Kurt Nelson, PhD | Behavior Matters!

Author: Kurt Nelson, PhD Page 6 of 7

Are 140 Characters Considered a Bonding Moment?

Have you ever noticed that when you are speaking with your colleagues that much of the conversation revolves around surface level things? Things such as the weather, project updates, weekend plans, and the recipe for the great veggie dip from the potluck lunch.

As improbable as it sounds, it seems like there are often more in-depth conversations going on within social media sites like facebook and Twitter than between colleagues in the workplace. There seems to be a shift in how we interact with each other that is taking place. This new form of conversation can reveal a more authentic side of people. Is it because it is easier to connect with others who you may not know? When I sit down and stare at my Twitter home page I am 140 characters away from connecting with hundreds, if not thousands, of people around the world. This is appealing in many ways for us as we truly enjoy connecting with people. Technology has made connecting with individuals from anywhere in the world very easy to do. The dark side of this is that when we log off Twitter or facebook we can feel like we are missing something. Are we missing an opportunity to bond with someone?

The 4-drive theory shows us that the drive to bond is a fundamental human drive. People can recognize and understand it immediately when it is happening real time. As human beings we have a drive to connect with other people and the depth of those connections will vary based upon your relationships with them. We bond differently with different people, at different points in our lives and for different reasons. The common aspect is the desire to have a positive relationship with other another human being. We do this through sharing stories, exchange ideas, and listening to one another.

The question is this – how does technology impact our drive to bond? Can the drive to bond be satisfied 140 characters at a time? Do we need to have the happy-hour hang out scene after work in order for this drive to be filled, or can we bond effectively without ever meeting a person face-to-face? Is technology becoming just another avenue for us to bond or is it shifting the very nature of the bonding experience?

Based upon our limited experience, we feel that technology is shifting the very nature of our interactions. The ability to share thoughts and ideas with the world, changes how we communicate. That change can also impact how we connect with others. It provides opportunities for greater sharing and more revealing conversations. For many people, it is easier to tweet about a thought or idea than it would be to share that thought or idea coworkers. On this level, it can foster greater bonds. However, we’ve also realized that there is power to having face-to-face sharing. When Susan attended Blogwell, she met many tweeters on the bus and at the conference and because of the human aspect of meeting them in person, she was able to bond faster and with more trust. The real potential, as we see it, is in being able to meld these two forms and garner both the emotional aspects of face-to-face bonding with the deeper insight and discussion that often comes with the help of the electronic word.

We would welcome your thoughts and comments?

Science supports new ideas on motivation

On August 28, 2009

In Uncategorized

Dan Pink does a fantastic job in explaining some key science around incentives and motivation. This ties into the four drive model – showcasing the fact that we don’t leverage people’s motivation by money alone. Watch and enjoy.

Take a minute to say thank you the “write” way

On August 27, 2009

In Employee Motivation, Uncategorized

thank you

I received a hand written thank you note for a project I did a few months ago. It was not only a pleasant surprise, but one that has maintained some impact after several months. I’m of the age that when I first started in work, we used to give recognition through hand written cards and notes on a regular (ok, maybe not so regular) basis. With the advent of e-mail and electronic forms of communication, the hand written thank you has gone the way of the pay phone – not quite dead, but pretty close.

There is something very special about a letter or note or thank you that is written by hand. It has a lot of stickiness in today’s electronic world – it stands out from the crowd. It also provides a sense of real appreciation – one that has taken a little bit of extra effort to do.

We did work with a large med device company this spring in which we interviewed a number of their sales people. These people were very highly compensated, had significant incentive earning opportunities, and fantastic recognition programs (valued at $10,000s of dollars). What struck me, was the impact that one VP of Sales had by writing hand written letters of appreciation to his top performers. One sales person went so far as to frame the letter and had it hanging in his office (note – he did not have the plaques or other awards that he earned up in his office). These letters had a greater recognition value and motivational impact than some programs that cost millions of dollars to the company.

So please excuse me, I’m going to go write a few thank you’s by hand.

