Mysteries of Geek Incentives
I’m driven by unsolved puzzles. I have 40-year-old problems rattling around the back of my brain. I know that this is odd behavior but I don’t really have a choice so ima go with it.
Geek Incentives offers a smörgåsbord of enigmas:
Why is hierarchy so prevalent? I’ve read the utopian “flat organizers” but remain unconvinced. When your theory says one thing but reality says another, consider replacing your theory. With what?
People who create incentives are often oblivious to creating incentives. How can they wake up?
Why do monetary incentives often go so wrong?
Incentives seem inherently misaligned. How do we make any progress together ever?
Incentive creators create the opposite outcomes from what they want so consistently that it seems like something must be up. What?
Reasonably-functioning incentive systems don’t seem to work for long. How can you get away from pride in a now-obsolete incentive system?
I keep saying “incentive system”. In what way is it a system?
You can teach someone Goodhart’s Law, they can totally get it, and the next minute they are turning measures into goals again. Why?
Managers have chosen a life of service. They can’t get the work done, they can only encourage others to get the work done. What incentives do managers experience that they come to believe that they themselves and their work is “the point”?
Not an exhaustive list, but a fun one. Fun and consequential. Please add your incentives-related mysteries in the comments.
(1) Do incentives actually work for non-geeks? For anyone? (2) Are incentives intended to motivate or control? Does it matter? (3) Are incentives an attempt to overcome perceived lack of alignment between geeks and others? Is that real? Could it be overcome another way? (4) Do we fall back on incentives because that's the way the rest of our society seems to work? (5) Are incentives a way to avoid investing time and energy in understanding people? (6) Why do we think that "they" need an incentive, but "we" are motivated by pride in our work? (7) Do incentives work better when the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy are unsatisfied? Probably. Does that correlate incentive success with environments of fear? Discuss.
Daniel Pink's book "Drive" is good reading. It states that "real" motivation should be intrinsic (part of the work) and not extrinsic (external to the work). Three main motivation factors are: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Which means, the more you give your team these three things, the more motivated they are. So, incentives should surround these factors.
What can we give to Geeks to make them more autonomous?
What can we give to Geeks to make them master on something?
What can we give to Geeks to make them feel acting with purpose?