I recently came across a study that reminded me of the importance of thoughtful motivation in effective management. The study examined the role meaningful work plays in engaging and motivating employees. The study’s conclusion: Meaningful work is a key motivational factor, especially when combined with attributes such as varied tasks, autonomy, and opportunities for personal development. From the study: “Overall, the results show that meaningful work plays an important role in enhancing employee engagement, and that providing employees with skill and task variety is important to achieving that goal.”

Cracking the Code

I liked the study; I felt it had a good, insightful main point. But when I thought back to my own decades in management, and the many individuals I got to know over those years, it also felt to me that the study was providing one medium-sized piece of a large, complicated puzzle.

Meaningful work matters, to be sure; regardless of the job, it’s always helpful for employees to feel their work has a solid, constructive purpose. But motivations can be highly individualistic. I knew employees who were motivated by nothing so much as having a flexible schedule that enabled them to attend their children’s sports events. Or a flexible schedule that allowed them to check on and help take care of aging parents. I knew employees who despised micromanagement (and there are plenty of those) and wanted nothing so much as the autonomy to work on projects independently. I also knew employees who wanted relatively close management, who liked to check in regularly, and preferred working in a more structured environment.

At times, I thought of management almost as detective work; we try to “crack the code” to figure out how to get the best out of employees. For some employees, truth be told, I never did crack the code and figure it out.

Changing Over Time

Motivations can definitely change over time, too; I understood this firsthand from my own experience.

When I was young and starting as a journalist (back in the Pleistocene Era), I had only myself to think about; I was highly motivated by the nature of the work. When I moved into my 30s, had a young family and more responsibilities and expenses, my motivations shifted: I changed fields into life insurance, got an MBA, and became considerably more motivated by money.

Meaningful work still mattered; I wouldn’t have wanted to do something I didn’t believe in. However, the nature of the work itself made less difference than it had just a few years earlier. I came to think of understanding motivation in business as something more fluid than static, more an art than a science. But as a manager, when it comes to your own employees, it’s definitely a puzzle worth spending time on.