Mastery and Intrinsic Motivation

Every quality manager wants to build a team of avid learners who continually improve. To do that, the quality manager must first build his or her own competency in the quality field to develop personal mastery. The quality manager also must hone his or her teaching and coaching skills while leading his or her team and develop the team’s quality skills.

This creates a quandary because the quality manager’s success in developing his or her team’s quality skills is not something the quality manager can directly control. After all, learning is not something done to the learner, but something the learner does. So how can the quality manager ensure his or her team puts forth the necessary effort to learn the right things? The answer lies in mastering the skillset of management.

Management is a practice, which means mastering it requires developing skills through on-the-job experience. To develop his or her team’s skills, the quality manager must master the key skills of designing and implementing learning programs.1

How is mastery achieved?

Achieving mastery in any skillset generally requires accumulating thousands or tens of thousands of hours of deliberate practice, which can take decades.2Deliberate practice is the mental and emotional (and sometimes physical) struggle—spent mostly in solitude—completing practice activities just beyond the practitioner’s current capabilities.

What about talent? Achieving mastery doesn’t happen faster for people who are born with superior learning abilities. Most practitioners who invest the time in deliberate practice will see the resulting improvements.

The level of progress toward mastery often depends on the time the practitioner spends on deliberate practice activities.3 More advanced learning activities, better feedback and improved mental representations can help speed the process.

Motivation

Why do some people commit to such a massive investment of time and effort? One word: motivation. Practitioners who progress to the mastery level must rely on a sustaining source of motivation to endure the many hours of practice required.

Simplified views of motivation, such as pursuing pleasure and fleeing pain, do not explain more complex human behaviors, such as when people intentionally increase their discomfort and forego pleasure for a long time to achieve mastery.

Motivation generally can be classified into two types: extrinsic and intrinsic (see Table 1). Extrinsic motivation is driven by external rewards and consequences, such as carrots and sticks, while intrinsic motivation is driven by a person’s internal urges in the absence of, or despite, external rewards or consequences. Extrinsic motivation is the stimulation of behavior that leads to separable outcomes while intrinsic motivation drives behavior because the activity itself is the reward.4

Whether motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic depends on its relationship to the person. For example, money is a common extrinsic motivator, but well-known businessman Warren Buffet described it as an intrinsic motivator when he said, "It’s not that I want money. It’s the fun of making it and watching it grow."5 For him, the activity served as its own reward.

Nurturing intrinsic motivation is a skill in and of itself. W. Edwards Deming identified nurturing intrinsic motivation as a key management responsibility.6 In addition, intrinsic motivation is a better predictor of school, work and physical performance than extrinsic motivation.7

From the quality manager’s perspective, developing his or her team’s intrinsic motivation to achieve mastery in statistics, quality engineering or quality auditing, for example, begins with the quality manager’s understanding of the team’s sources of intrinsic motivation.

Sources of intrinsic motivation

Many people have studied why people do what they do. In their article "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions," researchers Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci identified autonomy, competence and relatedness as intrinsic motivational factors.8

Author Daniel H. Pink built on this idea and categorized intrinsic motivation into autonomy, mastery and purpose.9 Many of the experiments supporting these categories looked only at the effects of autonomy on someone’s intrinsic motivation to perform a simple task, such as solving an interesting puzzle for a few minutes.

But if not all intrinsic motivation is the same, being intrinsically motivated to spend a few minutes solving a puzzle is different from someone being intrinsically motivated to devote decades of his or her life to achieving mastery.

This provides useful insights but doesn’t answer the key management question: Why do people choose one path over another when investing their time, effort and resources to achieve mastery? How can this insight improve the management techniques used to increase the likelihood of someone achieving mastery?

Looking at the qualities that make humans unique in the animal world gives insight into sources of intrinsic motivation. Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain exists in animals as a survival instinct, and mammals have further developed social desires and abilities. Humans have the unique ability and drive to:

1. Link their minds with others to form networks of collective wisdom where the quality of group decisions exceeds what they are able to achieve with individual decisions alone.
2. Share their memories, insights and foresights to consciously improve themselves and others.
3. Override their immediate urges to pursue remote rewards.10

These can be described as intrinsic motivation driven by connection, contribution and gratification (see Table 2).

