Motivation: What Puts People In High Gear?
It may not be what you think
Meeting Theme: Motivation
A company hired a writer to boost its online visibility, but no one there had ever worked with a writer before. On the writer’s first day, his manager pointed to a work station and said, in effect, “Go to it.”
Without instructions or deadlines, the writer was free to add articles to the company’s website. He chose all his own topics and photos and made his own decisions on story length, tone, headlines and subjects to interview.
The result? In a year, the website’s readership went from zero to half a million. In the next six months, the website rose to the number one position in its field as the result of an online search on the web.
Later, a law firm made him an offer to double his salary. He took the job, but soon came to realize the new firm’s methods allowed much less creative freedom. Whenever the writer penned an article, one of the law partners would pull up a chair next to his and go over the copy, line by line, dictating things like paragraph length and photo selection. After two days at the firm, the writer quit and asked for his old job back.
What forces brought the first website to the top of its industry? And what forces drove the writer away from the law firm with its fat paycheck? If money doesn’t float everyone’s boat, then what is it that motivates people to do their best?
JIA Toastmasters Club 