Nurturing Motivation
A traditional measure of leadership success is his ability to motivate employees - but geeks are not generally very energetic or upbeat people, and do not respond well to pep-rally group motivation methods that are effective on other employees.
Those who feel geeks cannot be motivated have failed to account for the psychological differences between geeks and normal people. Typical motivational tactics - an energetic motivational appeal that depends on mirroring behavior and the desire to be "like" others and join in on the fun - are ill-suited to solitary and critically-minded individuals who do not feel the need for motivation.
The author speaks of intrinsic motivation (individuals who seek enjoyment, interest, satisfaction, self expression, or other things of their own accord) and extrinsic motivation (someone offers a reward of some kind to motivate them to action). Naturally, leaders have greater control over extrinsic motivation (the ability to provide rewards and punishment to guide motivation) - meanwhile, most geeks are almost exclusively driven by intrinsic factors, and often disdain extrinsic methods as bribery and manipulation.
Moreover, when you want to "motivate" geeks, what you're really looking to do is encourage creativity, not encourage compliance with a pre-defined course of action.
Some actions recommended to a technical manager are:
- Select Wisely - Whenever possible, select individuals who show an interest in the work to be done beforehand. This may require working with individuals to determine their interests, or helping them to see the connection between pre-existing areas of interest and a given project.
- Provide Vision - Another method or tapping intrinsic motivation is to provide geeks with a vision that shows the correlation of their work to the objectives of the organization (or of a project). Many geeks tend to be very narrowly focused, and helping them to take a heads-up view provides a sense of context.
- Provide Context - Another method of providing vision, hence inspiration, is to show the geek the context of their work, especially in the context of a career path. In some cases, a geek can be motivated to perform a humdrum task if he has a sense that it is a step toward a destination he wishes to attain.
- Provide goals - The problem-solving propensity of geeks is focused on achieving a goal or meets criteria for success. By providing clear objectives, you are telling the geek how to "win," and he will be moer likely to take interest.
- Isolate the group - Isolation can be counterproductive if it keeps the group detached from the organization - but in some cases, removing the group from distractions can help to focus them on the important matters and disregard distractions
- Encourage competition - Geeks love to compete, and if you can set two groups up to compete with one another, the desire to shine by outperforming the other can motivate performance - just be careful to avoid competition that may lead to destructive internal rivalries
- Design Interdependence - Geeks can be motivated by the desire to be helpful to others (particularly, other geeks). While they are not "pack animals" by nature, a geek can be motivated to excel if he feels that others are depending on his work (and conversely, if he knows that failure will harm his reputation among the clique of geeks)
- Limit Group Size - If a geek is working in too large a context, with many people doing many different things, he may have the sense that his work lacks value, or that others may take credit for his success, or that his achievement will be invisible.
- Control Resources - The difficulty of a task is appealing to a geek, and if resources are plentiful, such that the goal seems easy to achieve, a geek loses interest. Resource limitations such as time constraints, the absence of certain skills, limited access to systems, etc. are obstacles that contribute to the complexity of a puzzle. But it's a difficult balance: too many resources and task isn't challenging enough to engage interest, too few resources and the task seems impossible.
Unfortunately, it's easier to squelch enthusiasm to create it, and a few missteps can undermine the intrinsic motivation that geeks bring to the table. Specific pitfalls to avoid include:
- Exclusion from decision making - Geeks are independent and democratic, hence decisions made without their participation or input and imposed upon them limits their sense of control and their desire to be involved
- Inconsistency - Geeks are very sensitive to hypocrisy and manipulation tactics, and as a result are very suspicious of the motives of their leaders. Inconsistent behavior makes a leader seem untrustworthy - they will be less motivated to serve the group agenda, and will waste considerable time pondering the "mystery" behind inconsistent behavior.
- Micromanagement - Constantly looking over the shoulder of a geek is a distraction and a nuisance, and may be taken as a sign of mistrust or lack of confidence.
- Task focus - Recall that geeks are problem solvers, and are best motivated when given a problem to solve, not a task to perform. Even if the task is a step in the solution, geeks feel that they are being marginalized by not being given the latitude to direct their own work.
- Unqualified criticism - A geek can generally accept feedback, but only if he feels that it is justified and valid, and that it comes from someone who is capable of making a fair assessment. Be careful of criticizing geeks without giving them a clear sense of the reason, and being willing to listen to a rebuttal.
- Poor reward systems - Providing rewards to geeks can be difficult. They are automatically suspicious of carrot-dangling. Even when a reward is desirable to them, it must be based on factors under their control (for example, the bottom-line revenue of the company is too distant for the geek to see the connection between his behavior and the achievement of that goal). Also, be aware that there may be individuals who succeed, and even excel, at their "part" of a project that failed - this is a no-win situation in which withholding a reward will demotivate them, but granting it will demotivate others.
- Artificial Pressure - Although a deadline provides a time constraint for success, an obviously arbitrary deadline has little motivating power, and may cause the geeks to disregard all deadlines as a result.
- Shifting Sands - Changing the criteria for success - whether the deadline moves, additional conditions are added, or the fundamental criteria have changed - can be detrimental to morale: it's akin to cheating, changing the rules of a game to make it un-winnable after the geek has already agreed to the initial rules.
- Organizational Disinterest - If a task is regarded as unimportant by the organization, it will generally be considered a waste of time by the geek, unless he has a high level of interest in the technology involved.
- Lug Nuts - Saddling a geek with teammates who bring no skills to the table and often get in the way of "real" work is demotivating - especially if the lug nuts are rewarded as much as those who are genuinely contributing to the effort. Putting a geek in an unwinnable situation, where he is the lug nut because his skills do not apply to the problem, is utterly devastating.