A "misconception" about motivation? (Episode 6)

Hi,

First of all, thank you so much for spending your free time to produce the podcast. Besides the variety of lovely British accents - for a non-native English speaker, it is excellent training in itself - listing to your open discussion has been the source of many introspections for me. Thanks for making my thoughts broader.

In the second episode of the agile principles episodes, you talked about motivation (principle number 5: Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.), and I think you missed a crucial point. What if everyone, in fact, is motivated by the same drivers? If everything you explained about what motivates you personally and individually is just different manifestations of the same underlying fundamental concepts, you could create universal guidelines on realizing the 5th principle. (The answer won't lead to a one-size-fits-all solution, I promise :) )

A little detour is helpful to give a good explanation. The predominant mindset had been (maybe it is still) that people need to be motivated to work. One not so often quoted insight of "Karl Marx" is that people need to work. Not from the income's perspective but as a kind of human nature, which reflects in a way to the idea of a universal basic income. However, most of our concept about motivations breaks down to reward and punishment. How often have I been told as a kid that I have to do something (tidy up the room) to get a reward (allowed to play outside with friends)? How easily do I the same if-then statement with my kids?

But, we couldn't be more away from the truth. As a matter of fact, motivation doesn't work that way. The motivational psychology field laid out a theory that each human being has psychological needs despite age, culture or gender, or anything else. Fulfilling these needs is what motivates us (self-determination theory)

Mastery
Autonomy
Purpose

To explain it a little bit more, I'll use your provided individual examples. Technically, I'm not only using the information you provided explicitly but also my assumption about you I've gained implicitly. This behavior is a very questionable one to point in a discussion, yet I hope to create an easier to follow narrative. Apologize ahead, and if wanted, I can recreate it in more general thoughts.

Why are you motivated by new technology? Purely because of the technology itself would be a superficial answer. My guess is it's because you want to become better in whatever you are doing. And maybe, with this new technology, language, and framework, you can solve a problem quicker, more efficient, or more manageable. At some point in your lives, you made the experience that your curiosity and openness to new things had guided you on the path towards mastery. You created a positive feedback loop. Now, every time you can get your hands on something new, the promise of wandering on the same path to mastery is real. So, you are fulfilling this psychological need. I would also guess that because of your way of working or your position inside the company, you have a lot of freedom and felt valued by your customers or are managers, so that autonomy is a daily setting. (I'll talk about purpose at the end). I could argue that this natural feeling of autonomy, or maybe lack of past experience of not having autonomy, haven't created such a strong feedback loop as the new shiny technology stuff. So, that's why it is the thirst thing you mentioned.

The discussion about trust fits right into the satisfaction of autonomy. Trust reduced the social complexity of interactions. If I buy milk, I trust that everyone in the chain has treated the milk properly. Otherwise, I would need to check everything by myself, which complicates each interaction a lot.

But trust alone is not a motivator. It depends on how it is used to build up autonomy. I can have my supervisor's full confidence in my daily tasks, and because of company policies, I don't have a say in hiring new team members. I can be fully trusted but still need to work at certain hours. Maybe I even have to work on projects I can't commit morally. In my view, autonomy is a more accurate term to distinguished between these situations.

However, you can easily create an example with a high level of autonomy but a low motivational level. If someone is so poorly supervised, they could do whatever they want because no one realizes there even exists. In this case, there is an evident lack of purpose.

Now we can ask the question, what motivates you to do the podcast. Why are you investing your free time, money, and energy in it? Each one of you, again guessing, has a personal agenda or hopes. Maybe things like getting better recruits, more awareness, a sponsored Ferrari. But this is not a reason for your motivation. I think you all seeing meaning in what you are doing. You know the impact you have on the lives of others. You created something that will last longer than yourself. You changed the world. You have given purpose to the actions you are doing. It's quite likely that every one of you will frame it differently, but, I assume, you will find a reason that is beyond yourself and impacting the lives of others.

You could argue your podcast itself is a small version of fulfilling these needs. With each episode, you can become better at talking, listening to each other. (Mastery). For each podcast, each of you actively decides when and how it is happing. (autonomy). And finally, with each new episode, there is a good chance of impacting others' lives. (purpose)

So, equipped with this understanding, it becomes easy to distinguish between discipline and motivation. Doing exercise each morning is a very rational decision based on a lot of abstract knowledge. Discipline in this case is needed because this activity, for you, doesn't fulfill any of the three psychological needs. If you would "reframe" the exercise and move it away from a very rational part towards getting it done faster, it could create motivation, and then discipline is no longer or not as much needed. (Despite the idea of getting it done more quickly, adding purpose in the sense of being a "role model" could also be helpful. As an example: parents losing weight as role models for their kids).

Long story short: If we accepted that motivation is individual but based on commonly shared factors, you could understand the 5th agile principle in a more profound sense. If team managers want to harvest the fruit of agile, their responsibility is to create and facilitate an environment where everyone can fulfill their journey for mastery, autonomy, and purpose. How to do it highly depend on the context.

Disclaimer: I'm saying it as a white male software developer (three times privileged) There is a pitfall in this model. Before even thinking about fulfilling your psychological needs, you need to be in a position where your life has a good standard. So, is money motivating? It is until a certain level is reached. From this level, more money doesn't result in a higher level of motivation. Also, some companies heavily misused the concept to justify paying people poorly: You don't need money if you change the world. As a "golden" rule: Put enough money on the table, that money is no longer an issue. What enough means as a number depends on the context.

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A "misconception" about motivation? (Episode 6) #14