Shawn Klemm
Motivation – Week 3
03/27/2016
Motivation is not an easy thing to achieve. Most people want more of it but find it hard to
see what actually motivates them to achieve more. It can be difficult to determine what pushes
people to do the things they do. If you just ask people what motivates them, the common
response is money. It seems to make perfect sense that offering people more money will motivate
them to achieve more. However, in the video RSA Animate – Drive: The surprising Truth About
What Motivates Us we see that in certain situations involving complex cognitive thinking the
opposite can be true. This brings up the question, how to motivate people when money is not the
solution?
Within the Surprising Truth about Motivation video there are several examples given that
demonstrate contrary to popular belief that money is not the end all be all of motivation. Highly
skilled people from all walks of life make contributions to the world for free every day and
people who get pay raises sometimes tend to be less productive. Linux is an open sourced
operating system that is free to use. It is encouraged to make changes to the software as you see
fit and allow others to benefit from any changes that you make. People have spent countless
hours improving the software and shared their success with everyone. This behavior has baffled
behavioral economists because it seems to defy the laws of motivation.
The video suggests there are three things to consider when speaking about motivating
others and yourself. These three things are “Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose” which suggest
that money is not the only driving force but that when left to our own devices we will be
motivated to improve things. It is important to note that there is a company in Australia who took
this idea and ran with it. They take a day where they don’t require anything to be done except
that the workers much socialize and brainstorm. This Australian software company managed to
boom with innovation because managers essentially got out of peoples way and left them to
think creatively without restriction.
Mastery is an important concept and is why things like video games and playing
instruments are such fun. People don’t make money from either usually but they enjoy them
because they make steady progression and more time playing improves the person performing
the task. Accomplishing goals in a game and leveling up a fictional character literally holds no
