Intrinsically Motivated Teams: Applying Self-Determination Theory

[Music] but I'd like everyone to think about is a time where you felt most competent in your daily work and you felt most trusted and had a lot of space to make your own choices where you felt like the work you were doing was contributing to something meaningful think about basically the time where you most enjoyed your work I'm ready to bet that this was also the time where you had one of the best managers you've ever had and who my managers always had a huge impact on my motivation my performance and also my health so when I first became someone else's manager for the first time years ago I took it really seriously as a great responsibility and with great professionalism I completely freaked out so I seek guidance what do you do to become a good manager and I started looking for inspiration in books and articles and also the scientific

literature on motivation and what I've learned about motivation has completely changed how about how I think about this in terms of my own motivation but also the motivation of my teams and I absolutely love teams teams are the best this delicate ensemble of artists designers researchers engineers coming together pulling their energy and talent in the service of something that is bigger than themselves teams are really the best and for the last 10 years producing Triple A games but also working on interactive experiences in consumer robotics and today using video games to advance the state of the art in artificial intelligence I've been passionate about understanding what makes a great team the topic I want to explore today with you is urine motivation what drives us to act I've came across an interesting research from

barred DC and Orion studies done in nineteen in 20 2004 where they explored the individual differences the people on the team and how that can impact the motivation of them individuals but also the group compared to the impact that the managers would have on their motivation now it turns out that my manager support has three acts the impact that any individual on the team so you can find the right people for your team the best people the most competent the most autonomous and mission driven people ever the managers that will have will still have a 3x impact on their motivation and if this didn't freak me out that number was more than I needed and so I really really needed to understand this so this was the question I asked myself back then what do I need to do to motivate my team how does a manager motivate someone else what's the secret this is what this talk is about and

exploring intrinsically motivated team through the managers toolbox here's what we're going to talk about first I'll do a short introduction on one of the most robust and supported theories of human motivation and then we'll look at a use case and we'll talk about the winner of 2019 the manager of the Year award I'm going to explore what is it that this manager does the deserve such an award but first I start with chapter 1 cell data me know what self-determination theory this is the work of two American psychologist Edward decian Richard Ryan in 2000 they published a paper titled self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation social development and well-being those things are all connected and I really highly recommend everyone here to read this paper if you haven't heard of self-determination theory maybe you've seen this TED talk by Dan ping called

the puzzle of motivation maybe you've read his book Drive this is self-determination theory maybe you've seen other talks on player motivation and motivation of people and interactive experiences and a lot of great research has been done on this topic to understand the motivational pool of video games this also is inspired by self-determination theory or maybe you've heard about those term those terms intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation self-determination theory emerge from the research on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation back in 1971 where Edward DC was the first psychologist to do experiments with human subjects back then most psychologists believe that motivation was a quantity something you have enough of to do something or not enough to do something but DC and Ryan had a different perspective they believe quality to be a continuum of different

quality of motivation rather than a quantity and since this talk is not a title extrinsically motivated teams have guessed it intrinsic motivation leads to better outcomes however in order to facilitate intrinsic motivation as DT stipulates that three basic psychological needs need to be satisfied this is our need for competence for autonomy and for relatedness competence is our need to seek to control the outcome and to experience mastery in everything we do this is about seeking novelty and getting better as something you find meaningful autonomy is to be a causal agents of one's own life which means to have meaningful choices about the things you do and the way you do them but also to act in harmony and with one's integrate itself which means to do

something with full volition doing something that you'd happily endorse because it aligns with your personal values and beliefs note that here autonomy does not mean independence because this is about having autonomy within the wider group which leads us to our third basic psychological need relatedness relatedness is our need to interact be connected to an experience caring for others this is about being part of a community a family or a team of people you care for and who care for you and together you have a shared purpose so these are the three basic psychological needs I don't fight by self-determination theory competence autonomy and relatedness over the years that will shown to be innate things that we are born with rather than things that are learned through life experiences they've been also shown to be universal true of all humans hands up

