Meaningful Workplaces: Reframing How and Where We Work

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

In the Introduction, I discussed Bernard Sievers’s assertion that motivation as a concept and a practice came about because we removed meaning from work when we removed work from being an intrinsic part of the community. The first rewards (and punishments) were based on compliance with the bureaucratic rules and policies that governed primarily manufacturing organizations. Extrinsic motivators are external reinforcers that are either instinctual or learned; they are usually deliberately planned and contrived by others for their predicted influence or the natural consequences of the individual’s behavior (Axelrod, 2000). Pay certainly is the most common extrinsic motivator, but the list runs the spectrum ...