There is a lot of conversation about whether work motivation comes from extrinsic or intrinsic rewards. Most research has shown that extrinsic rewards (i.e, pay for performance) distorts results, whereas intrinsic rewards enhance performance.

I believe it goes back to how your work itself is organized. When work is designed well, you get more motivation and much higher quality because individuals care about work, and it generates commitment. There are certain conditions that must be met to create these conditions: Work must have meaning; avoid the classic assembly line problem, you are not just a cog in the wheel. One must experience responsibility: the choices you make have something to do with the outcome. There must be a clear bigger picture: you have some knowledge of how it all relates to a larger change in the world.

When designing work, there are five key ways to design motivational work (thanks to Harvard researcher Richard Hackman)

Task identity: when work is completed, it’s clear what your contribution was. Nothing is worse than working all day and thinking “What did I even accomplish?!”

Skill variety: It’s not same old, same old repetitive work. Engaging lots of different skills = fantastic.

Task significance: the work makes a difference in some way. You see the connection between what you’re doing and the difference you’re making.

Autonomy: This doesn’t mean that you always get to do what you want. It means you get a domain of choice about how you’re doing your work.

Feedback: This helps you SEE the difference that your work is making.

So here’s an exercise for you: rank how you currently design a work project from 1-5 in each of these categories. Where do you need improvement? What’s blocking you from doing your best work? Find out and address it. And share with us what your greatest work design challenge is in the comments here and I’ll help you refine it.

Organizations should be doing three things: meeting, acting, and celebrating. But, we tend to spend 60% of our time meeting (frequently in useless, counterproductive meetings where everyone doodles and avoids eye contact), 35% acting, and only 5% celebrating. What a pity!

Celebration is not just about fun, its about meaning, it’s about how you process what you experience. A funeral can be a celebration of one someone’s life. A team dinner can be a celebration of a successful project. Even if you suffered a loss or challenge on a project, you make emotional sense and meaning making through celebrations. It’s also not about reaffirming the ego for a job well done, it’s about honoring values.

On the flipside, sometimes success leads us not to celebrate. Success brings with it a whole new set of challenges, distracting us from focusing on what we accomplished, and why, as we become anxious about why may lie ahead and what others expect us to accomplish.

In my career coaching with clients, one process I use is to ask them what are the top 5 accomplishments that they are most proud of (not what their parents or friends are proud of). What is interesting is that many of these accomplishments are rarely celebrated and spoken about. Instead, many young leaders tend to harp on their weaknesses and focus on them to become mediocre at a bunch of things rather than excellent at a few. Focus on your superpower and celebrate it! And when you don’t succeed, celebrate your learnings. We constantly meet and act and without celebration, we stay stuck in routine rather than rejuvenating our energy. So take time for team dinners, mid-week cookie runs or after-work happy hours. You’ve worked hard – take pride in what you do!

It’s not worth your time. Yes, you know what I mean. Ever sit and feel like you are not as good as [fill in the blank]? Ever feel like you ‘should’ do more? Here’s some news: We live in a world of leaders, stop comparing yourself.

Each person has their gifts, and their gifts shine in different ways and at different times.  When you compare yourself to others, you don’t win, you hurt your own brightness and stop focusing on developing your strengths.

This rings especially true in today’s world of experts and entrepreneurs. “The truth is that we don’t help each other and move our industry forward,” says Brendon Burchard in The Millionaire Messenger. If you are an expert, well, can others be experts as well? And how do you compare yourselves to them? Our system isn’t set up to help people share their own voices, rather it is set up to fear one another and hold our information so close because it could be ‘copied.’

There is room for everyone and comparison just drains our creative potential. We should not worry because as long as our focus remains on our talents, we will be able to successfully make them our own.  While life may seem like a treadmill where we always want more, just relax and own yourself, and I promise you’ll be a happier and satisfied leader.

