Catalyst: The ultimate strategies on how to win at work and in life

by Chandramouli Venkatesan

This pyramid explains what motivates us at work and in our careers. At the base of the pyramid is our need for achievement, our need to achieve material success and wealth, our need to achieve comfortable living standards for ourselves and for our families, our need to achieve respect and recognition, etc. A large portion of our careers is spent meeting our achievement need. The next level of motivation is mastery. This is our need for being the master of our trade, for the ability to say that what we do has our personal stamp of quality, a sense of representing a high standard of excellence in what we do, and for being a reference standard to the world in our area of work. The last and final motivation at the top of the pyramid is purpose. We are highly motivated by a sense of purpose at work that goes beyond our own achievements and mastery. This is about the ‘why’ of work, which is beyond our personal needs—the sense of having a cause, a vision, a purpose. The combination of achievement, mastery and purpose represents the motivations that drive us at work and in our careers.