What Does Money Mean to You?
On money as motive.
Is there a delicate way into this topic? I’m not sure there is.
Money has been on my mind recently. What it means, the ways in which it motivates us, and how we talk about it (or don’t).
As an independent consultant, even when business is humming, a thought is never far from my mind: where’s it gonna come from? And as an executive coach, whenever I hear someone talk about their relationship with money my antenna goes up: there is something to be learned here.
Oddly, most frequently what I hear is this: “I’m not motivated by money.”
“Problem solved,” I think.
Just kidding.
Money is a squirrelly sort of motive. Is anybody really not motivated by money? Is anybody really motivated by money? What kind of motive is money anyway?
What I really think when I hear someone say they’re not motivated by money is, “What motive is being claimed or denied here? What is money signifying in the context of this conversation?”
In semiotics - the study of signs and symbols - a signifier is the physical representation of the concept behind a sign. For example, a stop sign (signifier) is the thing that you see that tells you to stop your car (signified concept).
Money is an interesting signifier because it doesn't signify a consistent concept in people's minds. Its meaning can be quite challenging to interpret. Indeed, money is a sort of agreed upon meaning itself that exists only between/among people, within certain social conditions.1
Here are just a few signified concepts that may underlie the motive, money as:
Providing safety (the desire for stability/comfort/security)
Keeping score (the desire to win)
Asserting status (the desire for power/recognition)
Engendering possibility (the desire for opportunity)
I’m sure the list goes on.
In the context of work, money is particularly interesting in the way that it shapes organizational culture and decision making.2 3 Whenever I have a conversation about why a certain type of behavior is happening systemically within an organization, one of the first questions I ask is “how are employees incentivized?”
In our culture, moving toward more money is logical and expected, and moving toward less money is counter-cultural, or indicative of a different sort of motive altogether. Unless of course, one is moving toward less money in the interest of making more money later. The stories we revere - in business, art, and even education - all tend to include the denouement of “and then they hit it big.”
Whatever money means, it has a powerful ability to direct people’s attention. Which is also to say, it shapes how we think about our career decisions.
When you press into your own thoughts about money, when you consider money in the context of a career decision, what is it signifying for you? What is it solving in the context of that decision?
Wennerlind, C. (2001). Money talks, but what is it saying? Semiotics of money and social control. Journal of Economic Issues, 35(3), 557-574.
https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/02/06/the-wells-fargo-cross-selling-scandal-2/
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/01/business/enron-s-many-strands-executive-compensation-enron-paid-huge-bonuses-01-experts.html
I find discussions of money in America distorted by our cultural obsession with growth and scale. Our collective view of money is almost volcanic and we are the mad scientists trying to make the volcano blow.