0:09
So that is, material drivers.
Let's move to the other, extreme, which is what we can call personal drivers.
Think of a scientist.
Think of a, a researcher.
Think of, of, of a creative person, someone who works for
a media agency, somebody who, who's an artist.
All of these people, do work because it is just personally satisfying to them.
Now, in most big organizations, it is not the case that work is that interesting.
But we have to work that much harder if you like, to try to make it interesting.
But if I asked you this question, and
think about the last time you were really fulfilled and motivated at work.
You know, regardless of what your job is, there's a good chance you can say, yeah.
I was doing a particular piece of work,
where I was given something a little bit more challenging to do.
My boss gave me, a lot more freedom to figure out what do to.
I, I, I was allowed to kind of get it wrong and learn from my mistakes.
And that typically.
Is the sort of circumstances, which taps into these so-called personal drivers,
you know, within, within the nature of the job,
we can make, work more or less intrinsically interesting, to try to
make it a little bit more like some of those creative things that people do.
What are the benefits and weaknesses of this approach?
Well, very clearly when work is.
Intrinsically interesting, when the personal drivers are being focused on
people do give more discretionary effort.
They typically just work longer hours.
People will work into the night,
if they're really excited enough about a piece of work.
They're more likely to be creative and collaborative.
Because they are actually enjoying the work,
they're trying to do it for its own take.
And typically, of course, they worry much less, about money.
It is a, just a hard fact that certain jobs like being a journalist,
are just not very well paid.
Because you don't have to paype pay people a lot of money to be journalists.
Lots of people just enjoy being, a writer for its own sake.
1:57
What are the weaknesses of this approach?
Well as they, as it says on the slide,
I mean it is very difficult to make all work intrinsically interesting.
Some jobs, you simply can't do that.
We can make them slightly less uninteresting,
if you're working in a call center, let's say.
but you can't make, a cell center worker's job as exciting as the work of
a research and development, scientist, that's just a fact.
2:21
It is the case that if you create, work that is interesting, and you allow people
the freedom, you have to accept that they then don't want to take direction.
You've gotta be much more creative,
as a manager in terms of nudging people towards doing what you want them to.
Because of course, they've deliberately chosen,
to do something which is of their own, their own choice.
There is always a tension, between giving people freedom, and
then actually continuing to steer them in a direction that is useful to
your organization as a whole.
So that's the personal drivers.
And then finally, we've got what I'm going to call social drivers, which is
almost by definition a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
Think for example the last time you worked in a team.
Most teams, are places where we actually enjoy working with others,
we actually get some sort of benefits, some sort of innate satisfaction.
Out of collaborating with the people around us.
Because we're social, social animals.
And we kind of, you know, enjoy that.
Think also, for example, about a, an organization like McDonald's.
Might strike you as a strange example.
But, McDonald's does not pay its people very well.
They can't work very hard, on the kind of the, material drivers.
3:38
You know flipping hamburgers,
is not intrinsically interesting the personal drivers don't really work.
So what does McDonald's do, it's small enough to say well we have to focus on
what we have to call the social drivers, which is to try to make the kind of
the collaborative environment within McDonald's, a little bit more attractive.
So when you see those employee of the month boards in McDonald's,
that is all part of them tapping into these sort of social drivers.
They're saying, you know, you might not get the best salary, but
working McDonald's is, is, is a reasonably enjoyable experience,
you've got good teammates, and we're going to reward people for
being good citizens, for being good parts of the team.
And we're going to give, put their name up in lights, and we're going to
give them lots of recognition and applause for their efforts.
So, there are benefits absolute to the social model,
because ofcourse people do, enjoy working for a team.
It's always, kind of a good idea also, to have a,
a very clear sense of purpose for an organization.
People, are going to work hard when they think they've got a cause to work for.
What are the weaknesses of this?
Well, it's actually quite hard to maintain these sort of social drivers.
It's quite difficult to continue.
To push a model based on, making people enjoy work because of kind of the,
the atmosphere all around.
And then as a result it's actually quite difficult to know how much money to
put into, to doing something like that.
And then the, the other risk which is worth acknowledging,
although most companies don't fall into this trap, is that focusing on these so
called social drivers can kind of.
5:03
Pushover into almost zealotry, or cult like cultures that we sometimes call them.
Whereby, working for
a particular company it's almost like being in a religious organization,
you're so obsessed with the company, that you can no longer see, see clearly.
And, and, and I think that is a,
a little bit of a kind of a scary proposition in some organizations.
5:22
So, hopefully, this has made sense in terms of the,
the basic drivers that we can play with.
I'm going to just suggest you, you,
you watch a video, through the course on a chap called Andrew McCathy.
Who was an MIT professor.
And he's going to be talking about one particular aspect, of this,
which is about essentially trying to tap into more of these personal and
social drivers, using internet based technology.
So he's going to be making a link, particularly to, to something we're
going to be talking about later in the course, which is around.
Hone this technology to enable,
the shift more towards some of these more intrinsic drivers of motivation.
Julian BirkinshawProfessor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship
