Motivation

Motivation is the fuel for your creative engine, so that you can reach your goals. Intelligence and creativity matters little if you are not motivated enough to use these gifts. Actually, some people argue that motivation is the root of being smart or creative.

However, not all motivation are the same. Being a Computer Science or Information Technology student, the rewards matter a lot. In fact, as the video below demonstrates, carrots and sticks (the traditional “more work == more reward” paradigm) have the opposite effect on tasks that require the algorithmic approach.

According to studies performed by world-class economists from M.I.T. & Carnegie Mellon: For simple, straight-forward tasks, the traditional “do this == get this” paradigm offers enough motivation. But for more complicated tasks that requires conceptual or creative thinking (eg. programming or information analysis), the traditional motivators does NOT work.

If this is true, then what drives us? Autonomy & Mastery

Autonomy is the desire to be self-directed. This is why programmers tend to clash with the management the most- because we are innovators, risk-takers, explorers, and most importantly: Scientists. We boldly go where no man has gone before.

Mastery is the urge to get better at stuff. The best musicians in the world play music for fun. Not for cash, not for fame. Just because its fun. Programming is the same- we want to be better programmers because we enjoy programming, and being better at it is immensely satisfying.

Look at Google’s Innovation Time Off: Engineers are encouraged to spend one day of their week to work on projects that interest them. The engineers decide (autonomy) to work on interesting projects (mastery). And from this model, a lot world class services emerged: GMail, Google News, Orkut, even Google’s primary revenue source: AdSense. Now THAT is how you motivate programmers.