I am fascinated by identity economics, has anyone read the book?
The proposition is, and I believe it to be true that a significant number of the purchases and decisions we make are motivated by our perception of our identity.  

When you think about it it seems obvious; car, clothes, house, job, but most of us don't have a very clear perception at all about what our true identity is.  How many of us can actually articulate it if we are asked the question, especially in a succinct way?

Yet we make all these decisions, spend all this money  motivated by things we are hardly concious of.

If you relate this issue to workplace perfromance and intrinsic motivation you can begin to see the power that a clear and authentic sense of identity in the workplace can bring and its potential positive impact on all the usual suspects; lack of productivity, team cohesion, absenteeism and the passion we would love for everyone to have for what they do.

People whose true identity is at odds with their occupation, at odds with the vision of the organisation they work for are at best unproductive and at worst plain destructive.

Even if the result is when discovering a clear vision of their identity means an employee decides their current job is not for them, its better for the organisations future that they make that decision now than in X unproductive years down the track.

To me its the HR elephant in the room, something that we have missed in the focus on process andpositive psychology.

What do you think?