So instead of comparing, give. Give to the world in new ways. Give more help to a friend. Give to a social cause or your business. Give lots more to the world and you’ll SHINE. Because that’s what we really need AND it will end up serving you.

I recently met Michael Jones, a famous pianist and leadership educator who has spent a lifetime at the intersection of music and leadership. He told a story from years ago of a stranger who came up to him and said: who is going to play your music if you don’t play yourself? It was at a time when he was planning a more traditional life as an organizational consultant. This single question re-directed his lifetime career as a pianist.

Whether we are social activists, business leaders, writers, entrepreneurs, consultants, each of us has our own music. The challenge is society gives us immediate rewards to tell someone else’s story, not our own.

I recently was honored to be interviewed by No Country for Young Women  on my work in next generation leadership for companies and individuals. What resonated with readers most was my sense that young leaders need to stop idolizing certain power players like Sheryl Sandberg or Oprah and putting them on a pedestal. Rather we need to do our OWN unique work in the world. As Nilofer Merchant said to me, “Until we own our onlyness, we can never own the agency to create change / innovate.”

For each of us, we were put in this world to do our own work. The beauty is that sometimes unexpected life experiences, such as a question from a stranger, leave us with the real question. The key to showing our gifts is our own aliveness, to feel most engaged into what we are doing. It’s when we feel, this is who I am, this is why I am here. Living life is about the sense of aliveness. When we are most alive, we are most in our gift. The analytical world promotes how we do it, and what we choose to do needs to come from a deeper intuition. When we are following our own aliveness, what guides us is a thread more than a plan.

So, who is going to play your music if you don’t play it yourself?

To start playing, here’s an exercise for you from the Domino Project: When did you feel most alive recently? Where were you? What did you smell? What sights and sounds did you experience? Capture that moment on paper and recall that feeling. Then, when it’s time to create something, read your own words to reclaim a sense of being to motivate you to complete a task at hand.

When we network with individuals to get a new job or business deal, we often ask: what sector have you worked in? What was your rank / title? What skills to do you have to offer based on your prior experience? All of this thinking is based on past patterns, and influenced by systems that encourage each of us to take a certain type of “role”. Getting a business card or becoming a Linkedin contact does not build trust or a real relationship.

Its all simply because we often do not ask the right questions when we network. We don’t tap into what the other person really wants to do, when you let go of and fade out the way our system encourages us to network for Facebook friends and business cards rather than to build trust. What about asking: When have you had your greatest accomplishments and why? What does success look like for you? What work environments do you thrive in? What type of people do you want to be around? Why did you choose certain roles? What challenges did you face? What do your challenges call you to do now?

There is a complete shift in thinking when we ask different questions. Many MBA students talk to me about how networking provides the ground to meet a lot of people, yet networking does not delve to the core with someone else, nor does it inspire. It may be conducive to getting a referral and it will rarely get you a commitment. In order to build relationships, we need ask difficult questions, and be willing to truly listen.

So the next time you are networking, while you may have a specific goal in mind let the relationship drive what the partnership might stand for. Explore one another’s interests first, instead of telling someone what you want and letting them decide if they want to join up.

In life, there are some things you can do without: the blind date, the cool outfit, the A on a school assignment.

But other things if never attempted may leave you unhappy. These are those real things, that make you shine and come alive.

I know. I used to ignore them. For much of my 20s, I was trying to “do it all” and lived someone else’s idea of success, not my own.

It was when I took time off to dance and to write that my dots started to connect. I began to write about what I cared about rather than what I thought I should say. Within just a few months, I began submitting my work and getting published more often, in places like Levo League, The Huffington Post and Forbes. While I’ve always been a longtime dancer, I began daily Bollywood and African dance rituals to get my day started, becoming even sharper in my work on Gen Y leadership, all leading me to speak at Davos this year. In short, I began to own my life rather than letting it own me. And I have never had this much fun or felt nearly as creative and productive as I feel now.

