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Leadership & Motivation 3.0 - A new dimension on workplace motivation

Article · June 2019

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Manu Melwin Joy

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 TRENDING

Dr. Manu Melwin Joy

Leadership &
Motivation
A new dimension on workplace motivation
3.0
As our work life goes through a massive shift, let
us think of setting a new dimension for motivation
though creative work that can’t be automised.

56 Pallikkutam | June 2019


I
n his 2009 best seller, ‘Drive’,
Daniel Pink provides a new
dimension for workplace
m o t iva t i o n , wh i c h h e
labels ‘Motivation 3.0’. His
justification for this term is
that it’s an advancement from
primitive survival (‘Motivation
1.0’) and from the culture of
reward and punishment that
we find in most organisations
(‘Motivation 2.0’). Nowadays,
our work life is going through
a massive shift. The really
treasured work currently
is the creative type that
can’t be automised. Daniel
Pink calls this type of work
heuristic, because you need
to think your way out of the
problem and can’t just follow
a blueprint. The opposite to
that is algorithmic work:
straightforward, automised
task, which is exactly the kind
of work defined to be perfect
for motivation 2.0.
Pink’s theory is inspired from
studies undertaken by psychologists
Harry Harlow and Edward Deci
in 1971. They found that rewards
can fail to enhance individual’s
engagement with tasks, and may
even harm it. Pink claims that
conventional ‘carrot and stick’
tactics to motivation are becoming
archaic, and do not effectively
address the needs of the creative
and innovative workplaces of the 21st
Pink claims that century. So, if organizations want to
conventional attract and retain their most valuable
talent - the ones that do heuristic
‘carrot and work - it is essential for them to make
stick’ tactics a transition from carrots and sticks
to motivation towards motivation 3.0. According
to Daniel Pink, motivation 3.0 has
are becoming three main constituents. It comprises
archaic, and do autonomy, mastery and purpose.
not effectively To have all three components in
place is crucial to make employees
address the needs in modern working environments
of the creative flourish and allow them to do their
and innovative best creative work.
workplaces of the AUTONOMY
21st century Autonomy relates to the ability
of individuals to direct their own
work and have space to test, to
make mistakes and to learn. It
is linked to freedom. A sense of
autonomy has a significant effect on
individual performance and attitude.
A ‘FedEx Day’ is a unique practice
adopted by Atlassian Company in
Australia. Once each quarter, on a
Thursday afternoon, all software
developers are asked to work on
anything they want during the
next 24- hour period, as long as it
is not part of their routine job. As a
result, lots of valuable and fruitful
Pallikkutam | June 2019 57
 TRENDING
innovations happened that would
not have occurred if employees
had been required to adhere with
their ‘day jobs’. One of Google’s
most celebrated management
philosophies is called ‘Google 20%
time’. They have long stimulated its
employees to dedicate 20 per cent
of their time to side projects, which
is one reason why it remains one of
the most innovative organizations
in the world. For firms that invest in
side project initiatives, the outcomes
can be unbelievable: Gmail, Google
Maps, Twitter, Slack, and Groupon
all kicked off as side projects. The
concept of 20 per cent time is not
a new one. You may be astonished
to learn that 3M initiated it in the
1950’s with their 15% Project. The
result? ‘Post-it’ and masking tape.
The quote of William L. McKnight,
58 Pallikkutam | June 2019
the chairman of 3M board, captures
the essence of autonomy: “Hire good
people and leave them alone”.
MASTERY
Mastery is the craving to improve. If
you are inspired by mastery, you’ll
likely see your potential as being
limitless, and you’ll continuously
seek to advance your skills through
learning and practice. Someone who
pursues mastery needs to achieve
it for its own sake. For instance, an
athlete who is driven by mastery
might want to run as fast as she
possibly can. Any accolades that she
One of Google’s most obtains are less significant than the
celebrated management process of continuous improvement.
In ancient Japan, martial artists
philosophies is called spent years for learning a meditative
‘Google 20% time’. state called ‘Mushin’. Once learnt,
They have long fighters shed their fear entirely and
they were free to move and strike
stimulated its with no reluctance. Thus, they
employees to dedicate became juggernauts, match for
hundreds. If you ever felt totally
20 per cent of their time absorbed in an activity, you might
to side projects, which have been undergoing a mental state
that positive psychologist Mihály
is one reason why it Csíkszentmihályi refer to as flow.
remains one of the most He labels the mental state of flow as
innovative organizations being fully involved in an activity for
its own sake. In his book titled ‘Flow’,
in the world Csíkszentmihályi clarifies that flow
is likely to occur when a person is
 faced with a task that has clear goals
that require specific responses. For
instance, brain scans have revealed
that when the rappers improvise,
the brain activities accountable for
self-consciousness drops. In other
words, they switch to the flow.

PURPOSE
In the 21st century, individuals no
longer work for personal gains,
but also want to make the world a
better place in the process. It can
be a powerful motivator if you can
give workforce a higher vision
that their work is contributing to.
People may become disconnected
and demotivated at work if they
don’t appreciate, or can’t invest
in, the ‘bigger picture’. Microsoft
Mushin
Encarta started way back in the mid-
1990s. They paid experts to design
and write an online encyclopedia.
Project management practices were maximisation is more important
employed to ensure it was finished than profit maximisation.
on time and in agreement with all the
stipulations from leadership. In stark In our modern times, individuals
contrast, Wikipedia was introduced are driven by more than just rewards
in 2001 using thousands of mostly and punishments. People who are
anonymous online volunteers to highly skilled, creative and capable of
build an encyclopedia. Rather than making a real impact on the world,
commercializing the encyclopedia, are very sensitive when it comes
Wikipedia made it freely accessible to motivation. They want work
to the public on the World Wide on their own terms (autonomy),
Web. Wikipedia compensated its need to keep updating themselves
online volunteers by uniting them (mastery) and wanted a big picture
in a shared purpose and providing of their contribution through work
special public recognition for those (purpose). All this is what motivation
who ‘went the extra mile’ with their 3.0 offers them.
contributions. Wikipedia was about
being part of a revolution to build a
(The writer is Assistant Professor at
shared body of knowledge for the School of Management Studies, CUSAT.) 
Mihály Csíkszentmihály
world. In motivation 3.0, purpose

Pallikkutam | June 2019 59

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