Mastering Motivation

Autonomy, purpose and mastery - three sources of intrinsic motivation. I have recently been reading Daniel Pink's Drive. I've been familiar with the concepts for a while, but now I finally obtained the book. Really interesting!

The truth about the drop in motivation due to monetary rewards is really surprising. I suggest reading the book, it is good. I won't pay you anything for doing that though. ;)

As a coach and supervisor, I'm really interested in motivation. I'm passionate about learning more about it and how to increase it. Agile methods have some of the sources of intrinsic motivation almost built-in. Self-organizing teams have autonomy to do what is necessary to reach their goals. Depending on where you work, your work may have a noble purpose (connecting people, increasing passenger safety at sea etc.) And as a software developer, if you truly take honor in your craft, you may strive for mastery. I'm actually very proud to use this video as an example of mastery. It was made by one of my talented team members.

As Pink states in his book, business doesn't always do what the science knows. It's not easy. Unlearning the old 'truths' about carrots and sticks takes time. And making peace with the fact that you are not in control. In software projects people have never been in total control. Better accept it sooner than later. Management can and should set goals and targets. If you have the right people and you support them and give them room, they will find a way to reach those goals.

As an example of 'walking the talk', I arranged a self-organizing workshop on renewing the Definition of Done. In my role I could just dictate the contents, but what good would that bring? So, instead I gathered a group of people and summoned them to a meeting room (or as this was a multisite setup, several meeting rooms connected via teleconferencing.) I explained the situation, showed them the current version and expressed the boundary conditions. I told them they were empowered to come up with a new version and I would accept it. Then I set the time-box and left the room.

I can assure you this approach has not been very common. But the results were great. When I came back after 45 minutes, I was handed a brand new Definition of Done. It was crafted by the people who will be using it in their daily work. As I had promised, I accepted the results. People were generally surprised how smoothly things went. I wasn't. Maybe I trust them more than they themselves. Most of them were my Scrum Masters.

Finally, I'd like to promote a very interesting article (unfortunately only in Finnish). It's about the culture at Futurice. It is a Finnish IT company that has been awarded as the best workplace in Europe twice. So if you know Finnish (or want to use Google Translate), I could suggest reading it through.