If you want to own your writing and creative process, join Lex Schroeder and I for Ideas that Move: Ground Your Voice and Energize Your Work. This 3 day weekend retreat merges writing and movement practices in Hartland, Vermont (2.5 hours from Boston) on April 19-22.

During this Friday-Sunday extravaganza, you will tap into your own energy to write, claim your writing voice, and step into a new creative flow. Beyond serving as a chance to make real headway on your work, this retreat is an opportunity to move, laugh, and let loose among new friends –that means Bollywood Zumba, results-oriented writing exercises, meditation, and yummy organic food! Read full description here and register by March 25.

fel·low·ship n.

1.a. The condition of sharing similar interests, ideals, or experiences, as by reason of profession, religion, or nationality. b. The companionship of individuals in a congenial atmosphere and on equal terms.

2. A close association of friends or equals sharing similar interests.

3. Friendship; comradeship.

4.a. The financial grant made to a fellow in a college or university.b. The status of having been awarded such a grant. c. A foundation established for the awarding of such a grant

There are large-scale myths that surround how people think about themselves and their work when applying to fellowships. Most major award structures are set up to reward individuals. Some of the most famous fellowships: MacArthur Genius Grant Winner, Rhodes scholars, and  TED fellows all award one single person. Most of the time, these individuals were not alone in their ground-breaking work. They teamed up with many others along the way, partnering and collaborating to come up with great ideas. The word fellowship embodies this comradeship, yet the awards structure ends up creating a individualistic view of accomplishments.

In the workplace, company’s evaluation and promotion practices encourage an assumption that employee’s time is dedicated to a company. Yet time is not infinite, it is scarce and shared across employees.

What if there were more fellowships that really promoted and incentivized team building? How do we change the award system and build the awareness that we need help and to acknowledge others? What if this shift could promote the collaborative leadership to design the most important work of our time?

As I sat on my computer trying to write my blog post for today, I kept blanking and freezing, avoiding getting started because I thought it wouldn’t be good enough. Then I realized I had my whole orientation wrong and needed to stop trying to be perfect. It’s about getting better every day. I seek to dream, innovate, and develop world-changing ideas. So I need to do what I am most fearful to do and live my experiments out day by day. That’s how we improve: in small daily increments.

I’ve gotten a lot of praise, admiration, and high hopes of becoming a ‘power player’ for attending and speaking at the World Economic Forum 2012 at Davos last month. I am grateful for it, the 70 Global Shapers, all incredible millennial leaders, have been well-respected for their contribution to Davos this year.

Yet what I really want to share is that, for me, I have learned to embrace my losses as much as my opportunities in life. One year ago, I was completely burnt out and unsatisfied with my life, career goals, and physical energy. I took the time to reflect on what truly mattered, what I cared about and why, danced 3x a week, journaled and meditated. This inevitably made me a better person. When I started to show up as my full self, rather than running around chasing the work of others, opportunities came to me. I would say the real source of power was letting go: of expectations, of always having a set plan, and just being myself.  I went to Davos to share my thoughts with the world, from where I stood as a young woman. My biggest successes have been from ‘enabling myself’ not trying to save the world. That is real power, when we own our life and mindset, rather than solely attach ourselves to our accomplishments and awards.

So what was Davos like? Lets be honest: it’s the most exclusive event in the world. So when I, a visibly Indian-American young woman came to this event, no one was really talking to me at first. Everyone couldn’t wait to shake hands with Bill Gates, Arianna Huffington, and Sheryl Sandberg. So I learned to exercise my own version of power: asking questions.

In almost everything I went to I asked a question that related to my life and my generation. It unexpectedly brought people to me I wasn’t seeking out originally but became kindred spirits for the rest of my time there. That’s our real power: our curious mind. We don’t need to know it all, we need to start from where we are.

