I think an important factor is missing: personal gain. At 37signals their income is tied directly to the quality of their work. That's just not the case in larger companies and it seems a pretty big hurdle to overcome.

There's a lot you can do to motivate people besides money, but in my experience it's fairly superficial motivation. It's enough to make work pleasant and keep people contented, but not enough to really kick ass. Google is a perfect example.

The only times I've seen teams of people do their best possible work is when they believed there'd be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (measly bonuses don't count). Money is as close to a silver bullet for motivation as I've ever seen. When the promise of riches is in sight all the smaller things just don't matter. When it's not there all the smaller things are the only things that matter.

I think the core problem there though is not trying to find new and innovative ideas to create incentive in huge companies, it's that understanding that big companies are not in sync with average human desires.

I do recognize what my statement implies though: that our entire society is set up in a way to create average workers with average desires for big companies with average outcomes. Large companies and bad education systems are only symptoms of the need for a complete restructuring or evolution of how we see ourselves in society.

I'm not naive to think this will happen anytime soon, but I think this is the way that we are headed given the internet and the fact that power is slowly being re-routed down to the masses in ways that were previously unthinkable.

We, and people like us, are on the leading edge of a dramatic change in the history of the human species. It will be interesting to see what the world is like for our grandchildren.

Some people (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming) argue that in fact personal gain is the worst way to motivate people - it makes them game the system - and there's plenty of examples out there to back up his point.

Instead he has argued for "pride of workmanship" as the best way to motivate people, as long as you don't actually demotivate people by paying them too little, treating them like shit, etc.

I can see both sides to the argument, the problem with the gold at the end of the rainbow is that it's uncertain, and there's no better way to demotivate people unintentionally than for it to disappear.

And just to expand on this, Deming's theories are based on the pyschological theory "Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs" which says that the ultimate motivation is "self-actualization" - that once you have satisfied more base needs (survival, procreation, money) this is what drives most people to achieve.

Interesting. How do you define "quality of work"?

Pretty classic quote: "That’s not to say that we’re all created equal and that star power can be unlocked with hippie music and sandals alone. Just that there’s a ton of untapped potential trapped under crappy policies, poor direction, and stifling bureaucracies. People [are] waiting to do great work if given the chance."

> ...quit thinking about how you can land a room full of rock stars and ninjas (note to recruiters: even if these terms weren’t just misguided, they’d be tired by now anyway)

Thank you..

Do they? Or are you defining average environments as those environments in which average work is done?

The PG-recommended startup plan consists of several people sharing low cost living-and-working space and living on instant noodles, yet doing above average work.

The direction of cause and effect doesn't seem as clear cut as DHH suggests.