Amazon has been in the news lately about it’s treatment of employees. One of my current obsessions is the impact of a leader’s personality on it’s workforce, and how it is reflected in the company’s workforce, so I’ve been reading everything I can about this.
FastCompany published an article breaking down the six fundamental motives that create a culture. Specifically explaining why people work:
While all of us could list hundreds of unique reasons why we do virtually anything, our research shows most of them can be neatly grouped into six fundamental motives:
- Play
- Purpose
- Potential
- Emotional pressure
- Economic pressure
- Inertia
The first three boost performance, the latter destroy it. Amazon offers a great case study to witness almost all of them play out.
While it doesn’t directly offer a solution, it’s an interesting article that adds fuel to my hypothesis that a company personifies it’s primary leader’s personality.
