What motivates us?
According to Pink, there are two basic types of motivation in the workplace:
- Motivation X is the typical reward-and-punishment method. You simply reward your employees for exceptional performance or creative solutions. Do you use this type of motivation? Probably everyone does
- Motivation I stems directly from the employee. It is based on the assumption that if an employee enjoys their work, finds it fulfilling and is happy doing it, they don’t actually need much motivation. So the focus is on creating a good working environment for employees.
The catch is that Motivation X doesn’t work for creative professions. On the contrary, it actually reduces performance and efficiency. The carrot-and-stick approach not only no longer works, but can even stifle intrinsic motivation, reduce performance and even lead to cheating.
Pink recommends rewards for manual, mechanical tasks – such as wrapping Christmas presents. That doesn’t mean you should stop paying bonuses and 13th-month salaries. You can find out which type you are personally by taking an online test.
Let things flow
You’ve surely experienced it at some point. That state where you’re so focused that you lose track of time and your surroundings. Pink calls this state ‘flow’.
We enter this state of concentration when we’re doing something that fascinates or delights us. Children are in this state almost all the time, even on the sandpit.
Scientists tried to take away people’s flow. The test subjects were not allowed to do anything they enjoyed. After two days, people began to show signs of neurosis and anxiety. Flow is oxygen for our soul. That is why it is essential to do something we are intrinsically motivated to do.
How to motivate creatives
There are three aspects you must offer creative professionals if they are to work more effectively. These are:
- Autonomy – so they can manage their own schedule
- Mastery – because people naturally want to improve at what interests them
- Meaning – because most of us want to do something greater than ourselves
Does it seem impossible to implement this in your company? Google, for example, has gone even further. Its employees spend 20% of their time on whatever they want. They can create something new or work on existing projects. Hypothetically, they don’t have to do anything, and no one would be any the wiser. Yet, thanks to this autonomy, projects such as Gmail
, Google Translate and others have emerged
.
Tips for managers
The credo of William McKnight, chairman of 3M, is: “Hire good people and leave them alone
.” The technical staff had an unorthodox strategy – they spent part of their time on any project of their choosing. This led to a whole host of inventions – such
as Post-it notes
. You have them on your desk only thanks to the visionaries at 3M.
- Read the whole book
- Try spending 20% of time in trial mode
Let employees spend a fifth of their time working on a project of their own choosing. Try it for six months to give your staff time to get used to it. - Reward them using the ‘now that…’ method
- Give up control
- Clarify your company’s mission
How we do it at AITOM
Autonomy
All AITOM employees have flexible working arrangements. We support working from home and part-time work. For example, one new father in the company works half-time because he’d rather spend time with his baby than work.
Unfortunately, we can’t have a completely flexible system because people need to communicate in person with one another—at least that’s what we’ve found in practice. However, no one checks what you’re doing as long as you get your work done on time. It’s true that not everyone in our team was happy with this. Those who needed supervision left.
Mastery
A budget is set aside for each AITOM employee for year-round training. If someone comes forward wanting to attend a specialist conference or course, we send them there.
Meaning
Surprisingly, we don’t have to do anything about this. AITOM employees have got used to the company culture. Everyone sees meaning in their work and feels it. Some see it in supporting charitable projects, others see meaning in the fact that we design more effective solutions for companies.