Lots of Motivations">Lots of Motivations
Last week, I posted an entry on Economic Incentives that Don’t Cost Money. Not long after posting, some notable minds in my PLN weighed in:
Incentives that http://sn.im/dont-cost money any better? @mrch0mp3rs has me wondering. Constructivists+ ready to weigh in?
@marciamarcia @mrch0mp3rs incentives work based on the individual’s motivators; for some, recognition or sense of purpose much more powerful
@marciamarcia @KoreenOlbrish @mrch0mp3rs Two classes of incentives: Want To & Have To
There are, in my understanding, a variety of reasons why people are motivated and thusly a number of ways we can influence others. I posited that while needs and fear are certainly motivators, there are others like rewards, beliefs and plain ol’ fashioned ego.
There are a lot of ontologies you can apply to describe what motivates people. The key to influencing people, as individuals or as a facilitator in a group, is not just recognizing what actually paves the way to action: we need to be careful to recognize what does not motivate people.
When we attempt to motivate with a method that doesn’t apply, that mismatch is immediately recognized as something akin to attempting manipulation — and then you’ve lost the person or group. You’ve turned them off completely.
Marcia asked above if an economic motivator is any better than a financial one. I think that question speaks to organizational or even individual values. I don’t know that I’m the right judge of whether it’s better or not. What I believe is that, as Andrew McAfee addressed in his keynote at DevLearn, people are motivated by a weird assortment of things. I’m pragmatic: I don’t want to question it; I want to use what works in accordance with what “we” value.
What say you?
Ah, behavioral engineering. This stuff is great fun.
I’ve always liked the distillation of participatory motivation characteristics represented as repute, reciprocity, and altruism. If I can be arbitrary, think of these characteristics represented in a Venn diagram.
I see economic motivators as an extension of repute and reciprocity, where these characteristics overlap. Financial motivators seem to land squarely in reciprocity territory. The currency is also different – think of how it’s spent.
I would wager that most folks don’t want financial motivators as an accumulation mechanism to drive some competitive score. Financial motivators are used to ease some pain or boost some pleasure independent of the workplace. The currency as reward is taken to another economy:)
Motives, preferences, incentives… It’s a kabuki dance that takes time to figure out how people are tuned to respond. It’s also a yin-yang game, as sometimes the best motivational strategies involve simply solving the anti-motivators. The anti-matter effect of an environmental condition can undermine any efforts to motivate.
I’ve found that validation in some form is a fairly universal motivator, but the dosage and method varies – and must also vary for the individual to prevent the appearance of pandering. Personally, I’m motivated by working on stuff that matters. If I get a whiff of ‘it don’t matter’ or it’s ‘just checking a box’ I’m off the trail – done.
Here’s something that interests me… There’s an interesting parallel between engagement (media-wise) and burst motivation. Consider ‘surprise’, this strategy works to gain attention. In an eclectic environment, there may be an almost ever-present element of positive surprise. Never knowing what to expect at work at a burst level, provided the surprises don’t have consequence, seems to have an interesting effect on brain chemistry.
Seems to me, boiling out all of the complexities of human behavior, that’s what we’re talking about. Brain chemistry. Is the causal relationship ‘whatever we can do to keep the endorphin levels up – as long as it’s efficiently productive’?