The Rise and Fall of Motivation 2.0
Societies, like computers have operating systems - sets of assumptions and protocols about how the world works and how humans behave that run beneath our laws, economic arrangements and business practices.
There are three:
- Motivation 1.0 - presumed that humans were biological creatures, struggling to obtain our basic needs for food, security and sex.
- Motivation 2.0 - presumed that humans also responded to rewards and punishments. That worked fine for routine tasks but incompatible with how we organize what we do, how we think about what we do, and how we do what we do. We need an upgrade.
- Motivation 3.0 - the upgrade we now need, presumes that humans also have a drive to learn, to create, and to better the world.
Tasks can be divided into two categories:
- Algorithmic - a task which follows a set of established instructions down a single pathway to one conclusion.
- Heuristic - a task that has no algorithm, you have to experiment with possibilities and devise a novel solution.
In the U.S., only 30% of job growth comes from algorithmic work, while 70% comes from heuristic work. A key reason: Routine work can be outsourced or automated; artistic, empathic, non-routine work generally cannot.
External rewards and punishments can work nicely for algorithmic tasks but they can be devastating for heuristic ones. Solving novel problems depends heavily on the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity.