The following is a collection of notes I made when reading the book: Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward L. Deci with Richard Flaste, Penguin Books, New York, NY 1996. My motivation to create these notes was to provide input to a re-design of a computer manufacturing process within IBM. I was also searching for solutions to the problems I saw while touring an Ertl (toy manufacturing) assembly plant in Iowa. See Curt's "Beyond Iowa" Impressions.

OUTLINE

When things aren’t going as one wants, there are two basic choices: change things or modify your wants (including demoting them below the expected effort to change things). One way to change things is by exerting greater control. Problems arise when we try to exert greater control in our relationships with others. It is especially common for people to resort to control over others who are in one-down positions (e.g., parents to their children, teachers to their students, managers to those in their department). When controlled, one acts because one is pressured. The person is alienated. Two types of controlled behavior are compliance and defiance. Outward manifestations are conformity and rebellion.

If a person experienced controlling parents and controlling teachers (both are cultural norms) she would expect controlling bosses at work (also a cultural norm). She would also expect to be a controlling boss.

The controlling mentality is infectious. If those in one-up positions are controlling, it will be passed down. If those in one-down positions appear to seek to be controlled, the tendency will be for those in one-up positions to apply control to the detriment of both parties.

Attempts to control others undermines trust, respect, autonomy, creativity, and motivation. When people are in a controlling environment, it is much more difficult for them to satisfy their emotional needs and hence for those people to be healthy. People who are less healthy are less effective and efficient.

The fundamental problem of the culture of manufacturing is its controlling environment.

The history of the assembly line still dictates the nature of the manufacturing environment. The large majority of workers are seen by their management and selves as low skilled peons who are easily replaceable cogs in the wheels of mass production. Their bosses tend to be controlling; especially as these people seem to be asking for being controlled. If people are controlled, they will act more and more in ways as if they need to be controlled. The rut runs deeper and the trend becomes more difficult to break.

One of our societal foundations is individualism. Autonomy is not individualism. Individualism holds to the primacy of individual’s rights. Individualism is about self-interest. Its converse is collectivism which is putting the group, family, or state above the individual. Autonomy is about acting volitionally, willing to behave responsibly in accord with your interests and values. Its converse is being controlled. So, a hard-driving, competitive businessman may be a rugged individual but not autonomous. Individualism can be autonomous only when accompanied by self-knowledge.

Though we emphasize individualism, conformity is widespread. We conform to symbols of status promulgated by the mass media. Individualism coexisting with control. People feel pressured to bolster their sense of self, of individual, through the attainment of narcissistic extrinsic aspirations--complying and conforming to achieve those goals.

Autonomous people are fully willing to do what they are doing, embracing the activity with interest and commitment. They are being authentic.

The more autonomy-oriented (as opposed to control-oriented) the person, the greater their:

• Self-esteem
• Self-actualization
• Integration in personality (among aspects of personality as well as between personality and behavior)
• Mental health
• Satisfaction with their personal relationships.

1. An autonomy supportive interpersonal style begins with listening openly so you can understand the situation from the other’s perspective.
2. Provide choice and participation in decision making in what to do and how to do it
3. When limits are important:
• Have people set their own limits (they would involve any others whose rights might be infringed by how the limits are set)
• Avoid controlling language and acknowledge the resistance people may feel when limits are placed
• Help people understand why the limits are placed; the information also helps people feel more a part of the organization
• Make limits wide so choice is allowed within them
• Set consequences that are commensurate with the transgression; not to punish but to encourage responsibility. Be clear and follow through. Recognize that life is about making choices and accepting consequences.
4. Set goals and evaluate performance. Motivated behavior is directed towards outcomes. To be most effective, goals need to be individualized and set to represent an "optimal challenge". The best ways to find those is to involve the people in the process. If goals have been properly set, they can represent the standard against which performance is evaluated. The people can both set the benchmark and perform the evaluation.
5. When performance falls short, it is not a situation to criticize but a problem to solve.
6. Rewards and recognition are important to convey a sense of acknowledgement and appreciation; not as a means of motivating people.

