The organizations that feed us, manage our money and keep us healthy are leveraging software as a differentiator, yet most of them fail to tap into the intrinsic motivation of their technical staff by embracing the hacker mindset.

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School grades are cited, for example, as a form of extrinsic recognition if students see them as a reflection of their ability yet they fall in the intrinsic bucket of motivation if they are seen as what is accomplished in class.

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With intrinsic motivation, if none of that were there, you would still do it.

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An area of focus taps into your intrinsic motivation, offers no stimulus or incentive to cheat or take unnecessary risks, leaves every positive possibility and opportunity open, and encourages collaboration while reducing corrosive competition.

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Soon, with the chance to be successful and make progress at hand, intrinsic motivation kicked in, which appears to echo some of Harvard Professor Roland Fryer Jr.

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Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are well established terms in the literature on the psychology of motivation, primarily from a set of theories called Self-Determination Theory, which was developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan at the University of Rochester.

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