The Surprising Truth about Motivation
Motivating people, especially when doing non-mechanical, non-repetitive tasks, is a subject that has been studied at length for many years. The video below is a fun way of presenting the ideas of Dan Pink, based on some pretty interesting and authoritative research.
To summarise, when motivating people to do tasks that require anything more than rudimentary cognitive skills, purely financial rewards can actually lead to drops in motivation and performance.
According to Mr Pink, the three factors that do lead to better performance are:
- Autonomy – the desire to be self-directed
- Mastery – the urge to get better at things
- Purpose – a more comprehensive sense of why something is worth doing beyond pure financial gain
At Employer Connections we are looking at motivation in two ways; motivating users to participate in a community and using a trusted social network to deliver motivation and performance to an organisation.
If we consider the factors identified in the video some of the examples we have identified are:
- Autonomy – allowing users to organise and contribute as individuals in a way that best suits their needs
- Mastery – learning and demonstrating mastery through connecting to a wider knowledge network in a highly visible way
- Purpose – clear communication of vision and goals at all levels from individuals up to the entire organisation
These concepts are built into the value propositions we are developing both for organisations and for members which will deliver enhanced results.
Purpose is a consistent theme that has emerged from our discussions with organisations interested in the trusted social network concept.
In essence it is no good to have a network (or any other technology) just for the sake of it. The network needs to have a clear purpose that is aligned to that of the organisation. The network needs to be embedded into business processes that deliver real value. It should allow people to do what they are already doing better, not just be another thing for them to do.
This has been a key part of the concept from day one and we have been careful to focus efforts on enhancing existing business processes through the application of networking technologies into an enterprise environment. What the research suggests is that this will not only deliver measurable value but also drive engagement and motivation at the same time, a double return on investment.
Tags: business case, motivation, performance