I find people’s motivations for the jobs they do to be fascinating. Imagine a job and then picture three different versions of a person in the role:
- Striver – someone trying to use the position to keep moving up into a bigger and better position.
- Careerist – someone trying to do a good job but more worried about still having a job tomorrow.
- Paycheck – someone in the role because it has a paycheck but not worried about the details.
It’s important to know your own motivations for your role and to understand other’s motivations around you. Most of life is convincing others to either do what they are supposed to or to do what you’d like. You can’t convince without pushing those motivational buttons.
Will there be self-starters that you don’t need to worry as much about? Of course. But they will be the exception to the rule and cause other problems for you when they go off and do things you never expected would happen.