who has humans on their teams so you should all think of them they all have those three basic basic psychological needs and so do you so when you think about motivation in your own think about those three facets are you satisfied in terms of competence autonomy and relatedness now you're learning something new right you have autonomy about the choices that you make and do you understand the meaning of the world that you do you can be super passionate about something and then certainly be this engaged usually it tracks back to one of those tenants of motivation being under represented under supported 50 years of academic studies both in the lab and in the field have shown that extrinsic motivators money promotion fame things like this can have a negative impact on work that requires creativity and proper problem-solving anything that requires even rudimentary cognitive skill on the other end

intrinsic motivation has been shown to not only provide better results better performance in work that requires cognitive skills which is exactly the type of work that we do every day but has also shown that to have a positive impact on people's well-being and thus decreasing the level of burnout in in teams over 50 more than 50 studies in the last 30 years and also for teams that show that there's tends to be a to lead to lower turnover rates in teams are intrinsically motivated by the work that they do so to recap on self-determination theory know that it's a macro theory of human motivation it incorporates in computer computes a lot of different aspects of research in the last 50 years and there under this one umbrella it has emerged from the research on exchange like an intrinsic motivation and considered motivation to be a quality a continuum of quality and at least

different outcomes an intrinsic motivation is the one that has been shown to lead to better outcomes in the oil in our line of work as it's known all these impacts performance we're also well-being and is facilitated when three innate Universal basic cycle psychological needs are satisfied and those are competence autonomy and relatedness I'm going to stop here for the theory but I think it's a fascinating topic on which you can spend hours and hours I know I did and I'm happy to talk about this offline and after the talk if you interested to know more but for now we're going to talk about what we all want to be one day as manager of the year so who could be our manager of the Year 2019 this is one of those corporate CEOs it could be there are all remarkable in their own ways and there's a lot to learn from them a lot of articles and books are written about

them every year they're quite inspiring but I always find it hard to kind of compare my daily work to their context and thus finding inspiration in the things I read about those CEOs so I'm looking for something that's close to the type of work I do working with 10 to 20 people every day maybe 30 if you started looking at teams slightly beyond the teams you're working with directly so I want to talk about this gentlemen raise your hand if you know who that is okay lower your hand if you're a football fan okay this is the football manager this is Jurgen Klopp he is the manager of Liverpool FC and he is the best manager of 2019 for FIFA men's team now disclaimer I'm not a football fan nor am i a fan of Liverpool in particular this is not what

I chose this example what I'm interested in understanding with someone who works in the context where the number teams and the impact of creativity and also enabling others to do good work is closer to what I do every day what can science teaches about the reason why that team is particularly performing this year in particular what I'm interesting in understanding is Liverpool is a great club but it has access to the same financials and some talents that everyone else and yet that teams turned out last year and he's doing pretty well this year as well so let's explore what this measure does first you need to know that yogin club is is known for the range of emotions that he shows on the pitch it's quite the colorful character and he's also known for the personal and very close relationship he has with his players but he's also known for a close relationship he has with the supporters

[Applause] wouldn't be great to be doing this every morning coming into work anyway this thing will not translate to your daily work the rest is more likely that's the I was critical but most importantly he is known for the incredible results that a team has and the performative showing last year so out of 56 games across all competitions into in 2019 only six losses 43 wins and is the first English club to have won the international treble of Champions League Super Cup and in the Club World Cup it's it's a once in a lifetime achievement from a team that always had access to the same talents and the same budget and same equipment as everyone else as they've done for the last ten years and yet it's this manager that makes a big difference we know the intrinsic motivation does

deliver better performance so if intrinsic motivation and the intrinsic motivation to win is how we can explain their performance then surely we should be able to look at the way yogin club manages his team and also cross-reference how he supports competence autonomy and relatedness now before we dig into this I'm gonna change the pictures because this is unfair to who that person is he has a great smile so it's much better to look at this so we're going to look at three short clips where he talks about how he manages his team and we're trying to reference this back to those three basic psychological needs and see if science can explain us what's happening because I don't know anything about football I have a lot more information than I give to the players and not because I don't want to I want to keep that oh just because I want they have to play a football game and football is a game and you have to

