Paraphrasing the popular saying “It's Not Supposed To Be Play -- That's Why They Call It Work” ; today I intend to show how we can make work more fun and play-like by ensuring that we pay heed to Self Determination Theory derived basic psychological needs.
Self Determination Theory, consists of many mini theories. One theory focuses on how people are driven to do things because of intrinsic motivation and why at times extrinsic motivations can actually undermine performance.
Another mini theory within SDT focuses on Basic Psychological Needs (image from Wikipedia). Three such needs have been identified till now- Autonomy or the need to be in control of one's life and to make choices; Competence or the need to be and feel effective at ones chosen actions and to keep growing one's skills and Relatedness or the need to feel connected to and cared by our fellow human beings.
Now, if we see a classical job situation, the organisation, role and responsibilities and the boss typically dictates what you can do and cannot do; you simply cannot buy and sell oranges, if your company's business is buying and selling apples. Also, the organisation is normally not concerned with your growth per se,in the best case scenario if you are doing a job well, they would like to stagnate you in that role. If you are good on the assembly line, they might not automatically groom you for a supervisory position. And, in a typical capitalist setup, you're a self interested person giving your services to the organisation and other peers are more your competitors vying for the same limited job pool.
Thus a pure job orientation does not satisfy the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness and leads to little ownership, going out of the way or bringing your whole self to work. People are perennially in the Thank God its Friday mood.
Pure Play, and not contests or games, on the other hand are freely indulged in, people can leave any time they want, leads to development of skills and the play is such that competence of people are matched and there is no boredom or anxiety; and leads to nurturing of friendships and camaraderie.
Can we reconcile these different orientations/ paradigms? My contention is that good organisations and managers are already doing that.
For all three needs, there is a dynamic tension and inherent polarity when you see it in work context. The trick lies in finding a midpoint such that you are neither in purely job mode nor in purely play mode but striking the right balance. Let me elaborate.
Consider Autonomy. There is an inherent tension between too much freedom at work and too much constraints. While micromanagers control all aspects of their reportees, macromanagers on the other hand just leave it to employees to figure out how to do things as long as they get results. A mid way approach where managers give freedom as to how, but are also there to support and guide and oversee any hiccups works the best. Many other current discourse as to Work From Home or Work From Office can be seen from this lens. At one end there is more trust, freedom and responsibility and on the other hand are paranoia, SOPs , and playing safe. Consider 3 airlines; in one the air hostess have to follow a very strict SOP while interacting with passengers (away smile etc); in the other within a constraint that you delight customers they are allowed to be autonomous and make their own choices. And in the third case where there are no guidelines at all. I think we all can intuitively make out that the second case where there is some constraint but considerable autonomy will yield to more creative actions and thus better outcomes.
Consider now Competence. There is again an inherent tension between too much work unmatched to skills and too little stretching of abilities or learning on the job. while the former leads to growth and learning the latter leads to stagnation. A good workplace is where people get opportunities to grow, develop and also utilise their learning. At one extreme they are just learning and not applying , on the other extreme they are just performing and not learning anything new. Best possible outcome is flow where they are incrementally developing their ability by moving just beyond their comfort zones.
Consider then Relatedness. There is again a tension between connecting with fellow colleagues and managers and reportees as humans and genuinely caring about them versus being pushy and thinking of them as instrumental means and how best to utilise the human resources/ each other. While one end lies cut throat toxic cultures , the other extreme where people are too touchy feely may lead to phenomenon like groupthink where the collective may be driven down a blind alley. While confrontation and aggression need not be the norm, there needs to be enough non conformism in the group to protect against such scenarios. We neither need too homogenous cultures where everyone is in-group nor so much competitiveness and heterogeneity that everyone seems out-group. We need to strike the right balance and have the right culture fit - neither too tight nor too loose. The Gallup Q12 question with maximum impact on engagement, as to whether an employee has a best friend at work, says loads about the importance of non toxic and friendly culture. Similarly people leave bosses, because they have toxic relationships. Address that and half the problems of attrition are solved.
While some of this may seem theoretical, it's not. I have always prided myself as good manager, and I believe my success was result of addressing people's need of autonomy by providing a macro management environment, their need for competence, by constantly stretching their abilities and giving them challenging assignments and Relatedness by ensuring that everyone feels included and cared for by each other and especially me because I do care about my team and colleagues and would stand up for them and have their back, no matter what. While I might have erred too much towards the play side or satisfying the basic psychological needs side, it has worked for me till now.
For those whose workplace is more toxic in terms of leaning more towards the job side; what can you do today to make it a bit more autonomy supportive, competence supportive and relatedness supportive?