Autonomy, mastery and purpose: every employee is the better for it

Years ago I read ’Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us’ by Daniel Pink. When I came across the book again during the renovation of our office, I realised how timeless its content is. Daniel Pink writes about the three essential conditions that lead to intrinsic motivation: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Autonomy

Autonomy is about the extent to which people have the opportunity to make their own decisions. There are roughly three reasons why people do anything at all. The first refers to so-called herd behaviour: following the group because it gives you a sense of safety and security. The second reason is even less motivating: you do something because your manager, for instance, requires it. You can sense straight away that this runs counter to autonomy. The third reason why people do something is the most important one: because they want to themselves. That is when we stimulate our intrinsic motivation to the full, and with it our personal drivers. My advice is therefore: give employees the autonomy, read freedom, to make use of their personal drivers. 

Mastery

Mastery means that everyone wants to get better at what they do. Whether it is about cooking, sport, or anything else. An example: if you ran 8 km last week in a certain time, you want to improve on that time this week. From my result-oriented and performance-oriented orange, I can identify with this completely. How does it work for differently coloured drivers? There the driver is far more a precondition. Purple employees also naturally want to improve, but together with the group. Blue employees want to improve on the basis of a structured and detailed approach. As a manager it is important to take account of employees' personal preferences and not to apply a standard approach. 

Purpose

Purpose connects nicely with the thinking of Simon Sinek: ’Start with why’. (The website www.startwithwhy.com is well worth a visit.) From the MyDrives driver theory, purpose quickly brings to mind the idealistic turquoise that wants to give meaning to life. For differently coloured people the answer is not always so self-evident. What matters then: go deeper. Keep asking in order to uncover what really drives the person in question. There is a fair chance that a green-coloured individual will give you an answer along the lines of ’pleasant social relationships’, and that an orange-red coloured person will give answers in the direction of ’independence’.

Summary

Give employees the autonomy to make use of their personal drivers. When those are stimulated to the full, the chance is greatest that they enjoy their work. As a manager or leader, therefore, always keep an eye on employees' personal preferences. The better you succeed in that, the faster employees travel the road to mastery and the better they are able to give personal purpose to their working lives. They benefit from that, and so does your organisation as a whole.