Motivation by Design:
The Ethical/Aesthetic Paradigm

Is motivation something we can name, control or improve?

At GPS, we believe motivation starts with a sense of organizational belonging, commitment and dedication. We facilitate a truer global identity through the integration of individual ethical/aesthetic input. The most important asset of any organization is the motivational level of the people who make it. A coherent identity is the natural outgrowth of clear channels of motivation between person and group.

Our unique approach to problems of motivation begins with a transition of motivation theory into the ethical/aesthetic domain. In our redefinition, motivation is a force that flows between the twin polarities of ethics (interior beliefs, subjectivities, identities) and aesthetics (external appearances, consistencies, environments). Thus, motivation is immanent, independent and uncontrollable by nature; we cannot affect a motivational level directly, we can only access it through a secondary mediation.

Consider for example, the classic “financial incentive”. Without being pedantic, let us say that we do not consider a “financial incentive” a motivation per se. More precisely, it is the ethical judgment (possibility < profit = immediate < motivation) that we recognize as the real material of motivation. This simple semantic distinction is just the beginning of our process though.

Additionally, internal, ethical judgments cannot be accessed directly, as they require mediation of external aesthetic communicators. These days, skilled managers understand that direct communication is only to be used as a last resort in the motivation of a subordinate. If we return to our above example of the financial incentive, it goes without saying that only the novice manager would explicitly say to an employee “if you accomplish x, we will pay you more money”. For this statement is much to direct and literal in its elocution. Firstly, it immediately closes off the possibility of the subordinate doing more than x and it reinforces a pattern that only leads to a dismal future. It’s fault is in it’s binary opposition; if the subordinate achieves, the statement enforces a positive identity, and thus the worker will now expect a raise every time he does something good. Conversely, if the subordinate fails, the motivation level will be reduced.

A more savvy manager will employ a communicational construction that is more indirect and aesthetic in its signaling. For example, the manager orders a new office chair for the subordinate and when she personally delivers it, she says something like “I know how hard you’ll be working on x next quarter, so I ordered you a new chair.” Of course this is just a simplified introduction of the notion of motivational ethics/aesthetics, and to be perfectly clear the aesthetic is NOT the actual chair, rather, again, it is the language and style in which the manager gives the chair to her subordinate. If she is a talented manager, she will continue to focus seriously on all of the aesthetic choices that affect the motivational level (ethical judgments) of her team. These aesthetics begin with language (as cited above) but continue with the identification and reinforcement of specific vocabularies, categories, gestures, expressions, humor, fashions, foods, sounds, color schemes etc., in short aesthetics are anything that can materially function as a tag or sign of the work environment. In our capabilities section we turn to a functional example to illustrate a specific ethical/aesthetic environment, in this case a high-level motivational scenario, the trading floor of a major financial institution.