Motivationally Speaking

Over on his blog, Jim Hinckley beat me to the punch on the topic of considering the value of Money as Motivator, compared and contrasted to other forms of reward a job might offer. I opened the door by asking what sort of expectations folks currently have for their year-end raises this year, and had planned to follow that up with some blather about how money's great but not what drives me. That rat bastard Hinckley covered off many of the points I'd intended to talk about, so first check out his entry and then come back here for a post-script or two.

Go on!

Really! I'll still be here when you get back.

OK. Me, I think ol' Jimmy's right on the money (little pun there) in speculating that cash isn't always the great motivator that we start off thinking it'll be. I started off making $22,000/year, and this was not so many decades ago that such a paltry figure represented any great wealth, but it also wasn't slave wages by any stretch of the imagination. I could - and did - live comfortably off $22K, in an apartment, and even set aside a little bit of savings every month, but just barely. Certainly I was motivated to see that annual figure rise each year, especially at a time when inflation was a lot higher than it's been in recent years.

But as Hinckley states, at some point my salary stopped being my prime motivation. While at the bank, I changed teams four times over a fourteen year period, meaning I averaged less than three years on each team. That sort of arc seemed to work for me: the first year or thereabouts was spent coming up to speed on some new technology or business domain, then a year or two of really producing as a Subject Matter Expert in that area (or areas), followed by the arrival of a wandering eye for something new to learn. I had friends who stayed on the same team, doing the same tasks, for a decade or more, and I could never quite understand how they did it. But those differences are just an indication of the fact that people don't all look for the same rewards in their career. I seek new challenges and grow bored if I don't get them. Others want stability and longevity, possibly as a means to becoming the expert in something that no one else knows as well as they. And still others just want to fly on Auto Pilot when they come into the office, and challenging a person like that is the surest way to demotivate them.

Again, referring to Jimmy's post, the crucial question each person should answer is, what motivates you? Knowing that secret ingredient can mean the difference between happiness and frustration in your career, or even between success and failure, if you're aiming for the wrong goals (or having them aimed for you). In the company that I'm currently working for, opportunities abound right now, thanks to the introduction of an Agile process. If ever there were a time for employees to take a moment to reflect on what motivates them, now is it. The company is undergoing massive changes these days, through the use of Retrospectives and other tools, meaning that every employee, at every level, has more of a chance to effect a change than ever before.

Hopefully that's the sort of thing that people around me are thinking about these days, and not simply contemplating their salary expectations as they spend next year's raise! Of course, if I don't get my 5%, I'm outta there!! (Just kidding!)