Hygiene Factor

A load-bearing distinction in How Will You Measure Your Life, drawn from Frederick Herzberg’s motivation theory. In the book’s career-fulfillment argument, compensation is treated as a hygiene factor: “You need to get it right. But all you can aspire to is that employees will not be mad at each other and the company because of compensation.” In other words, pay and similar factors can only prevent dissatisfaction — they cannot, on their own, produce fulfillment.

The page positions hygiene factors against the true motivators (the Motivation side of Herzberg’s split) — the things like meaningful work, responsibility, and growth that actually make work fulfilling. This is the frame Christensen uses to argue against chasing compensation as a proxy for a good career.

Context: In Frederick Herzberg’s two-factor (motivation-hygiene) theory, “hygiene factors” — salary, working conditions, company policy, supervision — cause dissatisfaction when poor but don’t create satisfaction when good; satisfaction comes instead from “motivators” intrinsic to the work itself.

Where this appears

• How Will You Measure Your Life — compensation framed as a hygiene factor (prevents dissatisfaction, can’t create fulfillment), contrasted with the true motivators.