June 24, 2011

Why Do We Cooperate?  Some Evolutionary Thoughts About What Motivates Us by David Lavenda

Excerpt:

This last point leads me to a meeting I had this week with Sara M. Roberts, president of Roberts Golden Consulting; an organizational consulting group, prior to her keynote address at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. On the topic of diverse mechanism for motivating people, Sara identified the following four instruments:

• Competition--'Game-ifying' business initiatives.
• Personal achievement--publicizing personal attainment to peers
• Exploration--giving people the opportunity to learn or research new things
• Socialization--being part of a community

Roberts pointed out that each person is primarily motivated by one particular mechanism. For example, a competitive person would respond well to a project 'game' that would give them the opportunity to score points and outperform their peers. On the other hand, a social person would respond to joining a meaningful project community. Finding the right balance to motivate a diverse group is the trick. Of course, it's not quite that simple. Roberts point to 'organizational readiness' as another key success factor in effecting change and getting these methods to work. But that is a topic for another day ...

Read the full article >> http://www.fastcompany.com/1762883/why-do-we-cooperate-some-evolutionary-thoughts-about-what-motivates-us