Webster’s dictionary defines motivation as 1.The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way. 2. The general desire or willingness of someone to do something. The Encyclopedia of Business and Finance defines it as “motivation is the ability to change behavior. It is a drive that compels one to act because human behavior is directed toward some goal. Motivation is intrinsic (internal); it comes from within based on personal interests, desires, and need for fulfillment. However, extrinsic (external) factors such as rewards, praise, and promotions also influence motivation. “

In the book “Driven: The surprising truth about what motivates us”, Daniel Pink introduces forces to the reader to investigate his or her preconceived notions of motivation. The author starts the book with a scenario where a fictitious economist was asked 15 years ago which he thought would be the most successful encyclopedia. The first encyclopedia will be created by a well-established Fortune 500 company that will find professional writers as well as experts in thousands of topics and pay them well. In addition they will have highly trained managers to organize and keep track of the budget and timeline. The second encyclopedia will be created by tens of thousands of unorganized individuals. These individuals will not be paid, yet many of them will work several hours a week toiling away researching topics and writing articles. The creators will most likely lose money working on the project because it takes away from capital accumulation projects. The encyclopedia will be online and available to anyone to use for free. When presented this way, most people, including the economist, would predict the first, organized encyclopedia would be more successful, both in creating it and using it. However, this would not be correct.

As you may have guessed, this is not a fictitious scenario, but rather it is a reality. In 1996 Microsoft set out to create the most perfect and easy to use encyclopedia, MSN Encarta. And in 2009 after 16 years, Microsoft pulled the plug because they could no longer compete with the free, individual produced, individual used online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
Many business leaders and economists believe they know what motivates their employees. In the last 50 years that motivation seems to come in the way of financial bonuses and external rewards, but evidence is mounting that what keeps people in a job, what keeps people motivated, or what keeps people happy, is all internally driven.

Someday, as a practice owner, you could be throwing bonuses and incentives at what you perceive as “lazy” employee. It’s possible that this individual would be willing to be paid less and work harder if they went on ambulatory calls instead of working in the back treatment room. Perhaps before we can characterize the people we seek to motivate, we must know ourselves. And once we know ourselves, we must have the knowledge to get to know what motivates the individual. The more I did research on motivation the more I begged the question to myself- what motivates me? Money, praise, fear, internal satisfaction, what?

So I must ask, what motivates you? Does it change with the task: desirable vs undesirable? Do you believe with Daniel Pink that external factors are not what drive individuals, but rather internal factors? Or do you think he is misdirected and that you are much more motivated to do a task when you are paid or bonuses are involved?