Agent skill · wondelai
drive-motivation
Design motivation systems using Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose (AMP) for products and teams. Use when the user mentions "intrinsic motivation", "gamification isnt working", "rewards arent working", "autonomy", "mastery", "purpose-driven", "my team is disengaged", or "how do I motivate people". Also trigger when designing onboarding progression, fixing broken gamification, or building team structures that sustain high performance. Covers why carrot-and-stick fails and how to build progress systems. For habit-forming product loops, see hooked-ux. For retention behavior design, see improve-retention.
What it needs
About 7k tokens when loaded.
What this skill does
Drive Motivation Framework Design motivation systems for products, teams, and organizations using the science of intrinsic motivation. Core Principle The secret to high performance isn't rewards and punishment — it's the deeply human need to direct our own lives, learn and create new things, and do better for ourselves and our world. For any task requiring even rudimentary cognitive effort, external rewards either don't work or actively worsen performance. Intrinsic motivation — Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose (AMP) — drives lasting engagement. Scoring Goal: 10/10. Score any motivation system (product features, team incentives, gamification, engagement loops) against the Quick Diagnostic: start at 5, add 1 for each of the first five rows answered "yes," then subtract 2 if the sixth row is also "yes" — an "if-then" reward doing the motivating crowds out the rest. Bands: 9-10 — autonomy, mastery, and purpose all present; no if-then crowding-out. 5-6 — one pillar carries the system; the other two are weak or extrinsic. ≤3 — relies on rewards, mandates, or controlling behaviors; intrinsic motivation absent. Always state the current score, which diagnostic rows failed, and the specific fixes to reach 10/10. Motivation 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 Version Core Assumption Approach Era --------- ---------------- ---------- ----- 1.0 Humans are biological Survival drives Pre-industrial 2.0 Humans respond to rewards/punishments Carrot and stick Industrial age 3.0 Humans seek autonomy, mastery, purpose Intrinsic motivation Knowledge economy The Seven Deadly Flaws of Extrinsic Rewards "If-then" rewards ("If you do X, then you get Y"): Flaw Mechanism Example ------ ----------- --------- 1. Extinguish intrinsic motivation Turns play into work Kids paid to draw stopped drawing when payments stopped 2. Diminish performance Narrow focus, reduce creativity Candle problem: rewarded group performed worse 3. Crush creativity Reward focus replaces exploration Commissioned art rated less creative 4. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills wondelai/drive-motivation--ac1c4b