has specified that money topic has to be taken off the table. Yes I do agree with you that money is a need since no body can ever work for free. But motivation is a completely different topic, I used to say that there are 100 ways to do the same task, it is all related to who is doing it and how he is doing it, factors such as morale, appreciation, and motivation play crucial role in productivity and quality of work. Thanks!
I totally agree with you, but, again money could be an issue as well, what if there is a bonus if the project closed successfully on time, still, money is an issue
but, again not always, and I see that the feeling of Ownership and Responsibility Delegation is yet another Motivation factor.
What a great representation to ideas ?
I was impressed with this video so much and it made a very Tiring task looks simple and interesting , thank you Kareem and don’t be away for a such long time.
Amen, it seems there is a huge disconnect these days between management and their employees…
…Hopefully, someday the economy will be back to a more normal state or maybe this IS normal and we were living in a bubble before…
…Kevin
Kevin, the disconnect has always been there, you are absolutely right it IS normal but the bubble is much bigger now because of the hard times most of professionals and organizations are going through.. True leaders are only known at hard times
Excellent post.
I have always felt that people simply want to be acknowledged and appreciated more than anything.
It amazes me why there is such a shortage of worker appreciation in our society because it costs employers absolutely nothing.
I agree with Dan Pink’s point but nevertheless I think we’re still trying to flatten the problem. We try to find The Holy Grail of Motivation while there is none.
I believe motivation is an individual thing (http://blog.brodzinski.com/2010/05/motivate-people.html). You can motivate all people using the same method and it doesn’t matter it your means is money or autonomy.
Yes, using money and money alone as motivator doesn’t work (http://blog.brodzinski.com/2007/10/money-as-motivator.html) but it doesn’t mean you can’t motivate anyone with money. Actually, contrary to what we can often hear, I think there are people who are driven by money in the first place.
When it comes to motivation the first thing every manager or leader should do is to get out of their throne and go learn what motivates individuals they work with.
Goethe did say being poor is being half sick and if that is true than money is not a option, a choice or a motivation, but a force we fear. So yes take it from the table as a motivator and motivating others starts with motivating yourself. I wonder what did motivate the famous painter Vincent van Gogh or what did motivate Ghandi, was it shareholders profit?
Have all great inventions, art and achievements been triggered by how much money we can make from it. Still it is amazing what people do for money.
Motivation is not automatic. You have to have things that drive you. Your ability, skill or whatever you do is a vehicle and motivation is the driver that will take you to another place. What drives you? I share ten tips on the subject of motivation.
Your greatest triumph comes from your greatest challenge, therefore you must be fired up to overcome the challenge because therein lies your turnaround, your breakthrough or even your destiny. David’s promotion lay in his defeating Goliath, therefore he had to summon his courage to step up to the plate and conquer the giant.