What motivates us

submitted by simonm
1 decade 3 years 11 months 1 week ago
This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.
www.theRSA.org

29 Comments

poolcleanersays...

From experience in my workplace, the 8 hour (not 24 hour) period of autonomy does in fact create innovations. But I think it only works if you're motivated people and give a damn about the company you work for in the first place. If my previous job had offered me 8 hours of personal exploration I would have driven to Toys R Us on my first break to purchase a bunch of Nerf guns, then I would have modded them out and passed them around to create the first inter-office nerf arena. INNOVATION!

SDGundamXsays...

For my Master's final project, I presented on teacher motivation for teachers of English as a Second or Other Language. In my research, one of the things I looked at was salary. Studies that had been done on teacher motivation and salary found the same thing this study found--that you need a minimum salary in order to get people to stay at the job, but better than average salary didn't correlate to better motivation. There were a host of other factors that did correlate, however, including the big one mentioned here--autonomy.

But autonomy wasn't the only factor. As poolcleaner pointed out work conditions are also a significant factor in motivation. If you're forced to teach your classes in the janitor's closet with no air circulation and only a dim lightbulb for illumination no amount of autonomy or salary is going to make you a motivated teacher. Likewise, if your boss doesn't listen to anything you say or you have no input in the curriculum at all, you see a big drop-off in motivation as well.

Still, autonomy is a pretty key component to motivating people. I think autonomy in the workplace works if it is coupled with accountability. If you look at companies like Google, which give their employees a couple hours a day to work on whatever they want, you quickly see that the model works because Google also monitors what the people are working on and gets to keep (and ultimately sell) whatever the final product is. I think it is safe to say that this model is working well for them.

Also, having been to the Google Mountain View campus lots of times, I can tell you that they've definitely got the work environment thing covered: free lunches at dozens of restaurant-style cafeterias; on-site massages and doctor; laundry services; a gym; free shuttle from the major mass transit stops in the area.... It's unbelievable. You can read more about the benefits here.

dystopianfuturetodaysays...

I think that's why he makes a distinction between unskilled and creative labor. >> ^poolcleaner:

From experience in my workplace, the 8 hour (not 24 hour) period of autonomy does in fact create innovations. But I think it only works if you're motivated people and give a damn about the company you work for in the first place. If my previous job had offered me 8 hours of personal exploration I would have driven to Toys R Us on my first break to purchase a bunch of Nerf guns, then I would have modded them out and passed them around to create the first inter-office nerf arena. INNOVATION!

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