play that with freedom in the beginning for example when a new players coming in I don't give them any informations it's like let them play let's learn that I learn about him but he's doing that truly and what we want to adjust what we want to leave with him and what we want to stop him doing and stuff like that so you learn more about your players each day and you know how to how to treat them how to deal with them a lot happens in the 1-1 talk actually but that's with the player with the team they're more things to do in there and all in the right shape and in the right position and you try to yeah to help eleven players to do the right things in the right most day I love how he looks at the forward he says you have to make 11 people do the right thing it's so hard and yet this is something that we we come across every day so let's look at the things he mentioned in this video so first he talks about giving people and these new members of the team on board properly figure out how they fit

in the the wider group get into the role that they're supposed to to be playing for the rest of the team but also feel competent about yes I can do the job and I'm supposed to do to give them time to understand that he also talks about sharing the right information so when you have someone coming on a team you can either be fully transparent give them access to all the information that you have but your risk overwhelming them with information to a point where they cannot make a decision without your input anymore which is not really a way to get them autonomous but if you give them just enough information so they can act autonomously and don't require you for the key pieces of information that will lead to a meaningful decision that you are supporting their autonomy he talks about understanding each member of the team obviously if you are to provide people with meaningful choices you need to understand their perspective where they're coming from how they see things so you can give them information from a different context of all either

complement their view or just help them make a decision and he also separates talking to individuals and taking care of them from taking care of the team there are two different entities if you are to manage a team and don't consider the the wider group you're missing part of the interactions but if you as a manager put things in the perspective of the team with every individual on your team you help foster those connections and show that you value the relatedness your team and I remember and how they connect to each one each of the members of the team and finally this is the angle obviously of autonomy is to enabling others to make decisions not becoming a bottleneck however it is to information or decision-making to foster people's autonomy let's look at interactive all what we do in life how understand it's about relationship because otherwise you live in a forest

alone on a mountain alone and if you only want to be alone and want to be responsible executive things you do and no responsibility for anything else you have to live alone otherwise always when you enter a room you you have a little bit of responsibility at least for the mood in the room there's football team we have to we have to work really close together each player knows each name of each person works at Melwood it's not me to create an atmosphere every each person in a room each person is responsible for that and a football team especially in it it worked out well we all win for each other meanwhile we do it for our for Carol and Caroline we do it because they know how important is to them and that makes it just more valuable more worth it's just it feels different if you have a bigger group to do it for tomorrow the ballot feels for yourself that's not so here he talks about relationships obviously it has a huge impact on witness of course so it's understanding how everyone plays a role

and impact with other people in the team those connections and how you're moved on a particular day will have an impact on other people just like if you are really positive and really confident in getting something done you will get other people to feel the same way fear on the other hand is contagious if you're freaking out about something and you're the manager this is probably a good thing for other people to be freaking out about the same thing so being conscious of this and projecting that is important to think about how you're impacting the rest of the team is quite key he talks about knowing everyone personally so this is not just about him knowing them as people knowing each other quite well again understanding other people's perspective not just a manager with their reports but also everyone on the team this is a key thing of course if you want to foster close collaboration you are more likely and this is again supported by a lot of research studies on this you're more likely to give away some of your comfort if it's in the in the for the gain of someone you know closely knowing someone

there their name their family or any other aspects of their personal life will make you more likely to make concessions which at the end of the day working in really complex projects across many many teams you have to give something for the bigger goal and not defend nicely you're your own game so this is another way to foster close collaboration which then leads for something that he is has been bringing to Liverpool quite a lot there's a lot of articles and videos on this how he has put those star players players who have been trained to think about their career and their personal gain and in the long run to think about how they're supporting the team so he mentions Carol and Caroline there are two cooks who work at Melwood and they've been there for years they've been there way before he came or any of the players came and they'll be there long after they're gone so it's putting yourself in the service of others there

