It’s Friday, so here’s another one of those cool RSA Animate videos by Cognitive Media. This one is narrated by Microsoftie Manuel Lima and describes how the tree structures that we know and love, such as the infamous tree of life are becoming inadequate for organising knowledge, despite having been useful for thousands of years.
Trees are, according to Lima, being replaced by networks of various kinds [1] as they are often a better way to organise the huge complexity [1] of the world around us.
Job satisfaction is like a complex mathematical equation that needs to be balanced. There are many factors that contribute to the mix, both good and bad. Hopefully the good things about a job will outweigh the bad. But what are the good things that contribute to the elusive but crucial job satisfaction?
Daniel Pink, argues that motivation is key to job satisfaction. If you provide the right motivations to people in an organisation, not always large financial ones [1], then their job satisfaction is more likely. According to Pink, the three key motivations are:
Autonomy: The desire to be self-directed.
Mastery: The urge to get better at doing things and be recognised for it
Purpose: The sense that your work makes a difference and maybe even makes the world a better place somehow.
Pink explains how these factors work in another one of those beautifully animated RSA videos below:
So if like Mick and Keith, you can’t get no (job) satisfaction [2], it’s probably worth aiming for more autonomy, mastery and purpose in your work.
References
Ariely, D., Gneezy, U., Loewenstein, G., & Mazar, N. (2009). Large Stakes and Big Mistakes Review of Economic Studies, 76 (2), 451-469 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-937X.2009.00534.x
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA) has an interesting series of video lectures from “the world’s most inspiring thinkers”. If you haven’t seen them already, they’re worth watching not just for their stimulating content but for the beautifully produced hand-drawn animations. The one below is from Ken Robinson on the purpose of education:
There are a whole series of these along the same lines on the RSA’s YouTube channel. The illustrations are really good (but it doesn’t seem to say anywhere who the artist behind the work is?)
O'Really? 