Your Employees "Drive" Is The Key To Building Brand Value And A Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Daniel H. Pinks speaks about what motivates us, our "Drive". It has been known that we have an identifiable drive that responds to rewards and punishments. Daniel believes that there is another factor that is not focused on external rewards like money and other expensive and lucrative items. He believes that we have a third motivational factor called “intrinsic motivation”. Example: He provides an illustration of two companies, Microsoft’s MSN Encarta encyclopedia vs. Wikipedia. One had all the resources, highly skilled professionals, brand recognition and well paid employees. The other one was supported by people who gave up their time and resources for free.
Why is it that people all over the world gave up their time to make Wikipedia successful? On October 31, 2009 Microsoft pulled the plug on MSN Encarta while Wikipedia became the largest and most popular web based encyclopedia in the world. Are you leveraging your employees “Drive” to create value and “Drive” your business forward competitively in a global market? Are you still using money and other external rewards to motivate your employees or yourself? Think about how awesome your organization would be if your associates had an attitude, intrinsic motivation, similar to the people that made Wikipedia successful. Your people, brand ambassadors that are passionate about your business and the brand(s), are your most valuable resource and discovering what ”Drives” them to be creative, innovative and successful can make a significant impact on your business overall competitiveness and survival. They are a critical component in creating your point of differentiation. You can accomplish this through internal branding to create that “Drive” thus resulting in a valued brand of choice.