Reading Drive by Daniel H. Pink got me asking "What qualities do I look for in a company I would like to work at?"

📚 Book Takeaways: 3 recipes for intrinsic motivation
1) Autonomy (over What, When, Who, How)
2) Mastery (Flow & Passion)
3) Purpose (Meaningful work)

Intrinsically motivated behavior are driven by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Because I have a strong desire for my work to be motivated intrinsically, I look for these traits in my employer.

Not everyone wants to be intrinsically motivated in their work, but I do for three reasons. First, design as a profession has boundless externalities. My work will not only affect the bottom line, it will directly impact users livelihood. I believe this responsibility is paralleled with having passionate politicians who are driven to make change, not chasing status or personal agenda.

Second, creativity doesn't thrive in confinement. A knowledge worker that requires thinking outside the box can be dulled by extrinsic motivation. Listen to Daniel Pink's TED talk for more on this topic.

Third, I don't function well under strict surveillance. I get distracted thinking about how I portray myself instead of focusing on the task.

For these reasons, I brainstormed how autonomy, mastery, and purpose can manifest at work.

Autonomy
I don't do well without autonomy. A healthy amount of freedom over my four T's, Task, Team, Time, and Technique is a must. But what is a healthy amount?

It certainly depends on competence. If you're just starting out a job, frequent guidance would be ideal but only until you are competent enough for autonomy to be beneficial.

When you are more competent, say a senior designer, is where greater autonomy is favorable. You have 'your' way of doing things, and autonomy gives way to your personal preferences in how you want to get things done.

One environment where personal preferences are welcomed is a Results-Only-Work-Environment (ROWE). Doesn't matter what you do, when you do it, how you do it, who you do it with, just deliver good results. I would enjoy a ROW-Environment because I am not motivated by the number of hours I commit but rather the quality of the output. I think this culture/mindset is what propels one to grow beyond expectations.

Mastery
Mastery is the enjoyment of the process. Regardless of the results, you would find mastery in tasks that you can experience the flow state. A task not overwhelmingly difficult, but challenging enough to engage you with all your effort.

Let's bring it back to work. How can one practice mastery in the workplace? One thing that may help employees enter the state of flow is for companies to create the environment that allows for such thing to happen. If one is expected to reply to emails within 30 minutes, that is enabling distractions and doesn't foster the environment for rich productive work.

Another one may be the culture of experimentation. Based on my experience, one of the feeling when in a flow state is the "nothing can stop me" euphoria. This is assisted by the culture of experimentation in the workplace. Let me try to explain.

At Agoda, a company that I will be interning at this summer of 2021, encourages testing and experimentation. How this reflects in the day to day workplace is that giving feedback to your colleagues are a priority and not a "if you have the time" task. It is normal for someone to ask for feedback, and is not viewed as a reflection of one's incompetency. I believe this indirectly effects flow by getting yourself unstuck faster. If an employee finds a task to be too challenging, she has the option to ask for help and gain feedback. Knowing that you are not alone is definitely a confidence booster when it comes to tackling difficult tasks.

Purpose
Is purpose something that employees bring to the company? Well not entirely. I think the companies can definitely play a role in helping employees have clearer sense of purpose.

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For example, when a company is interested in their employee's career goals and are willing to cater to help make it a reality, I believe it is helping their employees to fulfill their sense of purpose.

The Great Company: We strive to eradicate X problem in Thailand.
Employee: As an IT technician, I help all employees in The Great Company to get their work done, and thereby contributing to the mission of eradicating X problem in Thailand.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, I have repurposed the components of intrinsic motivation as a framework to think about what qualities I would like my workplace to have. Although I do recognize that this framework doesn't fully address the question, it has given me an interesting outlook some unorthodox qualities that I would appreciate in an employer.