The challenge is that when you get to a position of power and authority, other people expect you to “be a certain way.” Yet I’m learning that I can constantly shape who I am for myself rather than rely on others to determine this for me.  This will be a challenge for all next generation leaders as we morph and grow.

This week’s Sloan Women in Management Conference on ‘Innovating Through
Adversity’ poses tough questions about the systemic gender inequalities that still
exist in business today. Marissa Mayer of Google, Jennifer Siebel Newsom of Miss
Representation, and Fredericka Whitfield of CNN will take the stage to share their
insights on women’s advancement in business. Behind the scenes, a fantastic team
of ambitious MBA women are organizing the conference at one of the nation’s top
business schools.

But do business schools really prepare women for senior leadership roles with
companies?

As a graduate of Wharton’s undergraduate program and an MBA candidate at MIT’s
Sloan School of Management, I’d say no. Here’s why.

Business schools primarily think about female and male students as future
employees rather than as women and men with complex lives for whom
employment is a significant, but not the only, activity. If MBA programs truly want
to develop principled leaders, they need to address the different sets of concerns
students can expect to encounter in the classroom, as well as when they graduate
and enter the workforce.

Women in MBA programs often feel like they have to “do it all”, and that the
frequent tradeoffs inherent in a busy work and family life (often leading to a high
level of stress and anxiety) are something to be overcome, not managed. Imagine
the possibilities if business schools give the private concerns of their students a
genuine place in the planning of work through courses and programs on gender and
life issues, such as a talent management course for both men and women, a case
study in all leadership courses on the impact of diverse groups on career and home
dynamics, and continued support for gender-related conversations and discussions.

“The last frontier for women’s advancement at work is understanding how men
and women re-define roles at home,” says Anne Weisberg, head of Diversity
at Blackrock, a global financial management firm and author of Mass Career
Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today’s Nontraditional Workforce. She

emphasizes that MBAs should be discussing life and home issues as part of the
planning of work at the business school level. Currently there is no place for these
issues, but these topics need to be integrated into the curriculum.

The after-effects are clear. According to Harvard Kennedy School Professors
Barbara Kellerman and Deborah Rhode in their book, Women and Leadership: State
of Play and Strategies for Change, “one in three women with MBAs are not working
full time, compared with one in twenty men. A large portion of these women do,
however, want to return to work, yet generally do not without significant career
costs and difficulties.” Both men and women need to be made aware of these costs
and difficulties starting in business school, they’re going to lose good employees and
face major transition costs.

Aside from future concerns for women, there are many areas in current business
school environments where women face different challenges than men do based
on age, participation, and who they consider role models. The implications of not
addressing gender-specific challenges in the workplace end up hurting both men
and women’s recognition of gender differences in leadership positions.

”On average, women are younger than men in top ten MBA programs,” says MIT
Sloan Dean David Schmittlein. “This may lead to a negative perception of their
experience in the business school environment.” What’s more, he cites research
that “has shown that women aren’t called to participate as proportionally as often in
the classroom. When women are called on, the next person is less inclined to build
on their comments.”

According to a study entitled Wives of the Organizations, by Leipzig Professor Anne
Huff, women tend to volunteer more often for maintenance-level roles such as note-
taking, opportunities that they may not get recognition for. Huff’s research shows
that gender is an area to be further investigated in MBA programs.

There are also clear differences for women in terms of role models and faculty at
business schools. “Some of the most well regarded and least well regarded faculty
are women,” says Schmittlein. Yet women still make up a much smaller proportion
of faculty across business schools.

While I believe hosting women in management conferences at the nation’s top
business programs is an important first step to building a female talent pool,
women senior leaders and business school leadership must recognize how gender
differences in business school play a major role in and out of the classroom as well
in future careers. In today’s age, this issue is not just for women, but is crucial for
both men and women to reach their individual and often shared potential in work
and life. There is a need for new dialogue across MBA programs that address how
gender plays a role in business school environments and subsequently in building a
pipeline of female leaders in companies and on boards.