What drives creative people to do what they do and how can we motivate people to be more creative? This is a particularly important question for businesses. While an entrepreneur might start a company because they’re already motivated to innovate, they have far less control over the people they hire.

There are 2 types of motivation that dominate creativity research: Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is when we are motivated from the inside. We’re intrinsically motivated whenever we do something because of the way it makes us feel. Any time you engage in some type of play, you’re doing it for intrinsic reasons. Playing is always intrinsic because the only outcome is to feel good. We’re extrinsically motivation whenever we do things for outside rewards. When we go to work for the sole purpose of receiving a paycheck, we’re extrinsically motivated. Our inspiration to take action is coming from the outside world. While there are quite a few caveats, creativity researchers agree that, in general, intrinsic motivation is by far the best when it comes to creativity.

In fact, more often then not, extrinsic, outside motivations tends to backfire. Companies that give their employees a good salary might reasonably expect creative output in return. But from the employee’s point of view, why risk their high salary by suggesting crazy ideas that have a high chance of failure? These well-paid employees are highly motivated, they’re just not motivated in the way that their employers think they are. Employees that are motivated by the next paycheck aren’t going to be risking that paycheck.

These employees are going to be motivated to pursue marginal change. They’ll still offer creative ideas, but only ones that feel like safe bets. This means linear augmentation will become the norm. This is exactly the kind of products we see coming out of large, bureaucratic organizations. They take safe bets by adding small improvements to old ideas.

There isn’t an easy answer for making employees more intrinsically motivated. One of the best ways to start this process is by validating the creativity of employees. Sure, at the end of the day they might only be here for the paycheck, but everybody loves being validated. Everyone loves being seen as unique and valuable. Simply validating other people’s creative work can boost their confidence and make them much more likely to offer future ideas. This isn’t a silver bullet, but that’s the point. People won’t be intrinsically motivated because you told them to. They need to do it for their reasons. For the creative leader, the subtle approach is the best one.

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