Kurt

The Drive To Bond and How We Screw It Up

On August 24, 2009

In Uncategorized

We all have a drive to bond. The desire to form meaningful, positive relationships with those around us. Research shows that this drive is one of the strongest motivators that we have as humans (see Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Lawrence and Nohria, 2002). Think of the impact that this strong human drive could have on business performance if harnessed? Think of the extra effort that you exert for your friends when they are in need – now apply that extra effort to a business.

The problem is that businesses typically see bonding only as something done in a team building session for an afternoon at the National Sales Meeting. Or worse, that bonding is idle chit-chat that steals company time and resources. How many organizations have you seen with policies regarding time spent away from the desk, on the internet, or using social media at work? Think about those companies that have strict policies regarding office fraternizing or dating. Or think of the norms that have been established about not mingling with your employees or being their friends after work. All of this is wrong!

Now I understand that there are reasons for these policies (legal issues, productivity lost, sandbaggers, etc.). The fact is, these policies inhibit bonding and socializing at work. The fact is, that bonding can be used to help motivate and inspire your workforce to higher productivity, more responsibility, and greater results. The issue is that companies need to pro-actively work on this – and that’s not easy.

There are a number of ways to foster increased bonding. Th first is to remove the roadblocks that inhibit socialization. Examine your policies and procedures to see if they can be eliminated or changed to help people get to know one another without serious loss of productivity. Then focus on creating a culture that encourages bonding and team work. Create opportunities for people to meet and discuss. Foster conversations between groups and levels within the organization. Identify social media tools to help people get to know one another on a more personal basis.

Here are a just a couple of ideas:

Create a breakfast/lunch topics series – have people give a short presentation on a topic of their interest
Start a job sharing/learning forum – one of the best ways to form a relationship at work is to help people understand what everyone does and how they do it
Start each meeting with fast facts – a quick go around about something each person has recently done or is planning on doing

Give us some ideas of yours – we’ll not only post them here, but also on Twitter!

Innovation Principles

On August 13, 2009

In Uncategorized

We typically talk about motivation in this blog – but not today. Today I’m recommending a cool blog that I’m following called metacool by Diego Rodriquez – http://metacool.typepad.com/metacool/. Diego is a design guy. He talks about design and is inspired by design. What is truly fascinating though, is the 21 principles he has been developing around innovation. Here are his words about that:

These principles are intended to underpin a general theory of innovation. They are not meant to be principles of design thinking, though some of them are obviously closely related to the theory and practice of design thinking. Inspired by the simplicity work of my friend John Maeda, I’m trying to figure out what I think and know at this point in my life when it comes to all things innovation.

He is through 17 of them so far. They apply to more than just design (as he states) – they can be applied across disciplines. This is where it becomes very cool. How do we innovate around motivation? Take principle number 1, how do I “experience the world and not just talk about experiencing the world” In other words, “How do I experience motivation, and not just talk about motivation.” This is key to innovating (as Diego has pointed out). If we are to truly innovate around developing better ways of motivating, we need to experience motivation and not just take this and that piece from various theory’s.

I encourage everyone to go out and look at Diego’s blog and to think about the current 17 principles. I know that I am.

Kurt

Pay: Cost or Investment?

On August 12, 2009

In Uncategorized

Susan and I had the opportunity yesterday to hear a presentation on assessing pay evaluation by Mark Wallace and Tim Hill of the Hay Group. In it, they talked about the difference between when companies look at pay as a cost or when they look at it as an investment. The difference in how these two world views impact behavior is significant.

When pay is viewed as a cost, it is managements job to minimize it. With this perspective, companies tend to look at pay benchmarks, limit pay increases and create estimate salary budgets for review. However, when pay is viewed as an investment, management’s job is to optimize that investment. Companies actions take on a whole different flavor. With an investment perspective, companies look at how pay drives performance and motivation. How does the pay structure align with the roles and responsibilities of the job. How does the pay opportunity spur employee motivation or engagement. How can pay, recognition, benefits and incentives be leveraged to drive organizational success – as measured on many levels (not just cost savings).

Which pay philosophy do you think is better? I know which one I do.

Let us know your thoughts!

