Sublime

we are intrinsically motivated animals, and, in addition to responding to external motivations, a full understanding of human motivation requires an understanding of our innate psychological needs for Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence (ARC).

They fall on a spectrum called the ‘relative autonomy continuum’2 (or RAC): External Motivation. ‘I’m doing this because important people will like and respect me more if I do.’ People who highly rated this statement have high external motivation. Introjected Motivation. ‘I’m doing this because I’ll feel guilty or bad about myself if I don’t.’

We’ve studied motivation to try to understand what makes people want to work so that as managers we can elicit peak performance from our subordinates—their “personal best.” Of course, what we are really after is the performance of the organization as a whole, but that depends on how skilled and motivated the people within it are. Thus, our role as