is another great way to satisfy people's need for relatedness and the connections they have without people now let's look at one last clip [Music] I try everything to be as successful as possible I live 100% for the boys with the boys what we do for the club and all that stuff and I think that's leadership in the first case yes best leader you can't be the last who comes into the first who goes out that's how it is enough don't have to be always the first coming in or last going audits and I like this but you have to be an example as well that's how it is you have enough confidence and that's very important for a leader because confidence if I would expect for myself that I know everything you know the best in everything I couldn't have confidence but I don't expect that I I know I'm good in a couple of things really good in a few things and that's enough what I can do my contest is big enough that I can really let people grow next to me it's no problem I need experts around me it's really

really very important that you're empathic that you that we try to understand people around you enter to give real support to the people around - and then everybody connect that's what leadership is have strong people around you with a better knowledge in different departments than yourself don't act like you know everything be ready to admit that I have no clue in the moment so give me a couple of minutes that I will have a clue probably and that's exactly how I understand it but it's not real philosophy it's just my way of life so in this video what he talks about is leading by example essentially showing other people what good looks like helping them to understand how to get better which is a typical imitation learning technique right yeah we all know and again having confidence goes back to what I mentioned earlier showing other people in the team that they are able to get the goal to achieve the goal they are all set for themselves it has been shown to have a huge impact obviously on the on the the probability that the outcome will be positive is

believing you are able to do it and also being quite transparent about both your strengths and weaknesses as a manager showing that this is okay to not be perfect and to have room to grow in different areas and and benefiting from training is a great sign sending to other people who might think I have a weakness I can I actually express it openly to my manager I'm going am I going to have a negative impact on performance review or anything else if I talk about this now will I get actual support from my manager and potentially the training that I need as a manager showing that it's okay to have those because you have them as well will make everyone more comfortable sharing those and essentially this is how you can enable other people to grow and he talks about how you want other people to be able to do things better than you do in different areas again he is not a football player he cannot start on the pitch and play instead of his players so all he can do is help others make decisions but eventually helping them will get become better player

leading to better performance he talks about having empathy understanding other people again this is about putting yourself in other people's shoes understanding their perspective helping them have helping provide them with meaningful choices to them they support economy but not just by letting everyone do whatever they like or how they want to do things giving the proper context and then actively supporting their exploration and figuring out the best way to achieve something and give them the feedback they need along the way this is what giving real support is about and you see here in just three short clips you can see how a range of different things he does nicely support both competence autonomy and also relatedness in just under three minutes this is something I did for myself as a manager quite often asking myself when I'm about to do something or in the way I communicated something or process I want to use I asked myself this question am i supporting competence autonomy and relatedness or am i creating barriers

that will limit my team's autonomy and also I think this is something that is some not a checkbox it's not a list that you can magically complete and then one day you get better results if we look at the results that the Liverpool team has had he's not a new manager he's been with that team for over three seasons and for the first three years doing exactly what he's been doing all his career there was no major impact on performance it then over time the team started to get better as a group and is now one of the best teams in the league yes the last week they've had their first of the season and it was worth it was newsworthy it was so surprising that they were losing a game because they are at a point where no one understands what is their secret and how they could be beaten and what's the thing that gets them all together another thing that quite unique is that they didn't win a single title in three seasons this is unique in the in football because most of the time the

manager would have been fired after a season or two at best here I think that if he is a good manager to his team he also has good managers who have giving him the space and the autonomy to explore different ways of growing his team who understand that you need patience and and and take the time for things to get in place and I think it's again those connections of things that make the team perform in the end and it was interesting to me from a game developers perspective to think about this as most projects in the games industry who start the really complex it takes a lot of time to get anything fun or anything on screen and then suddenly at the end every piece comes together this is just a kind of anecdote but interestingly the CEO of Liverpool comes from the games industry and was the CEO of Electronic Arts in the head of EA Sports so to close on human motivation and trying to answer that question I asked myself many years ago what do I

need to do to motivate my team what I've learned to the study of human motivation is I wasn't asking myself the right question instead I should have been asking myself how me as a manager or actually anyone on the team can help facilitate your team's intrinsic motivation create an environment in the conditions where they will be intrinsically motivated it's not something you will give them it's something you can facilitate which eventually means doing things that will support the need for competence for autonomy and relatedness or this research on on motivation shows is that happy game developers make happy gamers it's not just a saying eventually it's a chess science thank you very much