Mar 30 • General
The downside of relying too heavily on ‘intrinsically motivated’ workers
Hey everyone, during the weekend I came across a research from Northeastern. They tracked how managers actually allocate work and found that 55% of them give more tasks to the people they see as most engaged.
Here's the full study if you want to dive deeper: https://news.northeastern.edu/2026/03/18/intrinsic-motivation-at-work-burnout-research/
It's just how it plays out: you see someone who genuinely loves what they're doing, who hasn't complained, who seems energized, and you think, "Okay, they can handle this." The assumption feels reasonable.
But here's what I realized while reading it: Engagement and capacity are not the same thing. The person who is most committed to the work is also the person least likely to push back when they're actually hitting a wall. They just keep going.
Is this like a system design failure hiding in plain sight? The signal that looks most healthy is the signal that's most dangerous to ignore.
Curious if you've seen this play out in your teams or work. How do you actually separate someone who is energized from someone who is about to burn out? Because they can look the same from the outside.
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The downside of relying too heavily on ‘intrinsically motivated’ workers
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