Incentives

Every action, or lack of action, a person makes is due to motivation, or lack thereof. Since geeks and suits both fall into the category of “a person”, this relates to our class. An article from Techrepublic.com lists 11 ways to motivate geeks. Those 11 ways are:

1. Select Wisely.

2. Manage Meaning.

3. Communicate Significance.

4. Show Career Path.

5. Projectize.

6. Encourage Isolation.

7. Engender External Competition.

8. Design Interdependence.

9. Limit Group Size.

10. Control Resource Availability.

11. Offer Free Food. . .Intermittently.

If you are familiar with the text The Geek Leader’s Handbook, some of these eleven will look familiar to you. The book gives a list of 5 ways to motivate geeks. Four of them are the exact same, or at least really close. The book lists

1) Create compelling problem statements.

2) Design interdependant roles.

3) Build small focus teams.

4) Select Wisely.

5) Offer free food… Intermittently

The only tip listed that isn’t the same is the first one, Create compelling problem statements. The book says this is the most important one because most geeks are “fixers”. This tip is also similar to some of the other tips listed in the article, such as Projectize and External competition.

In this video, we see Jim Halpert lose his motivation to do any work for the office. In this example however, Jim is driven by money, which is more of an example of a suit. However, Jim was planning on long term commission bonuses that were based off of his actual achievements, which could also be viewed as technical motivation.

Sometimes, all you need to do to motivate someone is to say something positive. It is important to keep other people’s motivation in mind because every action, or lack of action, a person makes is due to motivation.