Ask most people what motivates lawyers, whether inside or outside counsel, and the first response is often "money – lots of it".

Some lawyers may think they are different – driven less by external motivators like money than by intrinsic drivers such as doing a great job and helping people.

Whatever the answer, what drives people – their motivation factors – impacts on the way they do things; the way they interact with other team members and with people outside the team; it also affects people's levels of satisfaction with their job, and in general.

The theory

The common feature of many 'motivation' practices is that management is still trying to impose systems to motivate people with extrinsic factors, rather than trying to identify and connect with people's own more powerful intrinsic motivators.

Common sense seems to suggest that if we want to know about people's motivators, we simply ask them. Yet studies have shown that people have relatively little insight into the causes of their own behaviour, often missing out some key motivators and naming others that actually have little real impact. Some of the classic theories are therefore useful to help get a better understanding of motivation.

According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, human needs consist of specific types, which form a hierarchy. Maslow argued that once one level of needs is satisfied, people can be motivated by tasks that offer the opportunity to satisfy the next level of needs.

In other words, if you have not eaten for a week (a physiological need), you will probably spend little time worrying about whether your colleagues really like you (social needs).

In the employment context, once a safe working environment and a permanent contract have met someone's security needs, other measures, such as working as part of a team, are necessary to motivate the employee.

Doubts have been cast on the existence of a hierarchy approach, for example, social needs and esteem needs may coexist. Nor do people necessarily move smoothly up in a hierarchical fashion. There is also relatively little evidence to support distinct levels of needs, nor that once some needs have been satisfied, their motivational power necessarily diminishes.

However, Maslow's work helped bring psychology into management theory and highlighted a range of individual needs that can be met on the job.

Job satisfaction

Traditionally, job satisfaction and dissatisfaction were regarded as opposite ends of the same continuum. Frederick Herzberg's two-factor theory challenged this.

Herzberg suggested the factors involved in producing job satisfaction (and motivation) are separate from factors that lead to job dissatisfaction, and concluded that the presence of 'hygiene factors' (which relate to the job environment and are extrinsic to the job) merely prevent employee dissatisfaction; they do not motivate. In contrast, it is only the presence of motivators (which relate to the job content and are intrinsic to the job itself) that produce employee satisfaction and performance.

Herzberg demonstrated motivators such as achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility, advancement and growth as primary causes of satisfaction. By contrast, 'hygiene' factors such as company policy and administration, supervision, work conditions, relationship with peers and subordinates, salary, status and security were primary causes of dissatisfaction.

This model has also been subject to criticism, but with job satisfaction linked to motivators directly related to job content, the relevance for job design and enrichment can still provide useful tools.

Motivating corporate counsel

Research conducted by Minter Ellison, which looked at motivation factors specific to corporate counsel, revealed that each participant organisation sought to harness its legal team's core strengths, but in different ways. Interviews were conducted with managing counsel at Nestle, Vodafone NZ, BHP Billiton and Carter Holt Harvey.

Heads of legal departments often lament the amount of time they spend dealing with people issues: their own people in the legal department, the people in the business; their external lawyers; and the people on the 'other side' of business transactions.

Some of the broad themes that emerged included:

. The value of a collaborative environment versus each lawyer acting like an individual law firm and fighting with each other.

. Facilitating teamwork, balanced with high-quality technical skills and personally focused professional development.

. The extent to which performance metrics and bonuses drive lawyers, against expressed anecdotal drivers revolving around professional pride of delivering top-quality service.

. The difficulty of giving personalised feedback, against huge work pressures and sometimes in spite of feedback 'systems'.

. Management (including HR) seem-ingly more heavily focused on control and administration than function or people management.

. Motivation issues arising from seeking external legal advice, stemming from isolated country legal functions with duplication, inconsistent approaches to the same issues, and limited knowledge sharing and networking.

. Escalating costs and 'lack of control' by the legal department, arising partly from having no systematic worldwide external lawyer management programme.

. Absence of an outward perspective, with multiple legal departments 'doing their own thing' without a sense of being part of a broader collegial team.

. Downsizing, outsourcing and 'shorttermist' cost-cutting affecting the legal department.

. General counsel reporting to CFO, finance or line management functions, affecting not only the company's ability to obtain strategic legal advice, but also the perception of the legal department within the organisation as functional technicians rather than strategic advisers.

From research conducted it seems that for in-house lawyers one of the most effective ways to 'push their own buttons' is by having a seat at the table when decisions are being made. And while the seat may not be a physical seat, it is critical for them to be, and to be seen to be, a key part of the business.

Getting that 'seat at the table' is driven by the legal department's ability to genuinely contribute to the organisation's success. This means the performance evaluation for the legal department is based on similar measures to the rest of the business.

In each of the profiled case studies the legal department has gained its seat at the table, yet by a variety of paths. A range of factors was considered important.

Checklist for change

. Head(s) of legal have authority to make it happen.

. Recognition that the ways of the past are not the ways of the future.

. Due diligence to ensure fact-based analysis determines where change needs to occur.

. Engage the whole team and key business stakeholders in the process.

. Know that you can never over-use consultation, collaboration and communication.

. Acknowledge resistance, but do not allow it to delay change taking place.

. Use surveys and metrics to reality check change initiatives are delivering expected outcomes.

. Recognise, reward and communicate achievements.

. Maintain momentum.

To answer the question posed at the outset, does cash – lots of it – motivate lawyers? From the Minter Ellison survey, and experience helping people identify key motivating factors, the answer is – at least mostly – no. Money is still relevant, but is usually well down the list. A range of factors including interesting and challenging work drives most lawyers. The best motivation systems identify and draw from a range of powerful intrinsic motivators, connected with organisational goals.

Ron Pol is a professional services consultant and immediate past president of the Corporate Lawyers' Association of New Zealand.