Self-motivation, rather than external motivation, is at the heart of creativity, responsibility, healthy behavior, and lasting change. Extrinsic motivators undermine intrinsic motivation. People strive to feel like an origin of their own behavior. The question to be asked is not "How do I motivate others?" but, "How can I create the conditions within which others will motivate themselves?" Choice is the key to self-determination and authenticity. Choice increases intrinsic motivation and sense of autonomy. It makes jobs more interesting.

Rewarding behavior to keep it coming results in its coming only as long as the rewards are coming; and people will seek to find the shortest or quickest path to get them. Money doesn’t motivate, it controls--as dictators control. Threats, imposed deadlines and goals, surveillance, competitions, and evaluations also have been found to undermine intrinsic motivation. People experience them as being antagonistic to their autonomy, so these events drain people’s sense of enthusiasm and interest in the controlled activities. The emphasis on control is demeaning.

Rewards given in a non-controlling style, simply given as an acknowledgement of good work, do not have the detrimental effects of reducing intrinsic motivation. It’s very difficult to offer rewards this way since people tend to sense rewards as controlling. If the benefit is a natural consequence of behavior; e.g., one makes more money if there are more products to sell, the "reward" is more clearly seen as a consequence of the behavior; not as attempts to control behavior.

The experience of intrinsic motivation is its own justification. Experiences like these ennoble life, make it vastly more enjoyable and ultimately result in greater self-understanding and self-honesty.

Motivation requires that people see a relationship between their behavior and a desired outcome. For behavior-outcome linkages to serve as motivators, people must understand them, see them as relevant in their lives, and have the capabilities for utilizing them. People need both the strategies and the capacities for attaining desired outcomes. Instrumentalities are the linkages that allow people to see these behavior-outcome relationships. If people do not believe that their behavior will lead to something they desire--whether the lack of instrumentality is the fault of the system, the organization, or an individual in a one-up position--they will not be motivated.

One technique for uncovering an individual’s motivation and establishing a link between satisfying that desire and accomplishing a particular task is the Partnerwerks recursive querying starting with: "What’s in it for you personally, if we accomplish X?"

People have emotional needs to feel free (autonomous), to feel effective (competent), and to have a sense of relatedness (to love and be loved, to care and be cared for). Assembly line workers typically have little sense of autonomy or perceived competence in challenging tasks and hence almost no intrinsic motivation. They likely don’t feel cared for by management (they are cogs in the wheel). They are told precisely what to do and when to do it (down to the point of when and how often they can use the bathroom) and the tasks they perform tend to be so menial they can be learned within a few minutes.

Feeling competent is important for extrinsic or intrinsic motivation. However, to be a competent pawn, to be effective in menial tasks while not feeling truly volitional and self-determined at the activity one can do so well, does not promote intrinsic motivation and general well-being. If one has a sense of lacking both, autonomy and competence, it can lead to depression and despair. Note that it is the person’s perceived level of autonomy and competence that matter; not the opinions of others. The strivings for competence and autonomy together--propelled by curiosity and interest--are thus complementary growth forces that can lead people to become increasingly accomplished and to go on learning throughout their lifetimes. Would assembly line workers feel more competent if they were more challenged but not beyond their capacities; perhaps by making the work less redundant and less trivial?

Ego-involvement is the process of people’s feelings of worth being dependent upon specified outcomes. It is contingent self-esteem. When ego-involved, people focus on how they look to others, so they are forever judging how they stack up. Ego-involvement undermines intrinsic motivation, impairs learning and creativity, and diminishes performance on any task where flexible thinking and problem solving are required. Praise runs the risk of bolstering contingent self-esteem rather than true self-esteem; people may grow dependent on the praise. They behave to get more praise so they will feel worthy (temporarily). They further erode their autonomy.

One reason people interpret many events as threats is that they have developed ego-involvements; their feelings are contingent on outcome. They are easily threatened by others. By exploring their ego-involvements and how they affect the interpretations they give to stimuli, people can regulate their own emotions without suppressing them becoming more autonomous. It is the reappraisal process--the more reflective assessment of stimuli--that gives people power over their emotions. Giving stimuli less threatening meanings can be a very powerful tool for self-regulation. Becoming autonomous involves developing integrated regulatory processes for managing behavior when emotions have been stimulated. One can then experience true choice with respect to behavior. When people are autonomous, they will allow a full experience of their emotions, and they will feel free in deciding how to express them.

