Motivation

While sitting in a meeting today I had a thought about motivation. While in college I learned about Maslow, McGregor, Herzberg and others who shared their theories on motivation. For years now I have held personally to the idea that management actually doesn't have any real power to motivate their staff through incentives and that true motivation is a personal choice – a choice that lasts through time and trial. Gold stars, gift cards, cash and rewards will only work for those kinds of tasks money can buy.

The idea behind these kinds of “incentives” is that the people working don't presently have those items but that they want them and that if they want them badly enough they will complete the task to achieve the prize (It is common but incorrect to believe that rational, morally centered beings would respond to such things the same way that a rat would to cheese in a maze. Nevertheless, that is how so many view their staff).

Anyway, as I was sitting in this meeting I heard some ideas on how to “incentivize” staff and as I listened I thought, "If this stuff really is the key behind motivation, then God must be the most unmotivated being in the universe." Why? Because God has everything and if motivation is caused by essentially materialistic motives then there is nothing left for Him to desire.

Well, the idea is ridiculous isn't it? Certainly. God is arguably the most motivated being in the universe and it isn't out of the desire for more of anything – but something much more intrinsic, something incredibly altruistic – He is motivated by a desire for us and for the good in us to sprout, blossom, grow and bear fruit that we might be happy and enjoy those same things that He does. He is motivated through time and trial, set back and disappointment on both the scale of each individual child and on the grander scale of the entire human race. But yet He presses on and finds joy in His work.

I am convinced that there is something of the divine in each of us and tapping into that unleashes the power of motivation. The divine within us finds itself in the power of creation, stewardship and the bearing of fruit. Each job can find this within it.

Yes, gold stars, gift cards, cash and rewards will work – but will only work for those kinds of tasks money can buy. Money can only buy task completion but mankind needs something much more though from us than task completion. It cannot buy the divine within us – nor does it even knock on the true door of creation.

The more money is used to buy people and our motivation, the weaker will be our intellectual contribution and the less competitive will be our products. Motivation is individual. Motivation is a choice. Motivation is creation. And creation is divine.