I came across this talk by Daniel Pink, the author of Drive, a book about what science is telling us about what really motivates us. The talk took place at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in London at the end of January this year. However, what the RSA has done (it’s part of a series they are doing) is to animate the talk. Below is the animated version of the talk. It’s brilliant!

Dive in to the animation. It’s 10 minutes long but really worth it. For all of you that want a quick overview, I written one below.

Ok. Hope you enjoyed the video. Great, isn’t it?

Now, I quick overview of what Daniel was talking about:

Money is a motivator in that you have to pay people enough to meet minimum requirements and if you don’t pay people enough then they won’t be motivated. So, pay people enough to start with so that it is not an issue.

However, one of the really interesting things that he found is that money is only really a motivator when the tasks involved are simple, straightforward tasks ie. complete this process or task X number of times and you will get this. When the task requires more complicated, conceptual, creative thinking then money as a motivator, assuming you have met the minimum requirements, does not work.

In this situation, he found that there are 3 factors that lead to better performance and higher motivation:

1. Autonomy – the desire to be self-directed ie. If you want engagement and performance then leave people to get on with what they are doing or give them space to explore and do their own thing from time to time.
2. Mastery – the desire to get better at stuff. People like to get better at things because it gives them a sense of self satisfaction and fun so help them do this and it doesn’t need to be all work related.
3. Purpose – the desire to make a difference, to make the world a better place. When the profit motive becomes unhinged from the purpose motive then poor things happen: unethical behaviour, bad service, poor treatment of staff, poor work environment etc etc. Connecting the businesses’ purpose to something more than profit engages peoples’ hearts and minds and attracts the best talent.

I hope that you liked this talk as much as I did. I think the key issues/questions that came out of this for me are:

• I think we can find instances of complicated, conceptual, creative thinking thinking at all levels of our businesses and this has implications for everybody.
• Are we paying our staff enough to take money off the table?
• Is there a possibility that we are paying staff too much as we believe that money is the best way to motivate them?
• Does my business have a purpose other than profit?
• What are you doing to help you people develop their mastery and give them more autonomy?

I’d like to hear your thoughts on the above and if you liked the video. Post a comment or send me an email.

Thanks to Mi Pah for the image.