What Really Gets your Team Members Engaged with Your Business

Once upon a time is was easy to motivate people to work harder and accomplish more. It was mostly manual labor- stack more wood, sythe more acres of wheat, row more feet of corn... you could pay them more, just plain demand more work, and you could easily measure what gets done. Today engaging people in productive work and motivating them- well the human issues get much more complex and you just push people results can go sideways in so many ways...

So how do we motivate people?
there is really a lot of wrong headed information out there.

And this subject is of particular interest to me as someone who helps companies create content as a team effort; and, quite frankly, there is a lot of resistance to this idea because everyone is so busy doing the "important stuff". Let's deal with this objection in multiple posts- see the related box below...

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but it does plainly take extra thought and energy, is it even possible or even fair to ask this of them? How would we motivate them?

There are a couple personal experiences I will relate here.
I have helped facilitate blog posts for an HVAC company. I would call up and interview salespeople and ask them to tell me a story about a particular sale they had participated in, what kinds of issues had been solved, (this story and the interview process would be prearranged and scheduled) and they would become quite emotional when they were able to talk to customers with issues and help them solve those issues, and have the customer pleased and thankful... The process of telling these stories was enjoyed. And the cathartic experience of telling stories served many purposes for that salesperson; a variety of intrinsic rewards beyond the financial rewards through the company. And it certainly made for powerful content useful to many other homeowners in similar situations.

And then there is the experience of the spontaneous appearance of project pictures  on the refrigerator :) ...  Make sure you see the story of the pics on the fridge...

Key people enjoy talking about triumphs- the solutions they create and the happy people they serve. They enjoy talking about the issues they deal with and the solutions they provide. When they are given the chance.

And then there are the scientific studies. And this  information is critical because it goes against common wisdom and learned experience from the age of simple tasks and manual labor.

Make sure you watch The RSA Animate version of Dan Pink presenting at TED  on the subject of Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Human beings are quite complex and when the efforts we ask them to do are complex; well motivation and the emotional framework for what creates a drive to succeed, needs to be understood.

People desire to do something significant.
People desire to be a part of a community.
People desire to be engaged in a noble purpose.
People desire  to be competent and increase their skills and achieve mastery.

People want to do important things and when they achieve them they want to be appreciated. Your people yearn to feel they play a significant role in the success of the company.
So what do you think?
Does anyone have any thoughts to share here?
What kinds of experiences do we have to share here?