I often wonder if I could ever go to work for someone again…here’s why:
Right now I can choose when and how I work. I realized how important this flexibility is to me today…I took the day off to take care of my kids. I didn’t need permission. I didn’t need to take a vacation day. I just scheduled it.
I got to spend the day with my two children. Taking my oldest to music class. Walking along the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis and seeing the Mississippi River roaring over St. Anthony Falls. Going to HolyLand Deli and getting hummus and pita bread. Talking about superhero’s.
All of this because I have flexibility in my current position. For that, I’m grateful.
Too often we don’t have a reference point for data…really, do you know how tall 80.1 inches really is? The Boston Globe (see here) created this info graphic to represent the snowfall in 2010/2011. They did a fantastic job.
Here is why it works:
1. Shows data relative to something that we know – we can put it in context
2. Graphically simple – yet conveys a lot of information
3. Fun – how can you not chuckle when you see the Shaq-o-meter
So I listened to an audio conference between Jon Morrow and Johnny Truant (two successful bloggers) on tips on how to become an influential blogger…
During the conference call they discussed that the number 1 sin of bloggers is to be boring – and in their minds (to some degree) that meant that you needed to be offensive at times. Jon talked about how he loved to get hate mail as it meant that he was touching a nerve…
Now I learned something from this conference call – that might not have been what they were trying to convey…although it was mentioned.
There is a need to be authentic – Johnny Truant stated that (FYI – he uses a stage name which helps him, he states, be authentic and also allows him to be offensive).
The insight that I got was that my authentic self is not to be an Ass. I realized that I wouldn’t want to increase readership by being controversial or mean or disrespectful…that is not who I am.
Now does that mean I have to be boring…I hope not, but it might. Does that mean that I won’t say something that someone will disagree with me on…no, I will state what I believe, but I’ll say it in a polite way (most of the time).
And I realized that I’m ok with all of that. I don’t have to have the largest readership out there. The people who read this blog should be here because what I say is interesting and helpful – not just because I can be controversial.
I always think of myself as being young. Might be because I was the youngest of five children. Might be because I had my kids late, so I have little children in the house right now. Might be because I just act that way most of the time. Regardless, I usually think of myself as young (or at least young at heart and mind and attitude).
But then you meet a really young person.
Not a child or kid, but a young person who is entering the workforce for the first time. Suddenly, it can make you feel kind of old.
You are amazed at how different they are from you. Different style of work. Different focus. Different on a lot of things.
Or at least I was.
Which at first was a little disheartening. I can still remember being 24 and coming into my first “real” job and wondering what all these old folks were doing. Back then we had one computer to share between five people (yes, hard to believe but that was how it was) and I was by far the most computer literate of any of my team (full disclosure – this meant that I knew how to work a spreadsheet and not just Word Perfect). I remember how different I felt from them.
Now I was wondering what I looked like to these youngsters.
Did my lack of internet skills make them smirk (kind of like I used to do at the “old” folk). Do they think my ways are antiquated – “just pick up the phone and call me about your multipart question – it will go much faster.” Do they wonder where all my hair went?
But then I started thinking about when I was that young and what I learned from some of those “old” folks. I remember being taken under wing by them and taught about how incentives work, how to put together a presentation for an executive, how to get up in front of a group and get their attention. I was mentored by a few great people who not only taught me about business but also about life. These were people who went out of their way to teach and lead. I am extremely thankful to have had those relationships.
So now maybe it is my turn.
Not that I want to be seen as an “old” person, but maybe I can impart a little bit of wisdom from my years of experience. Maybe I can mentor and lead. Teach someone how they can be successful in areas that they don’t even realize they can.
So I’ve reframed my thinking – not “old” but “wise.”
For two reasons…first, is the more pragmatic of the two…since I run my own business, taxes force me at least once a year to really look at where my revenue comes from and where my expenses go to (I do have a business tracking spreadsheet that is updated monthly – but not to this level of detail). . Yes – I know I should do this more than just once a year and sometimes I do. But that isn’t where my passion and thus my motivation is…so I put it off. So being the procrastinator I am, I am thankful that taxes force me to do this at least once a year…
Second, and more philosophically, I appreciate that paying taxes is what allows me to have things such as roads and laws and security and safe water/products/air and education and a host of other things. Too often we discount how much we depend on public goods and services. Yes, government could be more productive and efficient. Yes, government could be smaller in some instances. But as my economics 101 class taught me a long time ago, public goods should and need to be run in a way that they are not just for the wealthy among us.
