Drive for Teams
I recently re-read Daniel Pink's book, "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us." I read it when it was first published and was still managing technical teams. Super brief summary: The central idea of the book is that people are mostly driven by intrinsic motivation based on three aspects:
Autonomy — The desire to be self directed.
Mastery — The urge to improve skills.
Purpose — The desire to engage with work that has meaning and purpose.
I find this holds true for individuals. However, when applied to teams optimizing for these three aspects can be problematic. If an individual on a team seeks to maximize autonomy, they are likely to come into conflict with the objectives of the team. For example, a software team that is tasked with developing a component that is expected to interact with several other components developed by other teams. If a single developer, in the interests of maximizing their individual autonomy, has decided to develop the component according to standards, design principles, and tools that are different from those of teammates and other teams (essentially, a local optimization,) then the result is likely to be sub-optimal overall.
Some individual autonomy must necessarily be sacrificed in the interests of effective collaboration. It's possible, even desirable, that individual pursuits of mastery and purpose can be maintained. However, it may be necessary for an individual to focus on mundane tasks and the objectives of the team for periods of time. Finding ways to maintain a healthy balance between the intrinsic motivators and the purpose of the team is no small task and, when found, requires constant attention to maintain.
Perhaps it is possible to attach the team's or organization's purpose to the interests of the individual. Or sort for hiring people who have a personal purpose that is in-line with the organization's purpose.