1. You can't motivate people. Al you can do is set up conditions to maximize the chances that they develop a genuine interest in what they're doing.

2. The Three Cs of Motivation:
Collaboration:
People are more enthusiastic when they feel a sense of belonging and see themselves as part of a community. This is due to the exchange of talent and resources that result from cooperation and the emotional sustenance of social support.

Content:
"If you want people motivated to do a good job, give them a good job to do."

The best jobs offer a chance to engage in meaningful work. This goal can't always be achieved, but is a good guiding principle.

Motivation is highest when a job offers the opportunity to learn new skills, experience some variation in tasks, and to acquire and demonstrate competence. "The manager's job is not to motivate people to get them to achieve; instead, the manager should provide opportunities for people to achieve so they will become motivated."

Let people work at the jobs that they are most likely to find interesting. Give them a chance to sample a variety of jobs until a good fit is found. Allow them to transfer periodically to keep things interesting. "When people are well-matched with their jobs, it is rarely necessary to force, coerce, bribe, or trick them into working hard and trying to perform the job well. Instead, they try to do well because it is rewarding and satisfying to do so."

Within a job, it is possible to enhance responsibility, meaningfulness, and feedback:

Make sure each worker has some knowledge of the results of what she is doing, experiences responsibility for these results, and sees the work as valuable.

For unpleasant jobs, acknowledge frankly that the task may not be fun, offer a meaningful rationale for doing it anyway, and give as much choice as possible about how to perform the task.

A study of garbage collectors showed that they were happy because relationships among the men were highlighted, tasks and routes were varied to avoid monotony, and the company was set up as a cooperative, making each worker feel a pride of ownership.

Choice:
Burnout is not a function of work volume, but rather of feeling controlled and powerless.

The characteristic most likely to kill creativity is not inadequate pay or tight deadlines, but a lack of freedom in deciding what to do or how to accomplish a task, lack of sense of control over one's own work and ideas.

People don't like change policies because they fear change, but because they don't like having it imposed on them.

"People don't resist change. They resist being changed."

Giving employees the chance to make decisions is challenging, but pays off.

[From the Great Books Series. Also see The Success Manual  - Encyclopedia of Advice, which contains summaries of 100+ Most useful books.]