The topic of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose came about in the Alamy Product and Technology teams channel when I prompted if there were any agenda items for an upcoming COP session.
Head of Technology posted:
It is often said that the way to get great outcomes from any business is to give individuals – Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.
This applies especially to our delivery squads in the way that work comes to the team; and how the work is shaped and delivered. It also applies to other areas like communities of interest/guilds etc..
I’m wondering if we should have a session at looking at how we can drive those concepts in the teams.
Could be things around push/pull based management, how leaders interact with the work (i.e., do we shape things too much before the squad gets a hand on it)…
What are we doing to work towards that, what are we doing that takes us further away from AMP…
I wanted to explore Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose in detail and come up with some suggestions of what we might do to work towards fostering a culture that encourages AMP. As part of the COP session, we also had a mural session as a group that explored the tangible actions we might take away to get started, and also the things that we might do that would hinder AMP so that we can raise awareness of what to avoid.
The presentation is mostly derived from the content in Dan Pinks Drive book.
The History of Motivation
As a society, we have evolved and so too have our desires and motivations.
We tend not to have to worry so much about where our next meal is coming from, our basic needs are met and we have a sturdy roof over our heads. This meant we could evolve away from Motivation 1.0.
When the industrial revolution came so too did the Motivation 2.0 wave. This was predominately based on carrot and stick-type negations. Companies paid wages and rewarded good performance. Threats such as being fired, and poor references were potential punishments that employees had to avoid if they wanted to earn a wage and provide for their families. This worked in a repetitive and routine-based setting, but a lot of studies have proven that within the creative, problem-solving space, the motivation 2.0 approach doesn’t work.
As we evolve further and work in more creative and knowledge worker-type domains, Motivation 3.0 has been coined by Daniel Pink to distinguish that intrinsic motivation is becoming increasingly important and necessary for the future success of our organizations and the economy.
What is Intrinsic Motivation?
Type I Intrinsic Motivation vs Type X Extrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation refers to doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable.
Extrinsic motivation refers to doing something because it leads to a separable outcome.
Pink’s model focuses on enabling people to become intrinsically motivated – that is, using internal drivers for motivation. He calls this behaviour “Type I.”
It contrasts with the traditional model of extrinsic motivation, or “Type X” behaviour, which focuses on motivating external factors such as rewards and negative outcomes/ fear of failure.
Type I is made not born, it can be created and nurtured in the right environments. It has been proven that having a predominant Type I mindset can lead to greater health, stronger performance and higher overall well-being. It’s WIN WIN.
Autonomy
Autonomy is the desire to direct our own lives
Our default setting is to be autonomous, and self-directed.
People/teams need autonomy over their tasks (what they do), time (when they do it), team (who they do it with) and technique (how they do it).
Companies that offer autonomy seem to outperform their competitors.
Examples of what we might be able to do to foster Autonomy:
- Making upstream work visible with a clear vision.
- Problem statements over solutions.
- This might allow collaboration and synergies to happen that could help direct the direction of the solution and ultimately come up with an even better outcome overall.
- Empowerment – promote guidelines/ team norms and charters within the teams/guilds and overall department (e.g. the-core-protocols ). Do people feel that they can pass on an invite or leave a meeting that isn’t a good use of their time – or pass on a project if they don’t have time?
- Examples of core protocols:
- Ask for Help: This protocol encourages team members to ask for help when they need it, which helps to create a culture of support and collaboration
- Pass: This protocol allows team members to decline a task or responsibility that they do not feel equipped to handle, which helps to prevent burnout and overloading of individual team members.
- Appreciations: This protocol involves expressing gratitude and appreciation for other team members, which helps to build a sense of trust and positive relationships within the team.
- Examples of core protocols:
- Flexible work opportunities – etiquette for meetings – for instance can we use guidelines to ensure we group/merge/use async etc. so that people are able to get into a good ‘flow’ for at least part of their day
- Experiment and innovate. Use 10% time and other initiatives to help explore better ways of working.
- Hackathons
(promoting Autonomy): Encourage the use of confluence as a documentation hub, and link to relevant channels and or resources “Use confluence documentation for signposting“
Mastery
Mastey is the urge we have to get better at stuff.
Continually improve at something that matters
Examples of what we might be able to do to help foster mastery:
- Goldilocks Tasks (not too hard, not too easy)
- Mastery/ Competency Wheels (e.g. Agile Coaching Wheel/ wheel of anything)
- Book Clubs
- Learning Platforms (tied into competency framework)
- Collaboration & knowledge sharing
- Alamy SDA
- Lunch & Learns (ideally with external speakers, especially from PA)
- Continuous improvement – inspect & adapt
(promoting Mastery): Explore a playbook for each of the disciplines
(promoting Mastery): Explore guilds and/or communities of practice for more specific disciplines or tech stacks such as Javascript
Purpose
Purpose is the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.
Humans by nature seek purpose. A cause greater than themselves.
I choose the image of a compass because I believe that when we know the destination (and the why), the how to get there happens organically. We might have to course correct a few times, but everyone is able to contribute and aim for the same target when there is a clear mission.
Teams need to know what their mission is and how their contribution links to this.
Examples of what we might be able to do to help foster purpose:
- Team Charters/ Norms & Principles and Values
- Communicate the purpose of meetings, guilds, COPs
- Closing the feedback loop; customer feedback, recognition and celebration
- Linking personal goals to business goals via OKRs
- Opportunities for cross-functional collaboration (synergy 2+2 = >4) working groups, pods etc.
- Social impact projects
Next Steps
As part of the COP discussions, we took away a number of initial actions to make a start:
(promoting Autonomy): Encourage the use of confluence as a documentation hub, and link to relevant channels and or resources “Use confluence documentation for signposting“
(promoting Mastery): Explore a playbook for each of the disciplines
(promoting Mastery): Explore guilds and/or communities of practice for more specific disciplines or tech stacks such as Javascript
We are actively working through these and will continue to explore further and continuously improve over time.