During one golden autumn afternoon, I went to a friend's allotment to see her and give some support to the allotment association's open day. At this small, local event, there were prizes for (amongst other marvels) the longest bean, biggest marrow, best dahlia, not to mention a raft of awards for scones, jam, chutney and Victoria sponge cake.
My friend managed two second prizes, one for her scones and one for jam and was thrilled. Her prize - two pieces of card with "Second" on them, and the life changing sum of 76 pence in prize money.
It struck me that although the monetary prize wouldn't pay for a ride on a London bus, the amount of effort put in to competing had been significant - my friend had baked twenty scones before selecting five of the best to put into the competition. And her delight at coming second was palpable - together with a will to enter next year and to up her baking and jam making game.
And as I chomped my way through the equally delicious but unchosen scones, clotted cream and home made jam, I thought how wonderful if such effort could be put into the workplace by employees.
Not that employees' prizes should be this size, you understand; high falutin' management consultants might have you believe that employees will work for very little for the right encouragement. The (cynical) view of engagement is about getting employees to do more, for less, a form of managerial power which doesn't actually need the manager present. For me, however, without fair pay, you don't have a start point.
So what DOES motivate individuals to do so much for so little? To spend hours baking, months growing, years cultivating?
I believe the keys are to do with making your own decisions about how you achieve something, having a clear idea of what success looks like (a perfect scone with a first prize label?) and being able to see how what you do, links to the final outcome.
None of this is new, of course. Hackman and Oldham's Job Characteristics Model developed in the late 1970s indicates that job satisfaction comes from precisely these elements. So why in work do we constantly forget it?
In the workplace, we divorce people from the final outcomes of their jobs, box them into processes so they only see a part of the whole, we tell them how to do things and put silos into organisations so that people fight for their little piece of "job land" rather than working together.
On the allotment, there were tales of produce shared, advice given and taken, seeds and plants donated. The common goal of growing fruit, vegetables and flowers seemed to encourage sharing so that people could all experience success. Not everyone chose to enter into the prize giving and were simply happy to contribute to others' triumph.
I recognise that the workplace is a far cry from a North London allotment. But growing that kind of commitment, that sort of knowledge sharing, cultivating that strain of passion - now that would be worth a prize.