Connection

Connection is the desire to belong, be accepted, be in the know, understand, share and hear stories, live vicariously through heroes and grow closer through common enemies. Ryan and Deci proposed relatedness as a separate source of intrinsic motivation and described it as belongingness and connectedness with a sense of being respected.11

In their book Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation, Deci and Richard Flaste cautioned against autonomy with isolation or alienation over connectedness and relatedness.12 Humans use their unique capacity for mindreading—knowing what others think, believe, desire, feel or know through predictive or reactive mental tools such as empathy—to support the social connection motivation.13

A quality manager could require his or her team members to improve their personal mastery in a particular area to achieve some higher purpose, give them full autonomy to implement and disappear until the tasks are completed. Even though this would be highly autonomous, the likelihood of these actions fully motivating a team is low because it would create disconnection. Instead, the quality manager would be better served by establishing regular and genuine personal connections with the team.

Contribution

Defining purpose as an intrinsic motivator also runs the risk of misinterpretation and opens the door to disconnection. In practice, the quality manager could associate objective with purpose and assume decreeing an objective would motivate his or her team.

David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, described management by objective (MBO) as "a system in which overall objectives are clearly stated and agreed upon, and which gives people the flexibility to work toward those goals in ways they determine best for their own areas of responsibility."14

According to Deming, the problem with MBO is "that the performance appraisal or merit rating focuses on the end product, not on leadership to help people." He suggested it be called "management by fear."15

Purpose has been variously defined as "making an impact on the world beyond the self,"16 contributing to something great and enduring17 and "the intention to contribute to the well-being of others."18 If the underlying intrinsic motivator is contribution to a purpose, this is better explained and captured by the term "contribution" than the term "purpose."

Contribution describes the sense of being needed and providing meaningful help and support to others. The intrinsic motivation to contribute can fuel the internal drive over the long term to continue improving and achieving higher levels of mastery in ways that matter.

Someone could perform the same acts of contribution to others but be driven by extrinsic motivation, such as the desire to receive praise or reward. For the very same acts of contribution, being motivated by the act of improving the outcomes of others qualifies as intrinsic motivation.

As an intrinsic motivator, contribution manifests itself through the combination of two emotions: pride and happy-for emotions.

In their book The Cognitive Structure of Emotions, Andrew Ortony, Gerald L. Clore and Allan Collins define pride emotions as those resulting from "the approval of one’s own praiseworthy action" and happy-for emotions as "being pleased about an event presumed to be desirable for someone else."19

More praiseworthiness and unexpectedness increase pride emotions. Doing more presumably desirable things for people who are deserving and well-liked yields higher happy-for emotions.

On a practical level, the quality manager promotes higher levels of intrinsic motivation by telling a team member where his or her contribution is needed and how it is impactful, and supporting that ability to contribute rather than merely stating the team member’s purpose, objective or result.

Framing a task as a genuine contribution better nurtures the source of intrinsic motivation and acknowledges the value of the individual.

The quality manager also should be aware that if a team member is the best in an area of meaningful contribution and suddenly is surrounded by others who are better, the team member’s sense of contribution will decrease. In that case, he or she would want to find a different way to contribute or rely on another source of intrinsic motivation to continue improving.

Gratification

The promise of future mastery taps into the human ability to imagine what has not been experienced and override immediate urges to pursue distant rewards. Mastery has been defined as the desire to get better at something that matters20and the sensation of "a greater command of reality, other people, and ourselves."21

Author Robert W. White identified competence as a key motivational driver and defined it as a person’s capacity to effectively interact with his or her environment.22 Deci and Flaste elaborated on competence as an intrinsic motivator by including the level of challenge required to bring a sense of accomplishment.23

The challenge qualifier provides greater insight into the true source of intrinsic motivation. Ortony, Clore and Collins defined the compound emotion of gratification as "approving of one’s own praiseworthy action and being pleased about the related desirable event." Praiseworthiness, unexpectedness and desirability all affect the intensity of gratification.24

People have sailed across oceans, climbed mountains and trekked to the poles driven, in part, by the challenges and misery encountered along the way. Surviving higher levels of danger can increase a person’s sense of accomplishment after the task is completed. Standing on top of Mount Everest, for example, feels much better after overcoming the trials and tribulations along the way than if you landed in the same spot by helicopter.

The fact that the journey wasn’t necessarily enjoyable can seemingly disqualify gratification as intrinsic motivation because the actual time spent preparing for and en route to the destination wasn’t done because the tasks were enjoyable themselves, but for some future reward.

