What Motivates us? Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.

My friend Shelly posted a great video the other day entitled "Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us", (video is below).  It's a fun, quick breakdown of Daniel Pink's book of the same name, which illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.   He starts out by laying this on us: "Our motivations are unbelievably interesting and the science is a little freaky! We are not as predictable as we think."


What really motivates us?  Once basic money is off the table (i.e. get enough to buy the basics), there are really three main things that drive us:

1. Autonomy:  We like to be self-directed.  Pink says employers should realize their employees probably want to do something interesting, they just need to get out of their way.  

2. Mastery:  It is fun and satisfying to get really good at something (i.e. learning the guitar, working on open source software).
 
3. Purpose:  We want to feel we are doing something important with our lives. Additionally, when the profit motive is not aligned with the purpose motive, bad things happen - a common problem in healthcare!

I think these apply very well to a physician's life, and explain why we will push ourselves very hard - we enjoy our autonomy, we enjoy mastering our skills, and our high level purpose is fulfilling.   However, what we don't like is when others try and tell us what to do (i.e. insurance company, poorly designed clinical decision support), when we are told to master something we don't particularly enjoy (i.e. not all doctors love EMRs - especially when they are really hard to master), and when we start feeling like our purpose is to make someone else money instead of focusing on patients.  

As for patients, I think this theory helps explain why we fail so often at helping them make significant lifestyle changes.  They need to feel they are doing it themselves (autonomy), they need to find something they enjoy mastering (a lot of people don't like exercise), and they need to see a tighter link between their actions and their ultimate "purpose" (which is likely to be healthy).

So as we talk about further implementing EMRs, expanding insurance access, reforming reimbursement schemas, and changing the very nature of patient care... let's remember both patients and physicians are still human, and will be driven by these age old motivations.  In other words, when making a change... think deeply about how you can best align autonomy, mastery and purpose - and you will clearly improve your chances of success!