Vedere Consulting
This blog is dedicated to helping people find fulfillment and satisfaction at work and to leaders who want to create organizations where that is possible. Ultimately that's where we are all most successful. --Plum Cluverius,Executive CoachThursday, April 29, 2010
Motivation: What Does Work?
In my last post, I discussed the dangers of relying on rewards and punishment to motivate people. As Dan Pink (danpink.com) writes in his book, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, rewards and punishments often produce lower performance in work that demands creativity, innovation, and independent initiative.
One of the studies Pink cites provides a clue about why. In 1949, psychology professor Harry F. Harlow crafted an experiment to study learning in primates (in this case rhesus monkeys). He created a simple puzzle which the monkeys could solve by pulling a pin out of a block of wood, undoing a hook and then pulling up a hinge. The puzzles were placed in the monkeys’ cages before the test to see what the monkeys would do. Surprisingly, they began playing with the puzzle with what looked like enjoyment until they found the solution. By the time the researchers tested them, the monkeys solved the puzzle easily and repeatedly.
Up to that time, psychologists believed there were only two forms of motivation, our biological drive and extrinsic motivators like rewards and punishments. What shocked Harlow and his associates was that when they gave the monkeys raisins as a reward for solving the puzzles they make more errors and solved the puzzle less frequently. Harlow postulated that a third motivational drive existed, which he called intrinsic motivation. In addition he noted that the introduction of the extrinsic reward, food, “served to disrupt performance.”
Fast forward to 1995 when Microsoft launched its well researched and funded electronic encyclopedia, Encarta. Who could have predicted that by 2010 it would be defunct and Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia written by amateurs who are never paid a dime, would be the largest and most popular encyclopedia in the world? Obviously the volunteers who developed and maintain Wikipedia don’t do it for the money!
Why work on a project for free? As Harlow showed, the reward is the activity itself—in its capacity to satisfy us. Pink identifies three types of intrinsic motivation that create that sense of satisfaction: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Autonomy is about choice. It is about doing something we enjoy, when we want to do it, choosing who we do it with and how we do it. Watch small children at play and it’s clear we’re born self directed.
Pink describes mastery as “getting better at something that matters.” We are engaged and motivated when the tasks we are given allow us to stretch (if it’s too easy we get bored), but they aren’t so tough that we give up. Just as monkeys played with the puzzle until they mastered it, we humans want to be good at something, to master something.
Purpose is “a cause greater and more enduring” than ourselves. It is the part of us that is transcendent, which feels best when we are doing something to make the world a better place.
Pink describes a number of ways to harness intrinsic motivators to boost performance. An Australian software company initiated a practice called “Fed Ex Days” for their engineers. Once a quarter employees have 24 hours to work on any project they choose. It could be a fix to an existing system or try out an entirely new idea. At the end of the 24 hours, employees gather to show what they’ve developed. Many successful new initiatives have come from this practice.
Distributing tasks among employees based on what they do well and enjoy doing taps into mastery. Another method is to give yourself (and perhaps your employees) a “flow test.” Set a timer to remind you to stop what you are doing and write down what you are doing, how you feel at that moment, and whether you are completely absorbed in your work. Do this about 40 times at random intervals for one week. Then analyze the data to determine how you could increase the number of optimal experiences (when you are absorbed in work that engages you) in your work day.
One way to find your purpose is to ask yourself a big question. Pink describes how Claire Booth Luce once told President Kennedy, “ ‘A great man is one sentence.’ Abraham Lincoln’s sentence was: ‘He preserved the union and freed the slaves.” Franklin Roosevelt’s was: ‘He lifted us out of a great depression and helped us win a world war.’” Luce challenged Kennedy to find his one sentence. Our challenge is to find ours.
See Pink’s book for more ways to build intrinsic motivation in yourself, in your organization and in your children.
Plum Cluverius, PCC is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
One of the studies Pink cites provides a clue about why. In 1949, psychology professor Harry F. Harlow crafted an experiment to study learning in primates (in this case rhesus monkeys). He created a simple puzzle which the monkeys could solve by pulling a pin out of a block of wood, undoing a hook and then pulling up a hinge. The puzzles were placed in the monkeys’ cages before the test to see what the monkeys would do. Surprisingly, they began playing with the puzzle with what looked like enjoyment until they found the solution. By the time the researchers tested them, the monkeys solved the puzzle easily and repeatedly.
Up to that time, psychologists believed there were only two forms of motivation, our biological drive and extrinsic motivators like rewards and punishments. What shocked Harlow and his associates was that when they gave the monkeys raisins as a reward for solving the puzzles they make more errors and solved the puzzle less frequently. Harlow postulated that a third motivational drive existed, which he called intrinsic motivation. In addition he noted that the introduction of the extrinsic reward, food, “served to disrupt performance.”
Fast forward to 1995 when Microsoft launched its well researched and funded electronic encyclopedia, Encarta. Who could have predicted that by 2010 it would be defunct and Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia written by amateurs who are never paid a dime, would be the largest and most popular encyclopedia in the world? Obviously the volunteers who developed and maintain Wikipedia don’t do it for the money!
Why work on a project for free? As Harlow showed, the reward is the activity itself—in its capacity to satisfy us. Pink identifies three types of intrinsic motivation that create that sense of satisfaction: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Autonomy is about choice. It is about doing something we enjoy, when we want to do it, choosing who we do it with and how we do it. Watch small children at play and it’s clear we’re born self directed.
Pink describes mastery as “getting better at something that matters.” We are engaged and motivated when the tasks we are given allow us to stretch (if it’s too easy we get bored), but they aren’t so tough that we give up. Just as monkeys played with the puzzle until they mastered it, we humans want to be good at something, to master something.
Purpose is “a cause greater and more enduring” than ourselves. It is the part of us that is transcendent, which feels best when we are doing something to make the world a better place.
Pink describes a number of ways to harness intrinsic motivators to boost performance. An Australian software company initiated a practice called “Fed Ex Days” for their engineers. Once a quarter employees have 24 hours to work on any project they choose. It could be a fix to an existing system or try out an entirely new idea. At the end of the 24 hours, employees gather to show what they’ve developed. Many successful new initiatives have come from this practice.
Distributing tasks among employees based on what they do well and enjoy doing taps into mastery. Another method is to give yourself (and perhaps your employees) a “flow test.” Set a timer to remind you to stop what you are doing and write down what you are doing, how you feel at that moment, and whether you are completely absorbed in your work. Do this about 40 times at random intervals for one week. Then analyze the data to determine how you could increase the number of optimal experiences (when you are absorbed in work that engages you) in your work day.
One way to find your purpose is to ask yourself a big question. Pink describes how Claire Booth Luce once told President Kennedy, “ ‘A great man is one sentence.’ Abraham Lincoln’s sentence was: ‘He preserved the union and freed the slaves.” Franklin Roosevelt’s was: ‘He lifted us out of a great depression and helped us win a world war.’” Luce challenged Kennedy to find his one sentence. Our challenge is to find ours.
See Pink’s book for more ways to build intrinsic motivation in yourself, in your organization and in your children.
Plum Cluverius, PCC is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
Labels: Leadership Development
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