Comments on: Does money kill good motivations?

By: Stormy

Stormy — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:16:10 +0000

Thanks for the link.
There are several videos. Here’s the SCALE keynote one, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6000071462331877503&hl=en.

By: alex_mayorga

alex_mayorga — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:17:09 +0000

You might have already read this one, but this post made me go dig up this link I had on del.icio.us http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/11/thinking-about-money-causes-people-to-avoid-asking-for-and-giving-help-research-in-science-magazine.html
It might come handy =)
Really looking forward to a transcript or better yet a video

By: Mats Taraldsvik

Mats Taraldsvik — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:30:17 +0000

Stormy: Good point, I didn’t think of ego. However, as you said, team building, patient interaction and teaching others, if applicable, would be better if he/she was motivated by interest – and that is part of his or her job.
As for people hating their job(s), I may have misinterpreted. I was/am thinking of motivation as interest in this context, and I don’t think it is created with money alone.
Also, a person without pride in his/her work, or motivated by her/his ego and/or money alone, doesn’t care if errors are made, as long as he/she can hide it in some way. In my opinion that pride and interest is related here. This may be slightly off topic, though.

By: Stormy

Stormy — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:11:40 +0000

Hi Joe, I agree completely. I talk about the different ways that people get paid and how that effects their motivation. I was going to try to blog that part next.
OneMore, thanks for sharing your story! I agree initiatives are important.

By: OneMore

OneMore — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:12:48 +0000

I agree for the most part with Adam and Joe.
Anyway, I’ll explain my case, which maybe will allow you to see a wider spectrum.
I work for a company to write free software. Previously, I was working for a proprietary software company, but I was -sort of- an open source advocate and contributor (I say “sort of” because I couldn’t spend too much spare time on it, hacking on saturdays sometimes make you feel very lonely ), and wanted to change things from the inside. Finally realised that I couldn’t, and turned out I successfully applied and got the position for the the open source company: I actually started earning more money than before (so, as you see, it’s not the same case as Adam’s); however:
- I’ve had recently a 2nd raise but mainly because I’ve moved to the country where the company is based (life cost is higher here, although I don’t notice it very much).
- The concrete project in where I am is *not* that motivating than working in the open source project *I would* work if I could.
However, I think that this may change in the future because the company rocks and maybe I move to a more grateful project. I guess I could get wealthier jobs in this country now, but not for working on open source (and on non-web technologies, which I dislike very much), so I don’t even think about changing.
Because of not being in such an interesting project though, sometimes I’m again tempted to contribute to other open source projects in my spare time, but my long-term target is to hack only on a day-job basis in order to also enjoy my normal/social life.
BTW, I think you should include initiatives as ITO in your talk, they are pretty motivating.

By: Joe Buck

Joe Buck — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:21:47 +0000

It depends on how the pay is structured. An open-ended relationship, where the open source developer has a secure paycheck but also has a great deal of freedom to set the goals, allows him or her to be much more productive than if the open source development has to happen in addition to the day job that puts food on the table.
However, if the money is for a very specific deliverable, and somebody else gets to make all the design decisions, it isn’t particularly motivating and the developer will have little interest in continuing once the initial milestone is met.

By: Stormy

Stormy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:46:41 +0000

Hmm. I’m not sure you really care why your surgeon is motivated … what if what motivates him/her is his ego? And losing a life would mean he lost. Would that be better or worse than someone who cared about saving lives because he loves people? I don’t know. I think the one that was motivated by more than ego would probably end up doing a better job, not just of the actual surgery but with things like team building, patient interaction, etc.
I think money can create motivation. People do some jobs they really hate because they get paid – although you could argue they aren’t very motivated!

By: Mats Taraldsvik

Mats Taraldsvik — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:31:21 +0000

Interesting.
Money can increase, but not create, motivation, then. Seems reasonable.
I guess you would rather want, say, a surgeon who is more motivated by saving lives, than his salary.

By: Stormy

Stormy — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:11:05 +0000

It’s just that I haven’t gotten to that part of the talk yet …

By: Adam Williamson

Adam Williamson — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:00:56 +0000

Stormy: ah, in that case, there’s no disagreement It just seems you often make posts like this one, which seem to suggest that Paying People Is Bad or something along those lines…