mastery

This is a book about motivation, specifically about how our assumptions that biological urges and extrinsic motivation are sufficient to model all human behaviours. It turns out that's not true -- intrinsic motivation plays an important part, and in fact badly applied extrinsic motivators can harm the much more powerful intrinsic motivating factors. (It will be interesting to see what corporations currently cutting bonus payouts experience in terms of overall productivity now that they've removed an extrinsic motivator). Intrinsic motivation is more important for heuristic work where the outcomes aren't algorithmic or clear cut the book argues. It's not as simple as just cranking and handle and creativity comes out the other end. However, that's just what traditional management is -- a series of carrots and sticks to crinkle that handle as fast as possible. Its important to note here that the book repeatedly states that intrinsic motivation only works if the person's baseline needs are already met. That is, you need to be earning enough to pay your bills and so forth before you start valuing how interesting work is. Instead, the book encourages companies to consider things like 20% time, self organizing teams, flexible work hours, and so forth.…