I’ve always been a fan of Dan Pink. His work on what really motivates people is very interesting. He cites three major motivators that are intrinsic motivations, i.e. the things that really motivate us inside, beyond things like money and material benefits. They are Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. There’s a great video on YouTube that explains why these factors are so powerful and why traditional, material motivators counter-intuitively have the opposite effect and are not sufficient to motivate your cleverest people…