Motivation: Whose Responsibility is it?

One of the questions that Dan Pink raises in Drive is whose responsibility is it to motivate me - me or my boss? Really the answer is that the individual should seek to use the aspects Motivation 3.0 to become more excited and engaged in their work AND that the organization should seek to create, reinforce, and support an exciting, fulfilling, creative, motivating work environment with its structures, systems, aesthetics, and policies.

Unlike Motivation 2.0 where the system is structured around fear and scarcity, perform or be punished, Motivation 3.0 is about the mutual alignment of the individual becoming fulfilled and self-actualized as well as the aims of the organization reached in the process.


Here are some ways that Dan Pink suggested that an individual might increase their own motivation:

1)  What's your sentence?
Develop your one sentence purpose statement that is transformative and gives meaning to your daily effort; gauge your own mastery and fulfillment of this purpose each day.


2)  Take your own Flow reading.
Stanford psychologist Mihalyi  Csikszentmihalyi quantified and writes about the concept of "flow" where one is so focused and deep in thought about an idea or activity that you lose all sense of time. This is a feeling when your effort is so enjoyable and meaningful that you work without knowledge of the time passing. Developing knowledge of what circumstances and areas of interest give you flow or  that feeling such that your skills are matched with the challenge at hand and you want to work endlessly in that arena will allow you to self-direct your projects, your assignments and responsibilities, and your daily rhythms to enhance the feeling of flow. If your environment and work never offer you a sense of flow, maybe you are in the wrong line of work.


3)  DIY Performance Reviews.
It is common, standard practice in organizations to have performance reviews.  Most are not helpful because the employee has little to no interest or say in what is review, how, when, where, etc.  Pink suggests that if you are truly interested and desiring and mastering your field, set your own goals because you want to not because you have to, and make your own strategic plan for mastery, routinely give yourself helpful, honest feedback and write each month your own performance review of your own effort, work ethic, feedback system, etc etc.  He even suggests, if you are serious about this, to solicit others' opinions willingly about your performance.


4) Two important questions.
Similar to the exercise to develop your own sense of purpose, Pink suggests using Alan Webber's guiding questions to develop a higher sense of purpose.  Alan Webber was the co-founder of Fast Company magazine and author of the recent book Rules of Thumb. Webber suggests two questions for an individual looking to be fulfilled, inspired, and sustained over a long career. The two questions are:

What gets you up in the morning?

What keeps you up at night?

Webber suggests writing out one sentence answers to these two questions over a period of days or weeks until you hit upon two one sentence answers that offer you clarity about what you do each day and why, in effect becoming beacons of purpose.