This reward is intrinsic, however, because the high levels of effort and pain, and low likelihood of success, contribute to enjoying the moments of success after they are achieved. This delayed gratification and promise of future gratification can sustain the practitioner through unenjoyable periods as he or she moves toward success. He or she may achieve mastery or progress toward mastery driven by the external achievements along the way, but the actual source of intrinsic motivation is the promise of emotional gratification, which is internal.

Managing for intrinsic motivation

Managing intrinsic motivation is a skill. And, as with any skill, the quality manager must invest time and effort to practice, reflect and make improvements to, over the course of decades, achieve mastery.

This starts with the quality manager increasing his or her awareness of and nurturing his or her own intrinsic motivation. By understanding the nature of connection, contribution and gratification as the sources of his or her own intrinsic motivation, the quality manager is better equipped to nurture the internal drive of his or her team to learn and improve, and eventually achieve mastery.

Being knowledgeable of intrinsic motivation helps the quality manager avoid the common pitfalls of inadvertently destroying it. Encouraging internal competition or reducing the time spent building productive relationships can decrease the sense of connectedness with others.

Replacing a team member’s area of unique contribution with alternative options could come at the expense of the member’s intrinsic motivation. Implementing extrinsic rewards for activities for which team members already enjoy the promise of gratification could distract from and potentially replace the underlying intrinsic motivation.

Group success is an interdependent effort that requires productive interactions among members. Juggling the complex and dynamic realities of groups complicates the quality manager’s job. The quality manager must facilitate productive connections among team members and establish a personal connection with them so the quality manager is aware of individual members’ intrinsic motivation levels.

As situations change and contributors come and go from the team, the quality manager must be aware of the effect on the other team members. Do they make productive connections with each other? Do they see the effect of their contributions decrease because other contributors are added and thus they lose their intrinsic motivation to contribute? Has the team lost sight of the fruits of its labor?

Being aware of this possibility and looking for early warning signs of compromised intrinsic motivation will help the quality manager identify and deal with the issues before they get worse. This also should help the quality manager empathize with team members.

When mistakes happen, rather than blaming the team member for not caring or lacking intelligence or effort, the quality manager can move beyond pointing fingers to increasing intrinsic motivation by handling the situation in a supportive and respectful way. This ultimately leads to improved team development and organizational learning.

Of all of the skills a quality manager must master, managing for intrinsic motivation should be near the top of the list. By supporting deeper connections, acknowledging team contributions and enhancing gratification, the quality manager can increase his or her team’s intrinsic motivation to master the skills it needs to succeed.

The design and implementation of his or her team’s learning programs depend on the quality manager nurturing the team’s intrinsic motivation. Only an intrinsically motivated learner will make the personal sacrifices required to engage in repetitive, solitary practice to reach mastery.

References

1. Henry Mintzberg, Managing, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009.
2. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, Peak: Secrets From the New Science of Expertise, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.
3. Ibid.
4. Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan, Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior, Plenum Press, 1985.
5. Roger Lowenstein, Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, Random House, 2008.
6. W. Edwards Deming, The New Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, 1994.
7. Christopher P. Cerasoli, Jessica M. Nicklin and Michael T. Ford, "Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Incentives Jointly Predict Performance: A 40-Year Meta-Analysis," Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 140, No. 4, 2014, pp. 980-1008.
8. Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions," Contemporary Educational Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2000, pp. 54-67.
9. Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Riverhead Books, 2009.
10. Thomas Suddendorf, The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us From Other Animals, Basic Books, 2013.
11. Ryan, "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions," see reference 8.
12. Edward L. Deci and Richard Flaste, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation, Penguin, 1996.
13. Matthew D. Lieberman, Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, Oxford University Press, 2013.
14. David Packard, The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company, HarperCollins, 1995.
15. W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis, MIT Press, 1986.
16. David Scott Yeager and Matthew J. Bundick, "The Role of Purposeful Work Goals in Promoting Meaning in Life and in Schoolwork During Adolescence," Journal of Adolescent Research, Vol. 24, No. 4, 2009, pp. 423-452.
17. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, see reference 9.
18. Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Scribner, 2016.
19. Andrew Ortony, Gerald L. Clore and Allan Collins, The Cognitive Structure of Emotions, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
20. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, see reference 9.
21. Robert Greene, Mastery, Penguin Books, 2012.
22. Robert W. White, "Motivation Reconsidered: The Concept of Competence," Psychological Review, Vol. 66, No. 5, 1959, pp. 297-333.
23. Deci, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation, see reference 12.
24. Ortony, The Cognitive Structure of Emotions, see reference 19.

This article originally appeared in Quality Progress April 2018.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash