"Sometimes thoughts could not be helped, for they were live and unpredictable things with hidden motivation of their own." - W.O. Mitchell in "Who Has Seen the Wind

Today, I find myself thinking about motivation and how essential it is to understand what motivates us, the people we lead, and the leaders we follow. In my career, I have found it easiest to understand my own motivations, and more challenging to understand what motivates the staff and leaders I serve as a manager. Adding to the challenge of understanding the motivations of staff is that they are at different stages of their careers, play significantly different roles in the organization, and have differing priorities depending on their own goals and personalities. While I can gain insights into the motivations of our leaders by listening to them and reviewing strategic plans and other documents, I believe the factors that motivate them are relatively complex and I am less aware of their personal objectives. In addition to pursuing broad goals like student success, they face pressures from state and federal officials, donors, and system-wide priorities. I will listen to understand them as well as I can and I will wish them well.

I gain some insights into staff motivation by considering how my own motivations have changed, and remained the same, over the course of my working life. During the earliest portion of my career, the opportunities to prove myself, demonstrate my problem-solving skills doing interesting work, have access to training, and advance to more responsible positions were more important. Once I had established myself, being trusted to act independently and opportunities for professional development that would help me grow as a manager gained importance for me.

Throughout my entire career, I have been motivated by a desire to make a difference, to be included in relevant decision making, and to work for leaders I can trust, and who trust me. Stability that helps me offer my family security and overall satisfaction and happiness have been very important to my being able to give my best and consistently seek to provide more value. Today, as I plan the end of my career in IT, having the respect of my peers, and the opportunity to help position those I work with, and the initiatives we are pursuing, for success in a way that will extend beyond my planned retirement are especially motivating to me.

Some of you may wonder why I haven’t mentioned compensation. While I have respected colleagues who don’t agree, I simply don’t think that money is an effective motivator. Although I work to make a living, it isn’t the money that motivates me to do good work and strive to make a greater difference. Instead, I agree with those who would describe money as a satisfier. While I have always appreciated increases in my salary, and especially those that recognized the special value of my efforts, the impact of these on my motivation has always been short-lived. I have found it easy to get used to each increased level of income. Once this occurs, that salary becomes the new normal and ceases to motivate me. In the later part of my career, I’ve taken on much greater responsibilities with no additional compensation or, in one case, an increase that was clearly not enough to compensate me for the added stress and effort of more responsible duties. I was motivated to accept these challenges because they allowed me to make a difference and reflected the respect and trust of the leaders I serve.

While I don’t think money is a motivator, I do think that dissatisfaction can be and I know that it has been for me and for colleagues I respect. This can take the form of being dissatisfied with salary and I think this confuses the way we discuss money as a motivator. While I don’t believe more money will motivate people to increase the value of their work for long, I do believe that dissatisfaction with too little compensation can motivate people to prove they deserve a raise. Unfortunately, this situation is also one that often prevents us from retaining valuable employees. They can resolve their dissatisfaction by finding a better job elsewhere.

Another way we confuse money and motivation is to think that recognition in the form of financial bonuses or greater investment in an employee means that the employee has been motivated by the money. I don’t believe this is what takes place in these situations. Instead, I think the money represents in a tangible way, and helps communicate, the respect, appreciation, and trust we feel for the employee. What is motivating is this feeling of earned respect, appreciation, and trust. I think the desire to retain, and expand, these deeply important intangible gains is the motivator.

The most important examples of dissatisfaction as a motivator in my career have had nothing to do with money and I’ll provide two examples. Feeling dissatisfied with the negative impact that stress was having on my health, my family, and the quality of my life, I was highly motivated to identify changes I could make in the way I do my work that would allow me to reduce the stress I experienced while maintaining my ability to make valuable contributions. To reduce my dissatisfaction, I sought help from a therapist, made changes in the number of extra hours I spent at the office, or working at home, and redoubled my efforts to use my time at work wisely.

My feelings of dissatisfaction with the way IT was governed at my university, and with the value IT was able to provide as a result of our governance, motivated me to work for over 15 years to support a change that would see the creation of a CIO role reporting to the president. This was  the “flip side of the coin” to being motivated by making a positive difference. Because I was dissatisfied with the difference we were able to make, and with the respect and recognition being provided to the IT professionals I managed, I was highly motivated to work for a change. Our new CIO will start this fall and I will remain highly motivated to ensure the new approach is successful.

Our insights into the inner lives of others, including their motivations, are limited. Often, we act based on the belief that their thoughts and feelings must be essentially similar to ours and then watch the results to see where this belief is supported or proven incorrect. In my professional life, I have become convinced that many other IT professionals are motivated by many of the same things that motivate me. They seek the opportunity to do interesting, and challenging, work that allows them to prove their ability to solve problems and deliver valuable solutions. While the notion that their are no problems, only opportunities, may seem too optimistic even to me, I can’t tell you how many IT professionals I’ve met who respond strongly to the spirit of the old Journey song “Only Solutions”.

IT professionals want to work for leaders they trust and to be directly involved in the decision-making process by providing insights based on their knowledge and experience. They want to be respected, valued, and trusted because they have earned these things. They want to be relevant, to have enough stability to feel secure about their futures, and to make a difference. They want to be happy.

Ultimately, I think that most of us are motivated by similar things. This challenges those of us in leadership positions to find ways to provide opportunities, recognition, and rewards that speak to these motivations and to celebrate with our teams when we achieve our goals. Coming back to my own motivations, the last thing I’d want to have included in my epitaph is “He meant well…” I want to DO well, to make a difference, earn the trust and respect of my colleagues, and be happy. I don’t think retirement will change that.