You can’t instill motivation in people, but you can create an environment that feeds whatever inherent spark they already have. For engineering leaders, that means connecting work to a larger purpose and knowing people well enough to understand what motivates them individually.

TL;DR

• You can’t manufacture intrinsic motivation in someone, but you can create an environment that helps existing motivation flourish.
• The same principles I learned as a linguist & language teacher apply to engineering leadership: meet people where they are, support them, and connect their work to something larger.
• Good leaders help people “yearn for the sea”. They make the future tangible and show people how their contribution matters.
• Individual motivation is personal: engineers may value mastery, autonomy, impact, recognition, growth, stability, technical depth, or leadership opportunities.
• Motivating people requires knowing them as people, not categorizing them through an HR framework.

You Can’t Motivate People

What Applied Linguistics Taught Me About Motivation

I’ll get to the topic of team motivation. I promise. But I’m going to take a round-a-bout way of getting there.

One of the last courses I took when I did a masters in applied linguistics was Bilingualism. But to be honest it was almost a fluke that I signed up. I didn’t find the course description that compelling. But a couple other courses I was more interested in conflicted with ones that were requirements. So I gave it a second look and ended up signing up simply because of the instructor. I had had her a couple years previous and really enjoyed that course. I’ve always found going with the person instead of the content to be positive. (I’ve found the same to be true for directors and movies.)

As it turned out I loved that course and so much has stuck with me a couple decades later. One of those things was the discussion on intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation (and how that has an impact on learning a second language as a non-child.) Extrinsic is, of course, things outside of you. You learn another language because you’ve moved to another country, or are dating a person from another linguistic background or need a language certification for a job, etc. Intrinsic is from within. You’re just interested in learning a language. You enjoy it.

As you might imagine extrinsic motivation alone often leads to weaker results. I’ve known many foreigners in Japan like this. They acquired enough Japanese language skills to get by in everyday situations … and then remain at that level for years after.

You Can’t Give Someone Intrinsic Motivation

The most effective is intrinsic motivation combined with self-determined extrinsic motivation. You have the fire within (to learn a language), but also intentionally put yourself in a situation where the environment has demands of you. I knew a couple Korean guys who came to Canada to study and hone their English skills for a full year. (Intrinsic motivation at the start → move to Canada = self-determined extrinsic motivation.) Instead of living in Toronto (with lots of other Korean-speaking people) they went out of their way to put themselves in an environment where they would be fully immersed. They moved to a city in northern Ontario together. Not only that, they decided to live separately so they wouldn’t even use Korean language in their home life. I have lost touch with them but last I heard one of them was doing a phD at an American university and publishing and presenting at conferences in English. So I gather this linguistic goal was realized.

That’s pretty impressive if you ask me. It also made me wonder how could I (as a teacher) instill even a fraction of that motivation in my students? Short version - you can’t. Self-determined extrinsic motivation has to be …. self-determined! Something about leading horses to water….

モチベーション

But what you can do is make the environment engaging and conducive to learning to feed whatever inherent spark of motivation students have. There’s a lot of small levers I can pull as a teacher to make lessons engaging, meet students where they are, be supportive, and tie this experience to something bigger. Maybe I’ll go into some examples of this another time.

From Students to Software Engineers

So what does this have to do with motivating engineers on my team. I’ve found the human psychology elements are the same. But with software engineers (I’m including data scientists, ML engineers and AI engineers in this umbrella) things are somewhat easier. Some students are just riding along. But most (not all) of the software engineers I’ve known intentionally choose this career path. I believe the same general approaches to motivation apply. Meet people where they are, be supportive, address their concerns, and (most importantly) put things into a larger perspective.

Yearn for the Sea

I firmly believe this quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in The Little Prince is directly applicable to leading and motivating students, software engineers or anyone else:

• “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

What does it mean to “yearn for the sea”? In my opinion it’s about painting a picture of a future reality and placing the individual squarely in it. In engineering work that often means speaking frequently about org goals and how our/their current work will help realize that. Recognizing individuals and their contributions and letting them know they are seen.

“We band of brothers”

There is a scene in Shakespeare’s Henry V play where the future king Henry gives a masterclass in motivation. I’m tempted to go into great detail … but that would be a whole essay and likely derail the current topics. Here’s the short version: It’s the night before the battle of Agincourt and Henry is walking amongst the troops and feels he must address their fears and inspire them. The speech shifts from present verb tense and situation to future (and future perfect) verbs and situations to give the men an image of themselves in the distant future - having survived the coming battle! - looking back upon their triumph. It assumes triumph. In the play (and reality) they did actually win against a much larger army.

I feel one can use similar tactics to inspire and motivate any group of people - class of students, sports team, engineering team, or battalion. No play acting. Just state your belief in the future you are building towards and belief in the team that they are more than capable of achieving that vision. By the way, I can’t take credit for this take on Henry V. Years ago I heard of a woman who made a career of leadership workshops for executives based on Shakespeare. (Regrettably I cannot remember her name or other details.)

Motivation is Personal

The above is poetic talk of motivation. Other than “talk about the future” how do you motivate people individually? That involves addressing their needs. (Needs here being akin to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs). Some individuals need safety and security. Some are looking for respect. For engineers the drivers are often a mixture of:

• mastery
• autonomy
• impact
• recognition
• growth
• stability
• technical depth
• leadership opportunity

Help people go get what they are looking for and they will be highly motivated.

Know People as People

But for that you need to know people as people. You can’t just ask people to fill in an HR form and classify them into a type. You need to take the time to build real relationships and get to know what makes people tick. When you help people on the road to self-actualization, that is how you build real motivation. You need to know people as people.