A book I read recently called, Drive, is fundamentally a collection of researches that other authors and companies have done regarding the hidden forces that motivate true builders. The book also talks about thing that do not motivate the true builders.
The book begins with the introducing smart chimps who solve puzzles without the lure of food or direct rewards and introduces you to the concept of intrinsic motivation, which also happens to be the central theme of the book.
This video does an really good job at describing the book and everything the book contains.
One genuinely innovative idea the book proposes is the concept of what I like to call “a quitting bonus”. The idea is fairly simple. Somewhere, smack in the middle of the year, you announce a quitting bonus. Anyone who quits within a month from the day you announce the bonus gets the bonus. It is similar to a joining bonus, only designed with an intention of driving people out of your organization.
The central idea is simple. After a certain level, the truest of the builders in your organization are not moved by paychecks. If you are a truly innovative company, chances are, that you do not want folks who will jump to the next door organization at the first fifteen percent hike that they are offered. So just offer them that much to quit in the first place and see if they stick around.
A quitting bonus gives the jumpers a chance to jump early. After the jumpers have jumped you are left with individuals who are not driven just by a slightly bigger paycheck. You are left with people who are not moved by carrots and sticks. You can now settle down and focus on making small or big dents in the universe through your work rather than constantly worrying about people leaving.
Getting your management to lure people to quit, is a little difficult to describe and sell in a management meeting, but if you think about it, you are way better off paying a small bonus to get rid of a paycheck programmer, rather than having him work half-heartedly for your organization and introducing mediocrity in everything he does.
Go ahead, use money as a carrot to drive people out of your organization and the ones who do not take the carrot might be the builders, story-tellers or people who believe your vision. These are the people you set out to look for in the first place. With the others leaving your organization, you can now settle down, focus and get down to some real work.
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