YOU CAN’T CHANGE INTRINSIC MOTIVATION
Why intrinsic motivation depends on more than just personal willingness
Intrinsic motivation is the act of doing something without any obvious external rewards. When thinking of examples many can think of one or two hobbies that they pursue because they are enjoyable and interesting. At your place of work, this is a completely different topic. Why is intrinsic motivation important at work? It seems obvious enough, you want intrinsically motivated colleagues… but why? The answer I found is that intrinsic motivation is an input to values like respect, positivity and helpfulness which in turn are inputs for a great culture!
Everyone wants a work environment where they can actualize their potential and enjoy themselves!
From all parts of life I have heard from people currently struggling to find motivation in their day to day life. Being stuck at home during COVID has deprived many of their hobbies, friends and family. This feeling of “being stuck“ creeping up on you, is dangerous for your mental health. Maybe it’s time we use our current situation and think more carefully about what we want to do and why that is.
Have you heard of Ikigai? Ikigai is the Japanese concept for “reason for being”. It’s a Venn diagram of What I love, What the world needs, What I can be paid for and What I’m good at. Ikigai can help you find direction or your purpose in life.
How to make us of Ikigai:
1. Think about the four main circles and come up with your personal answers. Over multiple sessions try to be honest with yourself and note down insights and ideas.
2. Sort those ideas into the intersections of the Venn diagram. Just mapping this out should already help you visualize your perfect day.
3. Incrementally try to include aspects of this into your life.
One intersection of the diagram is Profession. Even after finding the profession that you really want to pursue, you still need to find the right employer. Depending on your profession and personal mobility, the choice can be overwhelming. Intrinsic Motivation can be your pathfinder.
How can intrinsic motivation assist me in finding the right employer? The source of intrinsic motivation is different for every person. What is universal is a factor that determines your degree of intrinsic motivation. That factor can be visualized with another Venn diagram (sorry) — the overlap between your personal value system and the systems value set. The system can be many things — society, family, employer or job. The larger the overlap between, let’s say your personal top 5 values and the top 5 values of the system, the higher your intrinsic motivation will be! This key insight, can help you choose the right employer.
How to define your personal top 5 values? Personality tests? Possible, but I’d recommend the following process that will take you around 30 minutes:
- Write down characteristics of people in your life that you value (e.g. honesty, fairness etc.)
- Think of the opposite! What characteristics and values can you not stand in others? Write these down.
- Transform the values from step #2 into positive ones. (e.g. being stingy -> generosity)
a. At this point you should have 15+ values
4. Check this slightly overwhelming list of values. Skim through the list and add the ones that you’d like on your personal one.
5. Time to filter. Out of your list of values, choose in no particular order the top 10.
6. Time for the top 5. Out of your top 10 choose in order your personal top 5.
Note: Take ~ 5 minutes for each step. This is just a current snapshot of your values. It will change over time and I can recommend you to periodically repeat the steps.
For the curious ones, here are my personal top 5 in descending order: loyalty, rationality, fairness, punctuality, altruism.
Now, finding the right employer based on your top values will be a different process for everyone. Be creative. Scour the internet for employee reviews, check mission and vision statements or just ask for their values in the interview! And for those that already have an employer, examine the status quo. How high is the match between the values represented by you and by the company? If high, perfect. If low, take a decision. A low value overlap and thus a low degree of intrinsic motivation results in more energy expenditures during your daily tasks.
For the entrepreneurs and founders amongst us: you definitely want your colleagues and employees to be aligned with the values you want to represent as a company. For this, you’ll have to check for values in the hiring process! Ask candidates implicitly or directly their personal values and look for the fit with your startup. It will impact your culture immensely and reduce your pain of employee turnover and having to fire someone.