Here is a little bit of psychology that most of us know intuitively. People hate vacuums. No not the kind that you use for cleaning your carpets…the kind that exist when there is an information void.
Our brains work overtime to fill in any vacuums that they encounter.
This is a good thing mostly since it has helped us survive, such as when one of our ancestors filled in this unknown, “hmmm….I’m not sure what the growling noise is, but I bet it’s not good so I better run.”
We fill in these blanks all the time – often at a subconscious level. In the 1930’s, Gestalt psychologist conducted a number of experiments that focused perception and filling in missing information. They named this phenomena “the law of closure” famously demonstrated by the Kanizsa Triangle where there are no triangles or circles in the image – yet that is what we see.
Kanizsa Triangle
So What?
While filling in missing information has often helped us, it can also be very detrimental. Take for instance what would occur if your company made a statement to employees such as “we are going through some difficult times and some changes will be announced next week.”
Not knowing what those “changes” are, people will automatically tend to fill in the blank…and what do you think they will fill it in with? Positive thoughts on the future…probably not.
In fact, we can pretty much guarantee that different people will interpret this differently. Some positive, some negative, and others not even registering on their radar. Psychology shows us that ambiguous stimulus will most likely be translated into multiple perceptions by different people – based on their current emotions, past experience, personality make-up, and a variety of other factors.
People will also fill in the blanks based on information they can gather – thus, the “changes” are associated with “difficult times” so the conclusions they will draw will probably be focused on what they have seen or been part of with other changes in difficult times.
But what a company wants is to make sure that a large proportion of people are not filling in the information with negative or wrong information. For instance, the above statement probably would cause a number of people to go back and start talking about the “layoffs” that will probably occur next week – even though nothing of the sort was said.
So what does one do?
While we can never fully make sure that everything is 100% clear and absolutely understood – we can do things to mitigate the negative aspects of this:
1. Eliminate as much ambiguous information as possible – be as clear and complete as you can in both verbal and written communication
[This article was first published in September of 2009]
It has been interesting how much attention has been paid to Dan Pink’s latest message on motivation that was presented at TED. The number of tweets, blogs, and other messages about this have been huge. We ourselves highlighted the speech here on this blog a couple of weeks ago (http://wp.me/pypb9-31 ).
What I find interesting and a little worrisome, is the idea that many are taking from Dan’s presentation that all incentives (or at least most) are bad. I disagree 100% with that concept. I would like to expand the conversation to explore why.
The debate about intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation has been going on for a long time. The candle experiment presented by Pink was done in the 1950’s. Deci & Ryan research from 1970’s and 1980’s suggested that extrinsic rewards can decrease intrinsic motivation. Alfie Kohn wrote about how he thought extrinsic rewards were bad in “Punished by Rewards” in the 1990’s. All of this research suggested a negative correlation between extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation.
However, that is not the only research out there! Research based on both real life corporate performance data and academic experiments show a different side to this debate.
First, performance data from a number of sources points to an increase in performance when incentives are used. Stajkovic and Luthans’ meta-analysis of 72 contingent based behavior programs found that money incentives increased performance by 23%, social recognition increased performance by 17%, and feedback increased performance by 10%. BI, a performance improvement company, has shown increases of over 300% between a control group and an incentivized group in sales performance.
Those are hard numbers to ignore!
Also, Paul Hebert does a nice job of highlighting research by the International Society for Performance Improvement that indicate a 22% increase in performance for individual incentives and 44% for team based incentives – (see it here http://tiny.cc/nHfAj – he also discusses some other arguments around Dan Pink’s message).
