Are you highly motivated? Do you leap out of bed every morning, eager to get to the office or your workspace at home or your local cafe and join Zoom meetings and videoconferences? Do you feel that your chosen career has meaning, and that you’re developing skills and a love for your work?
Even if you do feel like this, do you sometimes feel demotivated? Well, read on!
Here are what I have termed the ‘energising eight factors of motivation’, assembled from a variety of sources.
1. Purpose or meaning
Daniel Pink includes purpose as one of the three elements of motivation in his bestselling book Drive. He recalls famed Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi telling him, “purpose provides activation energy for living” and “evolution has had a hand in selecting people who had a sense of doing something beyond themselves”.
The 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”. That’s good enough for me.
Purpose leads my list of the energising eight factors of motivation. There are more theories and models about human motivation and what drives us than you can poke a stick at, but one stands out.
Since the 1970s, self-determination theory (SDT) has been used to explain, predict and foster human motivation much better than old-school carrot-and- stick approaches. It certainly explains a lot of the functional and dysfunctional behaviour I observed in my first career. According to the proponents of SDT19, three fundamental psychological needs or nutriments are essential for optimal functioning and personal wellbeing. These needs, which help individual intrinsic motivation to flourish, are the next three of my energising eight factors of motivation.
2. Autonomy
To be autonomous is to have a sense of initiative and ownership of our actions and to act out of choice, volition and self-determination.
It does not mean independence, because people may depend on others and still act autonomously. It is to have control over whatever it is we are doing, whether in the workplace or outside it.
It is supported by the awareness that you are valued, and undermined by external controls such as rewards or punishments.
3. Competence (mastery)
For SDT purposes, competence “refers to the experience of mastery and being effective in one’s activity”. The need for competence is best satisfied within well-structured environments that afford optimal challenges, positive feedback and opportunities for growth.
Given that one of my criteria for someone to be a true professional, was to strive for mastery and not mere competence, the use in SDT of the word ‘competence’, rather than ‘mastery’ or excellence, is perhaps unfortunate.
Daniel Pink uses mastery rather than competence as one of his three elements to explain motivation. I will go with Pink on this.
4. Relatedness
Relatedness connotes a sense of belonging and connection, and the experience of satisfying and supportive relationships. Facilitated by mutual respect and caring, it connotes caring about others and having them care about us.
Thwarting any of these three basic needs damages motivation and wellbeing. A young professional starting out on their career will typically have little autonomy, because while they may have deep theoretical knowledge they will necessarily have only the beginnings of competence and be only just starting to develop business relationships.
The good news is that a thoughtful employer can greatly accelerate a young professional’s self-determination. Impressed as I am by SDT theory, research and its usefulness in understanding how the workplace functions, it did not explain all my observations of motivation and demotivation in my first career.
Other factors include those David Rock identifies in his SCARF model for collaborating with and influencing others. The model encompasses five fields of human social experience: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness. There are obvious overlaps with SDT, so the following are brief notes on the other aspects of SCARF, which I have included in my energising eight.
Learn more in Tony Frost's book The Professional: A Playbook to Unleash Your Potential and Futureproof Your Success.
5. Status
Status designates our relative importance to other people. What is our level of seniority and where are we in the pecking order?
6. Certainty
Certainty concerns our ability to predict the future. Our brains crave certainty and are pattern-recognition machines that are constantly trying to make predictions.
7. Fairness
Fairness concerns our perception of fair exchanges between people. At the extreme (probably not in most workplaces), people are prepared to die to right injustice.
If you want to see just how deeply fairness is ingrained not just in humans but in other species, then I recommend a hilarious and thought-provoking three-minute video clip in which two capuchin monkeys in captivity are given unequal rewards for performing the same task.
8. Feedback
Feedback is implicit in some of the preceding seven factors, but in practice it is so important it is worth a specific mention.
Feedback comes in all shapes and sizes. When done well, with well-timed, specific recognition, praise or carefully crafted constructive encouragement, for example, feedback can be a huge motivator. On the other hand, a lack of feedback, or feedback that is poorly delivered, can be highly demotivating.
Looking back at my first career, I can see with the marvellous benefit of hindsight that many great and not-so-great things I did and observed others do can be understood by a combination of purpose, SDT, SCARF and feedback.
If employers enable people to feel appropriate purpose or meaning, autonomy, mastery, relatedness, status, certainty and fairness, and provide appropriate feedback, good outcomes can be achieved.
Take away just one of these eight factors, and some highly dysfunctional behaviour is on the cards. Employed professionals are entitled to seek satisfaction of all eight factors as they progress through their career and life.
This is an edited extract from The Professional: A Playbook to Unleash Your Potential and Futureproof Your Success by Tony Frost. Tony is a highly sought-after speaker, executive coach, trainer and author who helps individuals and teams thrive in the age of complexity and artificial intelligence. For more information, visit frostleadership.com.au