Do you really know what makes you tick? OR You think you know what motivates you – but you really don’t

On August 6, 2009

In Employee Motivation, Incentive Compensation, Incentive Plans and Sales Awards, Uncategorized

We believe we know what gets us up in the morning and rearing to go – don’t we? If someone asked you what motivates you, you would be able to tell them – right? Our ability to reflect on our own motivations is a belief that we all think we do well. I would argue that we are fooling ourselves and we really aren’t as good at it as we think.

Case in point, research has continually shown that when asked what type of reward employees think would be most motivating or that they would most want, they choose “cash.” Our own research shows that when asked, 70% to 80% of employees typically listed cash as the top reward. However, when you actually look at studies that show performance lift, non-cash awards have a greater impact. Dr. Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational recently blogged about this (See http://www.predictablyirrational.com). He cites an experiment done with Goodyear Tire company in which non-cash rewards improved performance more than double what the cash rewards did. In fact, there are numerous studies that support this idea.

So how can it be that if asked most people would state they prefer cash incentives but perform better when offered non-cash incentives? Part of the reason is because we don’t really understand what drives us? Cash is easy. We understand it. Economists point out that cash has “utility” – in other words it can be used to purchase any number of items that we desire. Non-cash is not so simple. We might not like the choices we have or feel limited by the selection. So what gives?

Dr. Scott Jeffrey’s has done much work on understanding this phenomena (see http://www.incentivecentral.org/awards/whitepapers/benefits_of_tangible_non_monetary_incentives.1830.html). Much of it comes down to how we evaluate, separate, justify and are socially reinforced by each incentive. In other words, we evaluate the value of cash and non-cash differently resulting in a higher value placed on non-cash elements do to affective factors (we can visualize ourselves with a new 56” TV and that gives us a good feeling – this is one step removed with cash). We also tend to lump cash bonuses in with our paycheck and it isn’t seen a separate, special reward. We have to justify spending our cash awards on luxury items such as the above mentioned TV instead of paying down the mortgage – not so when we are only offered luxury items. And finally we tend to not talk about the cash we earn to our peers and friends – but we do tend to talk about that new TV (or trip to Hawaii, or new Golf Clubs, etc…) and are socially reinforced by the bragging rights of those conversations.

So back to the initial question of understanding our motivations – we can see that there is much more to the story than asking people what motivates them. The fact is we don’t always consciously know what motivates us (think Freud). So while asking your employees what they want is a good first step, make sure it isn’t your only step. You need to dig a little deeper to get at their underlying drives.

Kurt Nelson

Employee Motivation – 9 simple tips for Managers

On July 23, 2009

In Employee Motivation, Uncategorized

Employee motivation, in my view, is key to creating long term successful companies. While there are no magic bullets out there, here are 9 tips that we’ve gathered over the years that can help any manager improve the motivation of the people working for him or her.

Motivating a team

On July 16, 2009

In Uncategorized

I had an e-mail on Monday from a teacher who wanted to know how to motivate his speech team. While this is out of the realm of things we typically work on, it intrigued me. Below is my response:

“I have been thinking about your question and how you could use some motivational techniques with your speech team. I definitely believe that motivation is something that can be used with high school students in a number of situations such as the classroom, sports, and extracurricular activities such as debate and speech.

Some of the key things that I think would help in motivating the students on your speech team include:

1. Understand that each individual will have a different motivational profile. In other words, individually they are going to be more motivated by different things. For some, it is going to be the challenge of being in a competition or improving themselves (i.e. the Challenge Drive). For others it might be the prestige and recognition that would go along with winning a contest (i.e., the Acquire Drive). And for others it could be the comradery they have from being on the team and furthering those relationships (i.e., the Bond Drive). For others it might be that they don’t want to lose or be bested by another team (i.e., the Defend Drive). That being said, we are currently working on a tool to help people better understand their motivational profile in terms of the 4-drives. The tool is not currently completed (I can send it to you when it is), but in the mean time you can ask questions of your team to try to figure out which of the 4-drives (Acquire, Bond, Challenge/Comprehend, or Defend) is the greatest motivator for them.

