We need motivation (good managers) • Hacker News Board

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#71

Post by JohnFen » Fri, Feb 02, 2024, 3:46 PM UTC

hayst4ck wrote: post #49

I am a little sad that there was no homage to autonomy, mastery, and purpose. I've found that to be the most accurate and simple framework for intrinsic motivation. I think purpose is the clear problem. How does working make you feel? Pick your company and I think what might have started out as a venerable goal, expressed in a mission statement has long been forgotten: Google: Organize the world's information and mak…

Mission statements have been little more than marketing tools for at least my entire career.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#72

Post by paulcole » Fri, Feb 02, 2024, 6:47 PM UTC

BobaFloutist wrote: post #69

paulcole wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK then how much would you be willing to bet that you could demotivate or motivate me? The difference in the wallet theft vs. motivation idea is that you have 0 control over my motivation. I am in 100% control of my motivation. You may be able to try to increase or decrease my motivation but you can’t control it. Motivation’s not a thing you can pick up and take like a wallet. It’s not real and it’s mine.

I think if I were your direct supervisor I'd be about as confident in my ability to demotivate you as I would be in my ability to steal your wallet if I were a proficient pickpocket.

And you’d be wrong, in my opinion. If you’re a proficient pickpocket you’d be able to use your skill to take my wallet. I have no skill at actively protecting my wallet or knowing anything about pickpocketing.

If you’re my boss, I’m very confident that my ability to maintain my motivation is superior to your ability to demotivate me.

I’d confidently bet $5,000 on that — not that it’s a wager we can play out unless we work together one day.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#73

Post by shermantanktop » Fri, Feb 02, 2024, 7:26 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #68

shermantanktop wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s where I think it gets complicated. At a physical level, yes, of course. But at the psychological or moral level, it’s murkier. People can be coerced, manipulated, or just plain drugged, and in a legal setting we would consider those to reduce culpability.

You do make a fair point that makes me reconsider this more. However I think drugging someone is where you edge away from the concept of motivation into something else. But then it’s like is giving me a sulfonylurea motivating my pancreas to release a bit more insulin? Kind of, I think? Maybe if you’re doing something that produces an involuntary and uncontrollable physical reaction, you can’t describe that as motiva…

Setting aside drugs…

Sophisticated methods of coercive manipulation involve the coercing party looking at all the choices and options available to the target, and systematically removing or undermining all but the preferred option. Dark patterns in UX, legally dubious arbitration dispute clauses in consumer contracts, push polling, etc.

At that point, the target is still free to choose, but the options they choose from are stacked. They can still choose a non-optimal choice but probably won’t.

Re: We need motivation (good managers)

#74

Post by hayst4ck » Fri, Feb 02, 2024, 7:45 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #71

hayst4ck wrote: post #49

I am a little sad that there was no homage to autonomy, mastery, and purpose. I've found that to be the most accurate and simple framework for intrinsic motivation. I think purpose is the clear problem. How does working make you feel? Pick your company and I think what might have started out as a venerable goal, expressed in a mission statement has long been forgotten: Google: Organize the world's information and mak…

Mission statements have been little more than marketing tools for at least my entire career.

I think enshittification is literally the moment when a company goes from their mission statement to the standard American MBA enforced, short term oriented "next quarters profits" mission.

I think you might find early googlers or other early employees at other companies actually felt like they were enacting those missions, and now it is obvious at almost any of those companies that nobody, especially the leadership, cares about those missions.

I think it is middle managements core purpose to push back in defense of the mission, and articles like the one here are examples of cynical middle management who have given up on their core responsibility.

I think employee disillusionment can be measured by the difference between actual empirical priorities and the stated mission. I think this disillusionment is also a direct measure of short term thinking vs long term thinking. I think employee disillusionment is directly proportional to short term thinking.

I think the most valid criticism of almost every company is how much they are sacrificing their stated mission for profits.

I think pondering the difference between mission statement and actual action shows that mission statements really do matter.