What Motivates You?
I went to a book club meeting today led by Craig Crook, TQM Network, and the book in review was by Daniel Pink called Drive. I first heard of this book after coming across a video by RSA Animate who took a TED Talk by Daniel and animated the concepts out on a whiteboard. Really creative stuff and I encourage you to watch it here. (In full disclosure, I have not read the book yet but am not eager to do so).
The main premise of the book breaks down the science of what truly motivates us and how we can use that knowledge work smarter and live better. This post isn’t a book review because I obviously haven’t read it, but I do want to share some of the thoughts I took away from the discussion I was a part of on the book.
In the book Daniel gives his take on what the three main motivators are. He shares that if you truly want to motivate others or be motivated yourself, you need to have a portion of your time spent in these three categories or a combination of them. He gives the example of Google, who gives their employees 20% of their work week to spend doing something other than their job description. They can work on side projects or gather inspiration from other sources.
Three Main Motivators
1. Autonomy - Specifically in these 4 areas
- Task - We want to work on what we want
- Time - Do it when we want
- Team - With who we want
- Technique - How we want
2. Mastery
3. Purpose
When you think of what truly motivates you or the type of environment you work best in, are these motivations at the core? Do you wish you had more opportunity in any of these categories at your current job? When it relates to your “spare" time, do you look for opportunities that can fulfill these desires in you?
The reason I ask is because I bet they do. They do for me professionally and personally. In fact, the NeighborLink model is completely built around these core philosophies. It’s what drew me to it initially as a volunteer 6 years ago and as the Executive Director 3 years ago. I wanted to be able to spend my volunteer time doing projects I felt I was good at and I needed them to fit into my busy work schedule.
As you may know, at NeighborLink you choose your task, how much time you want to give, who you can volunteer with, and how to get the project done to satisfy what the recipient needs done. The more you volunteer and take on projects, the better you get at them and the more you move towards mastery. Finally, you can’t deny that purpose is a huge motivator behind volunteering at NeighborLink. We all want to help someone who needs it especially when our Faith is also motivation our decision.
That’s all great and I’m sure we can agree on these thoughts, but it’s not always that easy.
What I find when I talk to new volunteers and communities is that when asked, we can all articulate the value in these motivations and communicate our desire to spend our time fulfilling them. However, I find that it’s much harder to embrace them in action. I’m wondering whether or not we’ve actually been so conditioned to fit into the production line mentality of accomplishing tasks, that when presented with the opportunity to embrace these motivators we don’t know how.
One of my greatest challenges at NeighborLink is to empower individuals to embrace these motivations because I believe these motivations are inspired by the Holy Spirit. I believe that if we’re in tune with the Holy Spirit, God is going to provide opportunities for us to respond accordingly. God is calling NeighborLink to identify the needs that go unmet in the community and to share them with His people, who he’s calling and working through to meet them.
We’re going to continue to create an environment at NeighborLink that embraces these concepts in order to provide an outlet for those interested in living live to the full can respond to the calls of those who are suffering in our community.
Andrew
Comments and thoughts encouraged. I’m still trying to work these ideas out.
