I recently read Why Motivating People Doesn't Work...And What Does by Susan Fowler. She also wrote an excellent article in Harvard Business Review "What Maslow's Hierarchy Won't Tell You About Motivation", which provides a nice, concise summary of some of the concepts that she discusses in her book. Fowler's main points can be best summarized with the statement, "The reason why motivating people doesn't work is because people are always motivated. The question is not if they are motivated but why they are motivated." She goes to talk about the relatively new science of motivation, and I wanted to highlight some of her points in today's post.
Most leaders and managers have probably heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a concept that the psychologist Abraham Maslow first proposed in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in the journal Psychological Review. His idea was that people are motivated by satisfying their lowest level needs, such as food, water, shelter first before they can move on to being motivated by higher-level needs such as self-actualization. Maslow's theory is frequently displayed in the shape of a pyramid, with the largest, most fundamental needs at the bottom, and the need for self-actualization and transcendence at the top. Incidentally, the famous pyramid does not exist anywhere in either Maslow's original work or follow-up publications. Just as important, despite its popularity, there is not much recent data to support Maslow's hierarchy.
As Fowler discusses in both her HBR article and book, most of the recent research (see in particular the research by Edward Deci) point to three universal psychological needs - autonomy, relatedness, and competence. These three basic psychological needs are the key drivers of motivation and engagement. Let's take a close look at these three universal human needs. It's interesting, a found an online post by Fowler in which she listed the three basic universal needs as choice, connection, and competence. These are different terms for the same concepts, and the fact that they all begin with the letter "c" makes them easy to remember ("the three C's of motivation"). Those of you who have read Daniel Pink’s book Drive will recognize the similarity to the factors he promotes (autonomy, mastery, and purpose). Relatedness is human connection, versus Pink’s promotion of a higher purpose, otherwise the ideas are similar. Regardless of which terms you decide to use, the concepts are similar and are critically important for helping create the optimal environment for motivation.
Autonomy is frequently defined as an individual's need to perceive that he or she has choices in both what they are doing and how they are doing it. Fowler writes in her book, "Diverse studies over the past twenty years indicate that adults never lose their psychological need for autonomy. For example, productivity increases significantly for blue-collar workers in manufacturing plants when they are given the ability to stop the line. So does the productivity of white-collar workers in major investment banking firms who report a high sense of autonomy. Employees experience autonomy when they feel some control and choice about the work they do."
Relatedness has to do with an individual feeling as though he or she is connected to others and the work that they are performing together. All of us want our work to have purpose and meaning. It's often said, "The purpose of business is to make money." Fowler counters, "Yes, a business must make a profit to sustain itself. But it is an illogical leap to conclude that profit is therefore the purpose of business. You need air to live, plus water, and food. But the purpose of your life is not to just breathe, drink, and eat. Your purpose is richer and more profound than basic survival. The more noble your purpose and developed your values are, the more they influence how you live day to day. The nature of human motivation is not about making money. The nature of human motivation is in making meaning."
When I think of competence, I think of knowledge, skills, and expertise. Here in this context though, competence refers more to an individual's need to feel effective at meeting the every-day challenges of his or her work and to feel as though he or she is growing and developing in that work. Fowler suggests that the best way to help people develop competence is to ask one simple question at the end of each day. She says, "Instead of asking, What did you achieve today?, ask What did you learn today? How did you grow today in ways that will help you and others tomorrow?"
Fowler's key message is clearly stated, "As a leader, you cannot motivate anyone. What you can do is cultivate a workplace where it is more likely for someone to experience optimal motivation...Optimal motivation is the result of satisfying three basic psychological needs that lie at the heart of every human being's ability to thrive: autonomy, relatedness, and competence." Importantly, "optimal motivation fuels employee work passion. Actively engaged employees have positive intentions to stay and endorse your organization, use discretionary effort and organizational citizenship behaviors on behalf of the organization, and perform above expected standards."
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