Motivation & Performance
[...] Jason Jones is the Director of Executive Development of AT&T University. This is a transcription of his in-depth podcast with Shawn Siegel of HumanResourcesIQ.com.
Thanks for joining us today, Jason. Can you tell us about your role with AT&T University?[...]
A very interresting paper on motivation and performance. Jason Jones is the Director of Executive Development at AT&T, he is in charge of the AT&T University.
His view on how development should be conducted starts with backwards intuition. Instead of buiding up from a pool of competences to develop the business, the idea is to set a clear business goal, and 'reverse engineer' the competence pool needed. What are they, what do we need to do to get them, how can we help develop them?
You also need a strong commitment from the top. They have to back as many groth and development initiatives they can in order to embark people.
Then comes the development and training programs offering, which as to be extensive, and top grade.
As far as motivation is concerned, Jason believes that there are a number of extrinsic motivators (money being one) that are vehicles to get to an intrinsic state of motivation. In a sense, he believes that there should not be such distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, because extrinsic motivators are connected to intrinsic goals: having a better healthier life, taking care of one's family and so forth...
In any case, motivation and performance are heavily linked, so there is a crucial stake in actively seeking to foster motivation. Often it comes to giving people a certain level of empowerment and control over their environment, a certain degree of fredom so that they can express their qualities.
