An excellent read, John. A great mix of theoretical background and practical advice. I haven't yet read Team Topologies as software teams are not my niche but I'm sure there's a lot of crossover to consulting firms.
I just wanted to comment about Dan Pink's popularisation of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. You acknowledge Ryan and Deci (as does Pink, of course) and I'm all for the idea of mastery, and even purpose. You'll know (but maybe your readers won't) that the original research that led to self-determination theory talked about autonomy, competence and relatedness. Geoff Marlow has an interesting video about the difference between "purpose" and "relatedness" in his own Substack here: https://geoffmarlow.substack.com/p/purpose-or-relatedness. As I said, it's no criticism of Pink for his adaptation and popularisation, but it does add some nuance.
That's a really good point Angus - I just watched Geoff's video and appreciate the extra context he brings - he describes nuanced themes so well.
We try to use mastery, autonomy and purpose as a broad frame and in our Engineering Culture survey and conversations with engineers we have 'meaning' as a subsection of purpose where we think in terms of relatedness, connection, and belonging to explore people's relationship with their overall context.
Geoff's point around Pink's decision to use 'purpose' being driven by North American individualism is quite interesting. We find ourselves continually conflicted on which words to use to best describe our offerings. The latest one was whether to use 'self-reflection' or 'assessment' for our engineering leadership insights survey - often it's a compromise between what we want to say and what is likely to be understood in relation to common themes and references in the corporate world.
An excellent read, John. A great mix of theoretical background and practical advice. I haven't yet read Team Topologies as software teams are not my niche but I'm sure there's a lot of crossover to consulting firms.
I just wanted to comment about Dan Pink's popularisation of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. You acknowledge Ryan and Deci (as does Pink, of course) and I'm all for the idea of mastery, and even purpose. You'll know (but maybe your readers won't) that the original research that led to self-determination theory talked about autonomy, competence and relatedness. Geoff Marlow has an interesting video about the difference between "purpose" and "relatedness" in his own Substack here: https://geoffmarlow.substack.com/p/purpose-or-relatedness. As I said, it's no criticism of Pink for his adaptation and popularisation, but it does add some nuance.
That's a really good point Angus - I just watched Geoff's video and appreciate the extra context he brings - he describes nuanced themes so well.
We try to use mastery, autonomy and purpose as a broad frame and in our Engineering Culture survey and conversations with engineers we have 'meaning' as a subsection of purpose where we think in terms of relatedness, connection, and belonging to explore people's relationship with their overall context.
Geoff's point around Pink's decision to use 'purpose' being driven by North American individualism is quite interesting. We find ourselves continually conflicted on which words to use to best describe our offerings. The latest one was whether to use 'self-reflection' or 'assessment' for our engineering leadership insights survey - often it's a compromise between what we want to say and what is likely to be understood in relation to common themes and references in the corporate world.
Hi John, I really enjoyed this read. Similar to Angus, I also referred back to the original works and how they were named something subtly different. I explored this a little myself a while ago and look forward to putting that into context with your work. Great stuff! https://richardwbown.com/daniel-pinks-drive-and-what-self-determination-theory-sdt-really-says/