All of us are part of a new economy – our work requires knowledge, creativity, initiative, cooperation, and continuous learning. Showing up on time and working hard is simply not enough. What motivates knowledge workers to bring their best to the job? How can we achieve the best performance, and be happy about our work lives? And how do we motivate our teams? In this presentation we will consider different ideas to encourage motivation and employee engagement. What works, what does not, and how best to apply motivational techniques to ourselves, and our teams. Based on ideas offered in “DRiVE” by Daniel Pink.

1. Motivating knowledge workers
Jane Prusakova
Brazos PMI Chapter
March 2015

2. Think for a living
Knowledge workers are workers whose
main capital is knowledge.
Examples: managers, software
engineers, doctors, architects, engineers,
scientists, accountants, lawyers,
and academics
- HBS Press

3. Origins of motivation
• Everyone is motivated to do <some activity>
• Self-selection
– “Knowledge capital” takes hard work to acquire
Self Determination Theory by Edward L. Deci & Richard M. Ryan, 2000

5. Money
• Uncorrelated
• Short-term motivator
• Long-term de-motivator
Money makes
the world go
around

6. Motivation: what works?
• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose

7. Knowledge work
• Work is fun
• People are
motivated to do
well
• Hard work is not
rare
Work by Edward L. Deci at the University of Rochester in 1970s

8. • What motivates you at work?
– For yourself
– Someone you know well

9. Motivators

10. Purpose
• Make the world a better place
Milton Friedman vs Peter Drucker debate in 1970s on the purpose of a corporation.

11. Personal
• A way to relate

14. • If < hard work > then < >
• Surprise! Occasional < >
Rewards
“Drive” by Daniel Pink

15. If - Then
• Algorithmic work
– Cold calls
– Filling out paperwork
• Thinking or creative work
– Customer engagement
– Designing solutions
D. Ariely, U. Gneezy, et al. “Incentives lead to worse performance”

16. Surprise! reward
• A reward for work well-done
• Reward behavior, not the outcome
• Be authentic

17. Surprise!
• A surprise reward
– Gave it or got it?
– How did it feel?
– How long did you remember it, talked about it,
smiled about it?

18. Slack time
• Free
• Relationship-building
• Reflect and feel good
• Learning

20. Power Over Process
• Ask for advice
• Implement
• Provide feedback

21. Motivators

22. Punished!

23. De-motivators
• Coercion
• Continuous oversight
• Zero-sum rewards
• If-then rewards

26. Minds
• Feedback
• Slack time
• Autonomy
• Blame
• Busyness
• Oversight

27. Hearts
• Genuine buy-in
• Power over process
• Surprise! rewards
• Coercion
• Micromanagement
• If-then rewards

28. Inspire Passionate Performance
• Purpose
• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Appreciation

29. Motivating knowledge workers
Jane Prusakova
Brazos PMI Chapter
March 2015