Second researchers have found that the way that incentives are structured has a significant impact on their performance as well as on the impact they have on intrinsic motivation. Work by Eisenberger, Cameron and Pierce show that extrinsic rewards, if structured correctly, can actually increase intrinsic reward. They state, “The findings suggest that reward procedures requiring ill-defined or minimal performance convey task triviality, hereby decreasing intrinsic motivation. Reward procedures requiring specific high task performance convey a task’s personal or social significance, increasing intrinsic motivation.” Specific to creativity, Eisenberger and Cameron “concluded that decremental effects of reward on intrinsic task interest occur under highly restricted, easily avoidable conditions and that positive effects of reward on generalized creativity are readily attainableby using procedures derived from behavior theory” [emphasis added]. Yet Dan Pink does not reference any of their work in his book (see here for some research articles that point to how extrinsic rewards can increase creativity: Eisenberger, Armeli, and Pretz,Eisenberger and Rhoades, and Eisenberger, Cameron and Pierce)
In our own work, we’ve seen that when individuals are given a choice in choosing levels of goals and subsequent rewards, they have an increased motivation to choose (and achieve) higher goals than what management would have given them.
That being said, Dan Pink has gotten the discussion flowing on this – which I think is very good. He has also highlighted the fact that most organizations only see one lever to pull when trying to impact employee motivation – i.e. pay systems. As he points out, there are other aspects that influence employee’s motivation. This is vital. To improve performance, creativity, and accountability businesses need to look at more than just rewards! I hope that this will help expand the use of other motivators!
Dan talks about Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose – these fit right into the Four Drive Model of Employee Motivation. Autonomy and Mastery align with our Drive to Challenge and Comprehend, while purpose fit nicely with the Drive to Defend. What Dan leaves out is the power that the Drive to Bond has on motivating employees.
Overall, I think the discussion that will result from Dan’s presentation is great, I just hope that it doesn’t get boiled down to the simple sound bite that “incentives are bad.”
UPDATE APRIL 1, 2011
Let’s start with the positive: Dan’s book has done very well and has helped focus people on the the need for looking beyond the pay system to help drive motivation throughout the business. This is a very, very positive impact.
Now for the bad: the mantra that “incentives are bad” has been one of the larger themes to arise from the success of his book. This is not a positive impact. It has led to a number of non-experts jumping on the bandwagon expounding their personal belief that all pay-for-performance measures should be gotten rid of. That incentives themselves are bad. And that people will be 100% fully motivated if we can just figure out how to make jobs more autonomous, provide mastery and have a purpose. Of course, this doesn’t really account for a lot of what really happens in the world as we know it.
Moving forward, I would like to propose that the discussion around this topic is good – as long as we look at all the research and at how incentives should / should not be used. We need to look at all the tools in our tool belt – that includes things such as Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose – but also includes other things like rewards.
Let me know your thoughts – click on the comment section below!
We just became a Value Added Reseller for the Electronic Maze! I know, strange huh?
I fully believe it was serendipity which according to dictionary.com is:
ser·en·dip·i·ty
/ˌsɛrənˈdɪpɪti/[ser-uhn-dip-i-tee]- noun
1. an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.
2. good fortune; luck: the serendipity of getting the first job that she applied for.
The story goes like this. We have been using the Electronic Maze since the first day of business at The Lantern Group. We’ve done hundreds of events that have utilized the maze with great success. Thousands of people have gone through it. I wrote about 5 great insights from the Maze back in August (click here to read). We’ve highlighted it as one of our key team building events on our Lantern Group Web Page (see here).
But I never thought that I’d be selling it.
Then the phone calls started happening.
The first was a few months ago – out of the blue, I got a call and somebody wanted to buy a maze from us. I told them politely that we use the maze as one of our key team events, but we don’t sell them…sorry. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Then the second call came – same inquiry, “can I buy a maze.” Again, sorry, we don’t sell them, but here is the website for the company that makes them.” It seemed a little curious, but nothing more than a fluke. But then the third and the fourth call came and I thought – wait, this might be something.
Apparently, when you Google “Electronic Maze” we are the second highest rated web page.
I thought to myself – cool! I love the product – really do (we’ve owned them for over 14 years – with only needing to replace the batteries). I think they can be used to address a number of team and leadership issues for a variety of participants (we’ve had CEO’s go through the maze, a group of women educators, assembly line workers, and managers from across the globe – to name just a few). And now I’m getting calls about them.
