Many have written on how to motivate people (and motivate ourselves). Beyond “compensation” it isn’t always easy to find those that are self motivated. Some argue that people must motivate themselves. We can only create an environment that facilitates motivation. An environment where internal motivations can bloom and not be squashed. I particularly like Kimber Lockhart’s “Don’t create a sense of urgency, foster a sense of purpose” article. Also, Daniel Pink has a very famous TED Talk “The puzzle of motivation” and popular book “Drive”. He identifies 3 general intrinsic motivators or values, Autonomy, Purpose, and Mastery. Some have pointed out a fourth intrinsic motivation, relatedness.

Intrinsic Motivators

I’m probably not going to add to the large corpus of commentary on these intrinsic motivators, so I’ll keep it brief:

Autonomy: Autonomy is about freedom. I see two aspects of autonomy: 1) Freedom in what to work on and 2) Freedom on how to implement what you are working on.

Mastery: An internal desire to be better. I don’t think the name “mastery” describes this point well enough, because “mastery” implies a comparison to others (it is hard to define what it means to be a master without novices), which is extrinsic. I think Self-Improvement or Self-Actualization are better terms for this idea.

Purpose: Purpose is the idea that what you are doing has meaning or value to you. Purpose is difficult to quantify or be objective about; it is a mercurial concept. Purpose to someone might simply be an interest or it might be an internal desire to provide value to a community. Arguably, purpose could also be providing for family, like paying for a child to go to college or paying for medical bills for a loved one; which would blur the lines between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Relatedness: How does what you work on increase your relationship with others; either those you work with or those you work for. To me, this is an extrinsic motivation, but it is not worth arguing the point here.

For some of us, if we were solely left to these intrinsic motivators, we might end up playing video games all day, or maybe spend our time creating music or art. And only a very few of us would enter the janitorial or tax accountant fields.

Extrinsic Motivators

Some (like Daniel Pink) argue that extrinsic motivators won’t achieve the same amount of success or productivity as internal motivators. There is some truth to that, but for the non-altruistic and non-independently wealthy, extrinsic values are useful to motivate people to do stuff that we wouldn’t normally do. Also it is hard to argue against the power of extrinsic motivators when watching pro-sports athletes. It is also not clear how to remove extrinsic motivations and still get stuff done. The most obvious and common extrinsic motivator is money (generally referred to as “compensation”). Along with compensation, some extrinsic motivators are:

Compensation: Exchanging money or goods for work is the traditional way that people are encouraged to do work. How much money or goods is appropriate or optimal is not easily determined. Also, things like employer funded medical insurance falls under this category.

Perks: There is not a clear line when something is a perk and when it is compensation. They are very similar. However, perks, generally, cannot easily be purchased and are not part of a formal compensation. Perks can usually be given or not without violating an employee’s employment agreement.

Status: Some work can be considered “cool”. It elevates a person’s social standing in a community. Firefighters and movie stars commonly enjoy this motivation.

Praise: Some jobs come with high praise like those who work in the military. Even in low praise jobs, receiving appreciation for one’s work is motivating. Conversely, not receiving gratitude can be a strong demotivator.

Power: Power is the ability to direct or influence the actions of others and to steer the direction of a team or organization. Many of the above motivators can be used to gain power. However, some jobs inherently come with power. Politicians, managers, and corporate leaders are all positions that come with power and authority. The power of one individual can lead to reduced autonomy for others.

It is important to not think of any of these motivators as inherently good or bad. Power and money are not necessarily bad motivators. Self-improvement or purpose are not inherently good motivators. Similarly, these motivators don’t make for good or bad people. People should not be judged simply on these motivations.

Demotavators

There are things that reduce our motivation. Many demotivators can simply be categorized as the opposite of motivators listed above. However, some are worth considering because they are common or are not obviously the opposite of one of the motivators. Intrinsic Demotavators

Tediousness: Tedious work is work that is boring and repetitive. It either doesn’t fit with our view of what is purposeful or is something that does not challenge us.

Burnout: Burnout comes when repeated effort is applied to undesirable, stressful, or tedious work. The more repetitive something is, the more likely it is to cause burnout. Some work may start out as desirable, but repetition can cause it to become undesirable and demotivating.
Extrinsic Demotivators

Powerlessness: Powerlessness is the opposite of autonomy, except that powerlessness comes from an external force that is not overcomable. Some common contributing factors to powerlessness are micromanagement and frequent changing goals and priorities.

Bureaucracy: Bureaucracy increases the burden to get something done without directly contributing to the actual implementation. Bureaucracy is sometimes useful to someone, but is generally called bureaucracy when it isn’t useful to the person who needs to do the bureaucratic work. It is work we do to track work or to make sure that others are aware of what work is being completed and it provides a mechanism for others to approve or deny work. Bureaucracy decreases autonomy.

Examples

The table below attempts to organize common engineering activities into motivating and demotivating categories. Organizing activities into the different categories is a highly subjective activity. The table below could look very different to different people. Some people might value conferences while others might not. Similarly, some people may have anxiety around crowds, and socials would be demotivating instead of a perk to those people. Also, many activities fit into multiple categories and some fit into motivating and demotivating categories at the same time.

This table is an example to help identify preferred and undesirable tasks that might be contributing to or diminishing finding value and meaning at work.