I like the analogy with Mintzberg's “safari” approach (it's been a couple of years since I read it). There are a lot of incomplete theories that are all kind of right in their own way. Our job as individuals is to learn which combinations to select to make sense of different events — and, I'd add, learn how to make those selections explicitly communicable.

Maybe you stumbled on it already — if it interests you, I elaborated on this (and touched on a few other theories) in the book I just published, specifically in the Will to Relevance chapter.

I don't really know whether there is someone who has done a similar mapping of the schools of motivation (if not behaviour as a larger encompassing class), but generally I am finding some classifying schools of motivation as two. In a thesis written by Peter John Hosie, he classifies three schools – content, process & reinforcement

Peter John Hosie Thesis 2003
http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2005.000...

I came here principally to discover more about Edward Deci's work simply because I had read the Shirky and Pink article in Wired about the “cognitive surplus”. I am simply noting the URL below for Deci for my future reference:

Edward Deci – Self-Determination Theory
http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/

With Mintzberg, his map of strategy schools helps one figure out where different perspectives are grounded but when I think of motivation, the first place I look is at myself. If a theory of motivation helps me explain my own behavior that to me is the starting point for motivation research (not the ending point).

If we are all own guinea pigs in figuring out “applied motivation” then the collective findings are experience based. Here I would say that I have personally found Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's “Flow” theory personally useful.

The motivational context of the modern age is captured well in the arguments that Nick Carr raises, as well as Clay Shirky and Daniel Pink. Even if one goes back in time to see what Eastern philosophies had to say on the human condition, the human condition in the virtual information space is a new environment.

I don't know if the future purpose of motivation theory is to take stock of human behavior (thus viewing mass response) or whether it should have greater impact in terms of getting individuals in touch with life as it is today.

That is why I find the idea of challenge and capability so dynamic because an individual can map it to their own life, whereas theories created for an industrial age are pertinent to the mechanical universe which all of continue to exist in. It is this new environment which is emergent which may benefit if we happen to make it up as we go.

The emergent is obviously the ambiguous and the theoretical basis becomes a parallel – an “AND” relationship rather than “OR” one. When I look at motivation this way, I become the lab rat of my own imagination. We live in a culture where technology is raising privacy issues but is also capturing our behaviors.

There are going to be some bitter fights about individual rights and the capacity to learn from aggregated data, but as that storm brews, I want to find a quiet dry place to figure out at a personal level, what motivation theory personally means to me – if I can use it better my life, then that I would consider as a great way of using behavioral theory.

I see what Carr is saying, I appreciate what Clay Shirky in particular is saying and then when we add people like Edward Deci into the picture, that represents a promising form of awareness, and framed like that, it is truly motivating :-)

[Em]

I passed it along to my manager and nothing happened…

So, this is where motivation comes into play. I could use my energy and efforts to work on that idea more, trying hard to create excel docs/power point presentations, and it's cost-benefit analysis but…and a big but – where is the motivation? I could gather peoples opinions and try and get help too – or I could take whatever bothers me about the large corporation and pack up and do my own thing.

I think this is where the business may need to start to look at motivation. We are at a point that johnny employee could start blogging about his love for widgets and provide the customer service and caring that he saw missing in his old job. I believe this is how a lot of entrepreneurs get motivated to leave the cubicle-farm. It's just easier to start up and break free now.

Applying motivation to organizations is going to be more important than ever as people have the ability to easily leave and try their own thing now.

I passed it along to my manager and nothing happened…

So, this is where motivation comes into play. I could use my energy and efforts to work on that idea more, trying hard to create excel docs/power point presentations, and it's cost-benefit analysis but…and a big but – where is the motivation? I could gather peoples opinions and try and get help too – or I could take whatever bothers me about the large corporation and pack up and do my own thing.

I think this is where the business may need to start to look at motivation. We are at a point that johnny employee could start blogging about his love for widgets and provide the customer service and caring that he saw missing in his old job. I believe this is how a lot of entrepreneurs get motivated to leave the cubicle-farm. It's just easier to start up and break free now.

Applying motivation to organizations is going to be more important than ever as people have the ability to easily leave and try their own thing now.

I'd recommend, if you're going to speak openly about motivation, frame your thoughts in business terms — i.e. dollars and cents (or call time, or whatever). Ideas don't travel through organizations intact unless they're saved as an Excel file, or at least PowerPoint to start.

Money might not be the most important factor in motivation but it's still the only thing that matters when making managerial decisions — or entrepreneurial decisions, for that matter… ;)

I saw Pink's TED talk and I'm looking forward to 'Drive' getting around and making these ideas more mainstream. It's stuff that most experts know but it's another thing to actually apply it to organizations.

At first I was confused about offshore workers, but honestly the jobs being taken up by the likes of India are the performance type jobs – these jobs are so robotic and lead ourselves to more meaningful and purpose driven work.

What motivates me these days is autonomy. I just picked up Daniel H Pinks book called “DRIVE” and I haven't read anything yet. But I recall his talk on TED a while ago. I think he gets into motivation 3.0. I might be in over my head though!

I just thought of something. We would do a 'get to know you' type survey of new hires at work and ask them what motivates them. I am thinking back to the responses and I remember things like: coffee, money, rewards, beer, food. It's like we've been conditioned to think that's all there is. Every really busy day – and people are getting destroyed, work will order pizza as if it's some amazing gift to motivate people through the day. People only get fatter and less motivated.

Both of those points are in directions I'm going next.

It's been cool to watch the web demonstrate these ideas (though I haven't exactly figured out how to translate understanding to execution) and I have a whole post-worth of discussion on this.

I've worked out the personality question to my own satisfaction, but I think in a more philosophical than psychological way (I've never managed to separate the two) — though probably equally offensive to either profession.

See also: Twitter.

On an unrelated note, as the personality psychology guy, I have to point out (though this doesn't undermine anything you or the people you cite say) that there are large individual differences in motivation. Some people may be very motivated by competence (and these are the people that we, and most academics, have regular interaction with), while others may be the opposite, motivated to avoid any situations that would test or extend their competence.

Ok, I'm off to have some orgasmic integration.
(oops did I misread that?)