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You're on the right track, but I think you're taking a more cynical view of it (just to be frank). Whether you're a business, volunteer organization, sports te

You're on the right track, but I think you're taking a more cynical view of it (just to be frank). Whether you're a business, volunteer organization, sports team or anything else you want the people working with you to be motivated. No matter what. Motivation is the goal. If you get into motivational psychology, especially for people in the software field, studies consistently show that motivation for us boils down to 3 things: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. In many cases, feeling good about the place that you work will feed into that purpose motive. Having "esprit de corps" with your team feeds it because you want to both help your team to succeed and you don't want to let them down. That's also why a bad manager, leader, owner, coach, etc will torpedo it fast because you're going to be a lot less motivated for somebody like that. I know HN isn't big on YouTube links, but this is one of the better short talks on motivational psychology out there (about 10 minutes long). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

odiroot 7y ago
> Motivation is the goal. I cannot speak for everyone but nothing motivates me more than a well defined task/problem, a reasonable amount of time to solve it, and a follow up letting me know how much my solution helped. No amount of gimmicks is gonna win with that.
- brightball 7y ago
  What you're talking about largely falls under autonomy (reasonable amount of time to implement your solution) and mastery (feedback on your solution to the problem). And that's totally normal. Some companies can better fit the Purpose mold better than others. Many can't at all.
- AgentME 7y ago
  I would consider the normalization (or lack) of what you mentioned as part of company culture.
pdonis 7y ago
> feeling good about the place that you work will feed into that purpose motive. Of course, but that's not the problem with what GW is doing. The problem with what GW is doing is that trying to make people feel good about the place they work with by putting them through artificial "team building" exercises doesn't work. The way you make people feel good about the place they work with is to make it a good place to work. That means letting people do their jobs, giving them the tools they need to do their jobs, and removing obstacles that are in the way of them doing their jobs. Forcing people to stop work and go to these events fails at all three.

odiroot 7y ago

> Motivation is the goal. I cannot speak for everyone but nothing motivates me more than a well defined task/problem, a reasonable amount of time to solve it, and a follow up letting me know how much my solution helped. No amount of gimmicks is gonna win with that.

brightball 7y ago
What you're talking about largely falls under autonomy (reasonable amount of time to implement your solution) and mastery (feedback on your solution to the problem). And that's totally normal. Some companies can better fit the Purpose mold better than others. Many can't at all.
AgentME 7y ago
I would consider the normalization (or lack) of what you mentioned as part of company culture.

pdonis 7y ago

> feeling good about the place that you work will feed into that purpose motive. Of course, but that's not the problem with what GW is doing. The problem with what GW is doing is that trying to make people feel good about the place they work with by putting them through artificial "team building" exercises doesn't work. The way you make people feel good about the place they work with is to make it a good place to work. That means letting people do their jobs, giving them the tools they need to do their jobs, and removing obstacles that are in the way of them doing their jobs. Forcing people to stop work and go to these events fails at all three.