The Difficult One: Pay Developers a Lot of Money.
When I asked developers what motivated them, I expected most of the answers you read above. Most people want to be appreciated for the skills they bring to the table, to be trusted to deliver their best work, and to be given honest and useful feedback. But I didn't expect that several responses would be utterly mercenary.
For example, one developer's response to the base question "If you could get your CIO (or IT manager) to understand one thing about managing and motivating developers, what would it be?" was a single word: Money. And to the automatic follow-up question, "Why did you pick that?"-"Chicks dig it."
I did laugh aloud at that response, but other developers (who remain anonymous for obvious reasons) repeated the sentiment. "As far as motivation goes, if I am not getting paid, I am not getting out of bed," wrote one. "That simply saying I'm the exceptional one who can do this amazing thing doesn't motivate if I'm not being paid exceptionally," said another. "Money is the main motivator for any job; get it right and you will have a happy employee," added a database administrator, who recommended that CIOs keep an eye on what the job market is doing for his role, and make reasonable adjustments to ensure the staff is within the comfort zone for their pay scale.
You and I could take this at face value. Developers are trained professionals who expect to be well compensated for their experience and skill. Certainly, one way to give feedback to developers, especially the ones you value most, is by showing your appreciation on the paycheck.
But surely that isn't the whole story. Every one of us could describe a job about which we'd say, "There's no amount of money you could pay me to do that," and most of us can cite jobs that paid relatively poorly in income terms, but from which we gained a great degree of personal satisfaction. Perhaps I'm wrong in this conclusion (as a confirmed hippie who believes that all work should come from personal passion, and the money will follow), but I don't think so. Given a choice between a high-paying dead-end job and a rewarding one (for slightly less money) that generates personal pride and a sense of accomplishment-well, I have a hard time believing that most developers would choose the former.
My interpretation of the mercenary answer is that most developers don't really know what motivates them... which means that their managers have to make individual judgments about the people who report to them. "Money" is an easy response-too easy-because we all like to be paid a lot.
Developers, however, are not necessarily introspective. Unless they personally have a tropism toward team (if not upper-level) management, they may not give much thought to the things that bosses can do to motivate them to do their best work. That task, then, remains firmly in your lap. In which case, it probably will help to apply the advice given above by the developers who do know what they want.
A Purr-fectly Reasonable Analogy
It may be helpful to think of good IT people like cats, wrote Pat Phelan, a database administrator who specializes in PeopleSoft technologies. "If you treat them well, offer the occasional special treat, and discipline them fairly, it can be done and done well. If you miss a point or two now and then, they'll adjust," he says. "If you miss any of these points consistently for too long, the really good ones will start to wander off in search of better opportunities."
And managing them is a lot like herding cats. The corollaries apply, too, says Phelan. For example, micromanaging a cat is pointless; the results are frustration for both you and the cat. "Make sure that the cat understands what you want. If you've done a halfway good job of handling the cat, it will consistently surprise you by doing a better job than you can imagine, and often in ways that you would never have thought of and couldn't explain if you had thought of them!" he says. Plus, trying to understand a cat is highly educational, but rarely profitable because, after all, cats do what cats do. It is a bad idea to either over- or underfeed a cat, Phelan advises. "Overfed, they get lazy. Underfed, they'll do things you don't want them doing. Find the appropriate level for each cat. Always leave room for the occasional treat (some earned, and now and then one 'just because')."
Do not abuse the cats, he adds. They'll do things to get even that you'll never think of. Remember, too, that cats learn a lot by playing. Always try to leave them time to play. The exercise is good, the team building is good, and you often end up with better-behaved cats.
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