Why Do You Work?
Posted by Jeff Lu on June 3, 2009
I read a post today by Larry Cheng of Fidelity Ventures today that really resonated with me. The post is about what motivates people to work. I’ve been thinking a lot about my career these days and contemplating if I’m motivated and realizing my potential at my current job. I’ve been thinking about what motivated me for a while and I came up with 3 things and in this order of importance:
1. Being challenged and learning – When I reflect on my favorite times at work; when I was excited to wake up and get to work asap, it was when I was doing things that were HARD. It was when I had to do things that I had never done before and sometimes under immense time pressure to get it done and get it done right. Unfortunately, I can only think of 1 or 2 instances that this has occurred in the past 6 months.
2. Increased responsibility – I think this motivator is somewhat tied to the 1st one. Once you’ve done something that’s higher up in the “stack”, you want to keep doing it. So it’s a combination of improving one’s position in the company and being challenged with bigger and more challenging tasks.
3. Money – Money is actually the very last factor for me. I find it unfortunate that management seems to forget this. More often than not, employees are motivated by more than money. Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos gets it. He realized that creating an entrepreneurial, collegial environment that encouraged learning allowed him to build a best-in-class customer service team for below market pay and benefits.
I’d like to end this post with an except from Larry’s post:
After hearing this and many other answers through the years, I am left with the impression that there’s a reason people work that sits above all of the specific reasons they give and ties them all together. While at any given moment, answers like money, learning, enjoyment, or others may feel like and may in fact be the dominant reason – I think they all tie into a more subtle, constant, overarching reason why people work. The impression I have is that people work because it gives them a sense of significance that would not otherwise be there.
I think many times in my career, I have forgotten this point. We think by organizing the right comp structures, the right bonus plans, etc. we are “motivating” people. But, really, I think the better motivator and long-term retention vehicle is to give someone a sense of significance. If someone feels significant, many other “important” things become secondary. Given that, maybe I should change my question to: What gives you significance? Never mind, that’s way too hard to fit that into an hour interview.