I contacted Interal – the manufacturer. I spoke with Boyd the President of the company (we had a great long talk about the many different uses of the Maze and how I’ve loved it for a long time). Now we are a Value Added Reseller of the product. You can contact us and we can sell you the Electronic Maze at cost (612-396-6392 or kurt@lanterngroup.com).
Serendipity at its best.
Insight # 6 from the Maze: Always be open to new opportunities!
I feel that it is important that we take time for ourselves to recharge. When I say that, I mean more than just finding the ten minutes a day to have some quiet time or even an hour a day to exercise (although both of these things help).
I mean that we are able to fully disengage from our main line of work for a week.
I just did this – I took a vacation!
Yes, I checked in on e-mail a few times (and even posted here), but for the most part, I took the time off and enjoyed my family, relaxed, forgot about real life and absolutely enjoyed myself.
I recommend this to everyone.
I think it also:
Recharges us – coming back from vacation, I feel much more motivated to do work. It feels new again.
Refocuses us – time off allows us to refocus our energies. I think that it provides a perspective that allows us to better identify the important tasks that we need to do. It helps us prioritize!
Enlarges us – we come back with new experiences that help us look at things differently and I would say more creatively. We tend to grow in different ways while we are on vacation. This gives us a broader
Encourages us – this time for ourselves makes us realize that work is an important part of who and what we are. I tend to miss it when on vacation (or at least parts of it).
Reminds us – of the reason that we work – both the intrinsic aspects that make us appreciate the work we do as well as the extrinsic aspects that provide us the means to take a vacation. It makes you realize that there is more to life than just work – but how important work is to our life.
Inspires us – I had the opportunity to spend a week with one of the nicest, most thoughtful, most resilient people I’ve ever had the opportunity to meet. His life story and his attitude on life inspired me. We get the opportunity when we take time off to be inspired by any number of different elements.
Connects us – to new people, new places, new ideas. We come back from our time away with more connections that can serve us well in the upcoming days, months, years…
So make sure that you take time off to recharge yourself. Make sure that you don’t shortchange your vacation, or miss it, or do too much work over it. Remember…the time off is important to our overall motivation and well being!
I’m sure there are many more positive aspects to taking time off. Please let us know your thoughts on this.
Ok, I might be trying a little hard to find some gratitude on this one, but…
I was skiing last week with some friends while we were working on developing a conference (a cool conference that includes skiing activities that help solidify key insights…yes, the one I talk about in the previous post…but that is another story). On the last run of the second day (after I had written the previous post), I caught an edge, had the tip of my ski catch and flipped over, twisting my knee. At the doctor the next day, they said that I have a slightly torn MCL.
This week I came out to Montana with my family and some friends to ski at Big Sky. We had planned this vacation for months. We were looking forward to having some time away, teaching our kids how to ski, and enjoying the mountains.
Everyone skied yesterday except for me.
I did a little work, took pictures, captured some video, and got groceries. I kept myself busy.
Today they are off again but instead of keeping myself busy I’m all alone watching the snow fall down at a rate of a few inches an hour (fresh powder). I really want to go out on the hill and ski – but my knee is not quite ready (hopefully tomorrow).
But here is what I’m grateful for…I have a day to relax and enjoy. I sat this morning with a cup of coffee watching the snow fall softly and cover the evergreen branches with a white coat. I watched a bird I couldn’t recognize fly into the evergreens and saw the snow cascade down in a torrent to the ground as the birds wings hit the branches. The mountain is hidden in mist and snow, but outside is beautiful. There is a calm quiet that permeates this place which I can’t find in Minneapolis. I’ve been given a day of contemplation. One in which I can think and be grateful for all that I have.
I could be bitter…I could be mad at the fact that I am stuck here now because I was stupid last week. But what good would that do me? So instead I choose to use this time and enjoy it.
I choose to be grateful.
And so…while I would like to be out skiing and feeling the fresh powder under my skis…I am thankful for this alone time in such a beautiful setting.
ənˈdɪp
