I loves me some Lifehacker.. :-)

Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose -- do they all have equal weight?

Payment actually undermined intrinsic motivation because such external rewards thwart our "three psychological needs—to feel autonomous, to feel competent and to feel related to others." As he told BBC.com, "You need thinkers, problem solvers, people who can be creative and using money to motivate them will not get you that."

Great article! All so true. The other thing I always hear from my clients is that they are craving a beginning, middle and end to their work. Nothing ever seems to finish for a lot of jobs and that is very difficult for people - they want a sense of accomplishment.

Suzannah, that is a great point.

This is why goals -- not just long term goals but also short term and medium term -- are so important to job satisfaction.