318 - Motivation
"What" motivates an [individual, group, or human-like system], "Why" it motivates them, and how far that motivation takes them (outcome), are all key variables determining the viability and vulnerabilities of the motivated party. For example, an individual may be motivated:
- By fear,
- Of job loss (and in the tech industry often subsequent deportation),
- To work many extra hours that they aren't paid for.
That is a formula that Microsoft (among others) has been known to exploit to great effect for the past decade.
Alternatively, a positive example could be:
- Sense of purpose and community,
- Fulfilling emotional needs and integrating into an individual's sense of identity,
- Inspiring them to work many extra hours that they aren't paid for.
The end result may be the same, but the mechanisms of action are completely different, as are the long-term viability and vulnerabilities of the two. The former example is inherently fragile, with low morale, lower loyalty, subsequent high turnover, and overall low stability and viability, with vulnerability across almost all points. The latter is antifragile, with high morale, higher loyalty, low turnover, and high stability and viability.
The first example is tech industry standard, and why few in the industry stay with a company for more than 2 years. The latter is more common in purpose-driven international organizations, but still quite uncommon today overall.
People whose emotional needs are fulfilled, the ideal motivational case, are universally better performing and more stable as a workforce, and they're far more resilient to bad actors and bribery.
There are also a small number like myself, whose core source of motivation can't be bribed due to money and traditional methods being wholly unable to deliver anything of value to us. After the funding and deployment of my team's technology money simply has no value to me beyond meeting basic (cheap) needs for living, because ethics and avoiding human extinction can only be delivered through that deployed technology.
Money can buy traitors, but traitors make for poor allies and employees. If the "Why" and "How" of your organization's motivation aren't viable, then the outcome only matters in the short term, as the ship is still sinking. No poorly motivated company is unsinkable.
