The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
By Barry Ritholtz - May 29th, 2010, 2:00PM
Adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, this illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.
Oh, and it essentially guts traditional economic thinking — at least when it comes to issues such as “incentives work” (only sometimes, for some tasks) and that we are profit maximizers (not really).
Watch the video:
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May 29th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
When I first saw that I was quite impressed but I notice he says nothing about negative incentives or punishment as a way to keep the people who already paid too much money from losing productivity
And that company that benefited from one day of creativity. I wonder if it dawned on them that they should maybe bump it up to a week. One day may fix bugs but a week could get some serious projects started or at least brainstormed
May 29th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
1/AR (aka one over Ayn Rand.)
May 29th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
who makes 20 foot whiteboards? what color is his 1983 Mork from Ork goosedown vest? kidding off – interesting study – have to catch it again to ingest more – I have some serious blogging to do – ya right
May 29th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Wrong. Incentives NEVER fail.
They are the only reason (emotion) anyone does or doesn’t do anything.
The trick is on devising an individual’s or a group’s custom-made incentive.
Don’t throw out the baby……monetary incentives may not work above a certain level, but you would be unwise to think that money is the only kind of incentive.
~~~
BR: You are being overbroad.
The point of this 10 minutes is that Financial Incentives fail to fully explain human behavior.
Financial Incentives, you may recall, is (was) a frequently repeated Economics 101 aphorism, underpinned the EMH, and other false belief systems.
May 29th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Approval, acceptance, validation…..keeping up with the Jones…We don’t think , we worry what others might think…We are prisoners of what others think…….We don’t even buy stuff we like…We buy or “like” stuff that some celebrity , who is paid big money , tells us to like….We are a heard animal
May 29th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Amazing presentation. Anyone in the field of IT, Internet, Creative designing or any “knowledge worker” should recognize some the three factors that lead to better performance: autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Question for business owners, entrepreneurs, managers is: how do you implement the three factors?
May 29th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
See the full video on youtube for more…including incentives other than money…and disincentives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mG-hhWL_ug
May 29th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
I have a clever procedure I’ll share with you first — send links to an interesting post all of your friends, wait a bit, THEN comment. This way, they see the good stuff, and you can be as foolish as you like afterwords and they’ll be none the wiser.
Where was I?
Oh yes. My first snarky comment would be, “if this study was done by economists, it’s suspect by definition.”
Now that that’s out of my system…
I think (with the disclaimer that I haven’t seen the actual study) that there are a few flaws.
One is that the highest performing people are possibly already performing at their optimal peak, so more incentive won’t make them faster/smarter/etc. than they already are.
Another is that the pressure to perform guess up with the extra compensation potential, possibly causing performance anxiety. I bet studies have shown this to be true for sales people with ever increasing quotas.
Can you imagine Wall Street telling traders to “just take an hour and do whatever you want”?
And, for those who care, I went and looked this production up. This group animates a lecture that has already taken place. As Homer Simpson was told, animation no longer is done live — it played too much havoc on the animator’s wrists.
May 29th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
This guy: http://www.alfiekohn.org wrote several books on this stuff (“anti-behaviourism”) for educators and parents. Mind-blowing and a breath of fresh air for people who assume we’re all robots.
May 29th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
How many here spend hours – hours of time researching economics? Are you doing it to make a buck? Maybe – sometimes. But chances are you are investing your self-directed spare time to gain mastery and challenge yourself to learn more. Your purpose may very well be to help make this planet a better place – to contribute by posting or to pass along a good article or two.
I find myself posting, asking questions, expanding my base of knowledge in an area completely unrelated to my profession.
The man described blogging for me @ economics sites like TBP.
May 29th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Good points above. Certainly performance anxiety explains the experimental results; to infer that in a cognitive task money is a disincentive is an absurdity that perhaps only an economist could believe. With respect to the Linux syndrome, do guys really come out of fancy econ schools believing that people are only, or even primarily motivated by money? Or so confused that the idea that a man is more than a horse becomes a revelation? These guys are confirming the worst stereotypes of the ivory tower. My grandma, who used horses as transportation, and never finished 8th grade, would have gotten a real kick out of the this guy….with his “the science says” prefacing every inanity or truism like a shaman’s incantation……
May 29th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Let’s get real here. In any organization with investors, or owners, or upper management, someone is going to make money from improvements. I may be self-motivated, and work for achievement or craft or creativity, but eventually iIwill see that others are deriving money rewards from my work. So i will want some of that same money reward. i could see self driven groups working well if there were some sort of profit sharing plan.
Real life does not have to be either-or. The immediate motivation could be self-driven, with no money incentives. But a long range money incentive – profit sharing – would be appreciated. It would not affect performance, just recognize and reward it.
