Top Three Motivators For Developers (Hint: not money!)

http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/developers/autonomy-mastery-purpose/

The assumption

: People perform better when given a tangible, and even substantial, reward for completing a task.  Think bonuses, stock options, and huge booze-driven parties.

The reality

: In a narrow band of actual cases, this is true.  (And by narrow, I mean anything that isn’t a cognitive task, simple or complex, according to the research I quote below).  By and large, the reward-based incentive actually creates poorer performance in any group of workers for cognitive tasks, regardless of economic background or complexity of the task involved.

Follow the link for an interesting video from a TED talk by Daniel Pink.  He explains how these factors are the true motivators for most knowledge workers:

1. Autonomy
2. Mastery
3. Purpose

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