"The true meaning of being alive is not just to feel happy, but to experience the full range of human emotions." Edward Deci. If the quest for happiness interferes with the experience of other emotions, negative consequences are likely to follow. Emotions are important messengers, they are telling us that we are or are not getting something that we need. Ask oneself two questions about an emotion; what am I (not) getting? Do I really need it?

Researchers considered the following six aspirations:

1. Wealth
2. Fame
3. Physical attractiveness
4. Satisfying personal relationships (relatedness, autonomy)
5. Contributions to the community (competence, relatedness)
6. Individual growth (autonomy, competence)

They found that if any of the first three (extrinsic) aspirations was very high for an individual relative to the intrinsic aspirations (the second three aspirations), the individual was more likely to display poorer mental health; even if they thought the chances for achieving the extrinsic goals were excellent. It is the type of aspirations rather than expectations of success or failure in achieving them that is the critical predictor of well-being. Unduly strong extrinsic aspirations represent aspects of a false self. Contingent self-esteem is dependent upon the attainment of these goals. People become particularly vulnerable to the forces of society (e.g., advertising).

What are the aspirations our society promotes? The extrinsic aspirations. Our culture makes it more difficult for people to satisfy their emotional needs.

Note: The first three aspirations OJ Simpson realized to a large degree; yet where did it get him? One reason many people refused to believe he committed murder was because giving up on him would mean in some sense giving up on a major portion of the American Dream—which is largely these first three items. Simpson clearly lacks much success in the intrinsic aspirations.

Each individual is responsible for his or her own emotional health, but each individual needs the support of others to satisfy their own emotional needs.

• To help satisfy the need for autonomy; promote autonomy for those in one-down positions (as described above) and develop a network of autonomy supporting friends.
• To help satisfy the need for competence; set and work towards achieving optimally challenging goals.
• To help satisfy the need for relatedness; understand the dynamics of and participate on teams.

High performing teams are high performing in part because they help satisfy the emotional needs of its members.

Internalization is the process through which individuals take on the values of society. The two forms of internalization are introjection (swallowing a rule whole) and integration (digesting the rule). Autonomous functioning requires that an internalized regulation be accepted as your own. It enables people to become willing to accept responsibility for activities that are important but not interesting--activities that are not intrinsically motivating. The need for autonomy provides the energy for integrating a regulation. Attempting to force internalization can, at most, result in some introjection; no integration. Introjects can be powerful motivators pushing people to think, feel, or behave in particular ways, but they are strongly related to anxiety; fear of failure, loss of self-esteem, and inner conflicts.

Ways to promote integration:

1. Provide a rationale for doing the uninteresting activity
2. Acknowledge that people might not want to do what they are being asked to do (their feelings)
3. Minimize pressure (submit the request as more of an invitation than a demand, emphasizing choice rather than control).

When controls are merely introjected by people, those people may either comply or defy. But neither compliance or defiance represents authenticity, and neither represents responsibility. To comply with authority just because it is authority is to be irresponsible. True responsibility requires that people act autonomously in relating to the world around, that they behave authentically on behalf of some general good.

Limit setting is extremely important for promoting responsibility. If there are no limits, no structures, no regulations to internalize, there will be no internalization. By setting limits in an autonomy supportive way--in other words, by aligning yourself with the person being limited, recognizing that he or she is a proactive subject, rather than an object to be manipulated or controlled--it is possible to encourage responsibility without undermining authenticity.

The intrinsic need for relatedness leads people to be part of groups. This need opens people up to be socialized and is the process through which responsibility develops (through accepting the group's values and mores). Out of their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, people develop a willingness to give to others, to respond to what is needed. By integrating such values and behaviors, people become more responsible, while at the same time retaining their sense of personal freedom. But integration and development of true self require that people's intrinsic needs be satisfied.

Regarding people who have not performed up to expectations; when people are told they did not perform well, they feel incompetent and controlled and all their intrinsic motivation drains away. To be autonomy supportive, start from the perspective of the other. Ask their thoughts about a responsibility they appeared to have failed in. When asked, people will be amazingly accurate in evaluating their own performance. If you become controlling and evaluative, they will become defensive, evasive, and likely blame others; or be highly self-deprecatory which is also unhealthy.

