Motivating Knowledge Workers - You're Doing It Wrong!

Say you're the manager of a full-time Sudoku player.  You want him to complete as many of the math-based, logic puzzles in as short a time as possible.  How might you motivate him?  You might give him a reward for every puzzle he completes by a deadline.   You might foster a competition between him and another player.  You might explain how dire circumstances necessitate that he completes as many as possible.  You might place him in a barren, sterile room so he doesn't get distracted, you'd provide standardized pens and puzzle sheets to maximize speed and you'd discourage breaks.

Now, say you want him to complete the hardest Sudoku puzzles. Would you use the same techniques?  Probably not.  You'd give him a clean, bright space to work, maybe add some plants.  You'd probably play some music and encourage him to take breaks, maybe walk outside.  In fact, you might tell him the aim: "solve the puzzle", and then leave it to him to figure out when, where and how he does it.

The first scenario is akin to the days of assembly-line manufacturing while the second is about knowledge workers.  And yet, many of the techniques from the first scenario still typify how we manage knowledge workers today, including tough deadlines, appeals to competition and burning platforms.

The reason those techniques worked with assembly lines is because the tasks were designed to be so small and self-contained, a worker really only needed to exert his will or focus to increase his output.  And all the techniques above serve to increase will and focus to the maximum possible level.

For knowledge work, like with the hard Sudoku puzzle, one doesn't need to maximize will and focus.  In fact, you need just enough, at a hygiene level, to get someone working. And most knowledge workers are professionals who want to do a good job for its own sake.  So hygiene on will and focus isn't usually a problem.

What a knowledge worker really needs, while working on hard, ambiguous problems, is time and space for thinking and creativity and socializing.  Most people think best when relaxed and free from the fear that their company is burning around them or that they might not get a good review.  Those anxious thoughts only drown out the useful thoughts, causing output to suffer.

Given this, it might help if managers focus less on motivation techniques and more on workspace hacks.  That is, removing the barriers in the knowledge workers' environment that prevent them being relaxed, happy and enthusiastic about their work.  This could mean cancelling that long weekly meeting everyone dreads.  It might mean splurging on better chairs.  Or it could just mean giving the worker a little space to solve problems how, when and where she wants.