Ways to Improve

I am always looking for ways to improve. Improving the way we do business, the way we work as a team and the way we feel about our work. In the quest for enlightenment I found a few things that may help us improve. I have been looking into Intrinsic motivation verses the carrot and stick motivation. Government work does not lend itself to carrot or reward based methods. Although UDOT has some reward programs they have been minimized due to tight budgets and the overall down turn of the economy. When the carrots have been eliminated the sticks sometimes remain. My goal is that we eliminate the stick and feel good about what we do as government employees. This requires that we have three things that motivate our work, they are purpose, autonomy, and mastery. In working for the public we are trusted with making decision for the good of the public as a whole. Our purpose is to do what is right, find ways to promote the public good and be trustees for the taxpayers investments. We also need autonomy, in other words no stick. We need to be able have the autonomy to decide what needs to be done, how we do it and what resources we need to do our work. This will require allot of trust from everyone from our Region Program Manager(Kevin) and his group all the way up the line to UDOT's Executive Director John Njord and the public at large. Another element is mastery of the work, which I view in terms of core competency. Everyone wants to be the best in their field. In doing our work we have many opportunities to learn new things. As I have stated before I would like the experts to be us. Mastery of your particular field will not only give you satisfaction, but will also help build the trust needed to be able to work with autonomy and purpose. Building trust will keep us all motivated and is linked directly to job satisfaction.