wow, that is extremely interesting, thanks for sharing!!

Nice video, and that seems to show something I've been fortinute to see in all the places I've worked. Responsibility driven management where I'm responsible for getting my work done in any way I like it. I think what's really good about this is that I care more if it all goes wrong.

But I still think balance is key. I've seen (and heard) stories of workplaces which are more like social groups. People come in, chat, mess around, take a long lunch and ultimately just get nothing done. So sometimes you need managers to lean over you and shout down that you need to get to work!

Agreed. If I'm doing something I like then I work incredibly quickly and don't mind long hours or low pay (as much). If I'm working on something I don't like then I dislike my job and just want to leave and/or slack off.

Interesting video - but I don't think they answered the big question raised at the beginning, and that I thought was the most insightful observation of the whole thing - why is it that more money actually produced poorer performance, and only for cognitive tasks to boot?

Taking that at face value, you might even say - to improve the quality of work at your company, pay people less, and forget the mastery/purpose/control stuff.

This is just Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  Also, we're all different so one thing doesn't necessarily work for everyone exactly the same way.  The tests were kind of ambiguous.  Some of us want to play guitar, some draw, some write programs, some do all, so even knowing this, it's still hard to get people functioning in a certain way that benefits a company.  I say company because that's where the financial rewards come into play, but companies that understand this and tap into it are going to do better.  Even unskilled factory workers can be given more autonomy and creativity and they will work better and be happier.   Although there was this implied socialistic behavior,  I think the company starters are generally people who need autonomy and creativity, so it's really why capitalism works better as a system.  Socialism claims to reward by need, but generally leads to stagnation because it's even a higher top down management system with more rules and regulations.  I think the really depressing thing about this is that it's well known, but hardly used by management because at the end of the day, people like iron fisted control.  They forgot to do a test on what motivates management and it's usually the desire to control others.