For the Love of Vampires: How to Re-Motivate

For some, swine flu breeds fever, delirium, and quarantine. For my dear friend and ex-roommate, it bred one of the most innovative articles I’ve ever read on real-life vampires. I have to admit that in the aftermath, I was left with a mix of discomfort and disbelief, wavering between thinking the whole thing was a narrative hoax and not knowing how to handle the fact that there were people running around the country emulating Edward Cullen. But she confirmed that everything was, in fact, true. Discomfort was the triumphant sentiment.

Despite how appalling the concept of real-life vampires is, the article is incredibly well-written, and it grabbed the attention of her professor, who subsequently entered the piece into a journalism competition. She won first prize, which loosely translates to recognition and praise, a glowing review by Esquire’s Mike Sager, a $100 cash prize, a certificate that she decided to make for herself, Facebook bragging rights, and this blog post dedicated to her accomplishment.  Not too shabby. And she didn’t even compose her piece with any of these rewards in mind. When asked about why she DID write the article, she simply stated, “I did it for the love of the vampires.” As a caveat, she added, “And who would’ve known that swine flu could’ve been so great?” It was well deserved. Mazel tov.

Motivation used to be limited to realization of biological functions, which Daniel Pink refers to as “Motivation 1.0” in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. The upgraded “Motivation 2.0” presumed that rewards and punishments were what drove people’s actions. It failed to take into account, however, the drive that humans have to learn, create, and better the world. Pink refers to this motivational force as “Motivation 3.0.” It is the freedom, challenge, and purpose of undertaking the task itself. Money and recognition still play a role, but they don’t act as the mitigating factors to action. Intrinsic motivation should start playing a larger part in guiding a person’s behavior (internal motives such as desire to succeed, results-oriented thinking) than extrinsic (monetary rewards, cookies, etc.) It’s safe to say that my award-winning journalist friend wrote this article not for rewards or as a response to Darwinistic beliefs. She was operating under Motivation 3.0, and that was what drove her to success.

The question is: how can organizations create an environment that encourages Motivation 3.0 above extrinsic rewards? People tend to take more ownership of their work and reap more personal satisfaction when they act on intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic. How can people be encouraged to focus more on internal motives for completing their tasks?

Pink has several tactics, one of which he calls assigning “Goldilocks tasks” to employees. For those of you who despite all warnings to the contrary have tuned society out, this refers to the “just right” mentality of the protagonist of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Pink advises organizations to embrace tasks that are “not too hard, but not too easy.” There needs to be a bridge between what people must do and what people can do. Those tasks exceeding an employee’s capability are met with anxiety; those tasks that insult their abilities are met with boredom and contempt. If organizations want to avoid reverting to a rewards/punishment system of motivation, they need to provide their employees with tasks that they can both accomplish and are energized to accomplish. Pink calls it “living on the knife’s edge between order and disorder,” which makes slip-ups sound painful, but does well to stress the importance of constant balance.

Ever the well-read author, Pink uses another literary reference to present a second tactic. He calls this one the Sawyer Effect, referring to Mark Twain’s masterpiece and the timeless first scene where Tom Sawyer convinces his friends what a wonderful idea white-washing his fence would be. Tom is painted as manipulative at worst, innovative at best, turning a mindless task into a fun game. Pink suggests that organizations emulate Tom’s example and attempt to turn work into play. Whether or not a task is enjoyable, it still needs to get done. Giving employees the freedom to reframe and expand their tasks outside of their job description gives them autonomy, something Pink stresses is crucial to self-motivation. Adding these extraneous tasks into a job description can remove ownership and decrease motivation for employees to complete them. They need to be given the ability to seize these opportunities themselves, and complete them for their own personal gain.

Rewards and biology work well enough to push us to act, but tasks for knowledge, creativity, or simply the tasks’ sake require a new way to frame an organization. To encourage people to take autonomy of their successes, they must be given tasks that strike a balance between challenging and doable, and they must be given the freedom to make their work into play. My friend’s article may have been a final project, but it ended up being enjoyable enough that it actually felt like a project and not an assignment. And while it obviously involved a lot of work, it proved  to not be outside of the reach of her abilities to complete it, and complete it well.

Disclaimer: This blog was written completely out of intrinsic motivation to sing the vampire article author’s praises, but this blog’s author would not be opposed to the article’s author using her prize money to take her out to dinner.

To our readers: how can you make the switch to external to internal motivation? What motivates you to do work?

**Stay tuned- tomorrow Jessica will provide a book review of Daniel Pink’s Drive…