People influence the social world that influences them. By being more vital and engaging, people can elicit greater involvement and autonomy support. People can promote their own development by acting more autonomously. Figure out what they need and act on the world to get it. When people pull for control (by being passive or aggressive) it is easy to fall into the trap of controlling them, further hindering their development. People at this time need autonomy supportive interactions most.

Being autonomous in spite of controlling circumstances is not only about managing the environment but even more it is managing oneself and one’s own inner experience. It is about managing emotions and inner urges and finding ways to get one’s needs satisfied.

In terms of development, experiences that start with different expectations based on past events can result in one person’s becoming more autonomous while the other becomes more controlled, even if the two people were in the same context and treated in the same manner.

True freedom involves a balance between being proactive in dealing with one’s environment and being respectful of it. It includes an acceptance of others.

The fundamental problem of the culture of manufacturing is its controlling environment. Motivation for change must come from within. It comes from your deciding you are ready to take responsibility for managing yourself. It flows outward, changing your environment and affecting others in that environment. Looking first for new processes or techniques to change the environment expresses an external locus of causality rather than an internal one. A deep personal desire to change must come first, then new processes and techniques can be helpful. Without the desire other efforts are bound to fail.

If the reason to attempt to change is a controlling one (from others or self); the attempt will not likely be successful. Only when one has a relaxed kind of commitment, reflecting a deep personal choice to change, will one behave autonomously and have a higher probability of being successful in attempts to change. To be ready to change unhealthy or self-destructive behaviors, people have to reach the point where they are willing to have all the feelings the behaviors are blocking. By exploring their own motivations--why they want to change and the benefits they are getting from the behavior they want to change--people will be in a position to make a true choice. What are your inhibitors? What do you feel:

Some possible motivators for manufacturing employees and managers to make personal commitments to change:

• Recognition/rewards for making dramatic changes that significantly improved the performance of the organization
• Success in an extraordinarily difficult challenge
• Greater sense of autonomy for self and therefore others
• Increased effectiveness in identifying and fulfilling responsibilities (competence)
• A more nurturing, friendly, and fun work environment (relatedness)
• Enormous societal contribution

Most items we own were mass produced. From the clothes we wear, to the packaged foods we eat, the cars we drive, our toys, our computers. In most cases, their manufacturing involved assembly line workers. These people have a non-autonomy supporting environment in common. If we can make our assembly line environment healthier it may have very broad, positive health benefits.

Most people in one-up positions do less than optimal supporting of autonomy and offering choice. Some of those people have authoritarian personalities, which can become healthier, others just don’t have the skills, awareness, or experience. Another reason people in one-up positions aren’t autonomy supportive is that they feel pressured to perform by their one-ups. When attempts are made to control them, they pass that along to those in their charge. Controlling people at the top of an organization will tend to create controlling levels all the way down. Finding support through a network of people who will help you satisfy your own needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness is one of the most important aspects of promoting autonomy in the people you teach, care for, or supervise.

While working with a controlling oriented company in San Francisco, Deci focused on the eight managers below the top person. They worked on ways they could be more autonomy supportive of their work teams but more importantly, they worked on ways to get their own needs met. In this case, the managers had to learn how to use each other more--to ask of and to give to each other. They learned how to manage their manager. It helped to give him positive feedback and ask for what they needed. In this case, the change started in the middle and flowed in both directions to the benefit of the people and their company.

The healthiest way for one to be in a relationship--particularly with people in a one-down position--is autonomy supporting. It requires being able to take their perspective; allowing you to understand why they want what they want and why they do what they do. Engage new situations from that perspective.

How can you quickly recognize when you are being controlling or autonomy supporting? If you are being autonomy supporting, you can answer the questions:

• What does this person want? Why?
• What is blocking this person from satisfying their wants?
• What does this person think I am doing that helps or hinders them in satisfying their wants?
• How does this person think that I can help him/her?

Go back to the first point; if you are not getting what you want, consider the option of modifying your wants. Do you want greater personal health? Greater satisfaction of personal needs? Do you want these things for others in your area? If the jobs in the manufacturing area are unhealthy, if they make it more difficult for people in those jobs to get their emotional needs met, and you are not going to change the jobs, why keep them?

© 2000 frantzml@juno.com