Mastery

Following along in Daniel Pink’s book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” let’s take a quick look at “mastery.”

The concept of “mastery” is simple. It’s the process of obtaining a skill … to master a certain way of doing something. Think about your own career. If you have something to learn, you tend to stick around. You’re excited to get to work because there’s some great issue to address in a new and novel way.

I meet a lot of people who want to change jobs. Why? They’re bored. They’ve mastered all that they think that job is. It’s time to move on.

So your career move this week? Consider where you are in your own job’s mastery. Is there still more to learn? Have you done all you can do? Do you need more training or education to master your work more completely? Sounds motivating just thinking about it!

(next week: autonomy)