I would use open ended questions such as “Tell me what you think it would be like to win XX contest?” “What will make you the proudest about winning?” “What are you looking forward to most after winning the prize?” “What are you going to focus on to motivate you to practice – even when you don’t want to?” “If you put one or two words up on your mirror to motivate you every day, what would those words be?” Use the responses from these to try to figure what drives each students motivation.

2. Customize how you talk to each individual to leverage their individual drives. For instance, if someone is motivated by the prestige of winning, talk about how they are recognized, what type of trophies they earn, or how proud their parents/peers/teachers will be. If the individual is driven by the challenge, talk to them about how they are learning and growing by working through this, how they can demonstrate their knowledge by how well they do, and how they will be able to use their newly acquired skill set in the future.

3. Have the students set individual goals for what they want to accomplish. Have them write these down and share them with the team. The goals should be stretch goals and be as specific as possible. Remind them of their individual goals when you talk with them.

4. Have a team goal that is a stretch for them. Have them think about what it would mean to achieve this goal and what they need to do individually to help the team achieve it. Have them make a verbal commitment to doing that. Set key milestones to achieving this goal (steps to the final goal with specific timeline for achieving them) and celebrate when the team achieves them.

5. Have them write down the two or three motivational words that will keep them inspired throughout the process and put them in a prominent place where they will see them every day.

6. If possible, have them pick a topic that aligns with their motivation and interest. Or have them frame the speech with that in mind. If you can tap into their intrinsic motivation around a topic or idea, then you will need less of other types of motivation to keep them going.

These are some simple ideas, but hopefully they might spark an idea or two for you. I would also invite you to join our newsletter mailing list – these come out quarterly and provide some insight into motivation that you might find useful. You can sign up by going out to www.lanterngroup.com and clicking the newsletter icon.

Good luck and let me know if any of this was helpful!”

Kurt

Favorite Quotes

On July 13, 2009

In Uncategorized

I like quotes, but often feel like they get misused. Quotes in and of themselves do not help create a motivational workplace. I’ve been in many offices where they have the “Successories” posters hanging all around, and the motivation level is putrid. I’ve seen managers pull out quotes to describe any situation or provide a witty response to an employee need. Too often, I feel that quotes are a simple way out of thinking too hard oneself.

Quotes are best used, in my opinion, for three purposes: first, when they have an intrinsic connection to the individual and provide them with insight, reflection, or a reminder of something that is important to them; second, when they can say something better than we can to expound on an idea, a concept or an attitude; and third, when the words take on a different significance because of the original author.
That being said, here are just a few of my favorite motivational quotes and why.

“Never think you know” – author unknown.

This was written in a tunnel on the campus of the University of Iowa when I was a freshman there. I copied it down on a ruled sheet of paper and had it posted to my bulletin board for years. To me it was a way of challenging the presumptions that we all have. It touched a part of what drives me – the drive to comprehend, to understand, to know and not just presume. In my head, I typically said, “know you know” after reading it. Go ahead, try it.

“Become the change you want to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi

This quote is one that is often overused but I like it for the story behind it and the simple, clear message it provides. Supposedly, Gandhi was approached by a woman and her son. The son was overweight. The woman pleaded with Gandhi to tell her son to stop eating sweats, to which Gandhi answered, “I cannot. Come back in a month.” The woman brought back her son in a month and this time Gandhi told him to stop eating sweats. He himself had given them up – therefore he had “become the change” that was needed.

“The important thing is to not stop questioning.” – Albert Einstein

This quote has an intrinsic appeal to me, particularly coming from the likes of one of the greatest scientists of all time. It gets at a point that I feel is important. It reminds me to keep pushing the boundaries and never stop asking the question “why?”

Please let me know some of your favorite quotes and more importantly why…

Author: Kurt Nelson, PhD Page 6 of 7

Science supports new ideas on motivation

Take a minute to say thank you the “write” way

The Drive To Bond and How We Screw It Up

Innovation Principles

Pay: Cost or Investment?

Do you really know what makes you tick? OR You think you know what motivates you – but you really don’t

Employee Motivation – 9 simple tips for Managers

Motivating a team

Favorite Quotes

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