May 29th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
First, he spelled “weird” and “afoul” wrong…
There might be some benefit from prefacing the lecture as directed toward a “productive company” – that is, a company that actually produces something (in his example, software). These would be companies that generally GROW the economic pie, not merely redistribute it.
The suggestion is that organizations where the work is largely glamorized cog-turning WILL function very well with the bigger-carrot method. It may not be that the study is wrong – it has to be applied to the proper industry to match its outcome.
Notice he says “developers” are give one day a quarter – these are people who tend to have creative abilities in industries where those skills are required. They are seeking to be innovative, and many companies have neither the need nor desire to be.
It also conjures the flip-side of the question – if greater rewards do not necessarily generate greater productivity, is the marginal productivity of those receiving larger and larger pay packages providing the company with comparable returns, or are they just draining the resources of that company?
May 29th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Actually, often people respond paradoxically to what we think are rewards or punishments. The stress involved in having to perform under the pressure of having two months’ salary at risk makes it very hard to perform. In effect, the pain rose to meet the reward.
You decide what is a reward and what is a punishment based on whether it elicits the response that you want – whether it is an increase in desired behavior or a decrease in undesirable behavior. Unless you ask the people in question what they want to get, it is hard to know what will work for all people.
As an example, my husband is highly motivated by purpose. Myself, I tend to be more of a mastery person. I like to be challenged and stretched by work. He really just wants to believe that he’s working for the common good. If I were told that I need to do x simple task every day to make the world a better place, I’m bored out of my gourd and I hate it. If he’s challenged to the max, but in service of a large, profit-motivated corporation, he’s miserable and will do a terrible job.
Different people, different tics. The key is, as a manager, to figure out what motivates your team and then create an atmosphere where they can get it. It really helps if it fits into the framework of the entity, but that’s normally above one’s head. The weird part is that giving it to them isn’t as good as letting them get it for themselves. Almost universally, in my experience. I’m sure somebody will soon prove me wrong.
I really liked the animation, by the way. That was fun.
May 29th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
There’s a lot of ideas to consider in that video and they get mixed and matched as if that is the best way to do it. For instance: in most sales organizations there is the “get the big reward” or “don’t get the big reward”. Three tiered options didn’t commonly exist(depending upon where you were). Add levels of expectation and provided the task was doable, it got done when the sample of doers was high enough.
Three tiers of incentives is like the democratization of natural selection. Winning and losing has to have a notable impact or it risks being marginalized.
I really like the point about personal puzzles and adding pieces through individual incremental learning. Imagine if you could align those efforts and those free days at work? I’m pretty sure Apple and Google are already doing that…
May 29th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
WAIT A MINUTE……On my 3rd viewing I caught something. ALL of the test subjects were from MIT???
I gotta admit I don’t know anyone with those MIT brainiac credentials but one would suspect that they wouldn’t react the same way to stimulus as normal humans? This video either proves my theory wrong or enlightens me to the notion that the MIT type process money in the same way as everyone else? I would think that money never occurred to them in their quests. I feature this MIT crowd as living in a little apartment no matter how much they make. Their focus is on thoughts and theories and not rewards . I don’t think they would appreciate a Lamborghini as much as the satisfaction of the dovetailing of the numbers.
May 29th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
dm rta, but i think most sales organizations are more of a physical take than say a software developer, engineer, or music writer aren’t they? They usually don’t have to be very creative to be effective, but more of a people skilled task. they deal with convincing some one to buy what they sell. that may mean contacting some one in their tech support arena to help them solve their prospects problem, or convince their prospect that they need, want, or it solves their problem/need.
May 30th, 2010 at 12:29 am
I found it interesting, but maybe didn’t attribute the reason trained professionals donate their work to a purpose. A lot of that may just as well be fulfilling an underlying need to connect (as humans) to ones peers. In many organizations, especially in the examples cited, those people might not necessarily be the first on the party invitation list (myself included).
May 30th, 2010 at 12:38 am
Interesting video/presentation.
Have to agree with the comments of Bergsten and DMRTA….I would like to understand what exactly these tests were….
One takeaway, that I already knew was true, is that “high performers” will perform no matter how much you pay them. For instance, “prop traders” simply like to trade and play the game. It’s what they would want to do no matter how much the firms were paying in bonus….I know this for sure. And, once a firm starts paying “really big” bonuses to the high performers, there is a tendency for this crowd to “reach” for trades and maybe even “over trade” in effort to land the big really check.
It’s a difficult “line” to draw between “too much” incentive and “just right”….
May 30th, 2010 at 1:17 am
@snapshot Says: May 29th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
How many here spend hours – hours of time researching economics? Are you doing it to make a buck? Maybe – sometimes. But chances are you are investing your self-directed spare time to gain mastery and challenge yourself to learn more. Your purpose may very well be to help make this planet a better place – to contribute by posting or to pass along a good article or two.
I’m a student of human nature myself. An amateur psychologist. That is my purpose in what I do on blogs like this. Economics, trading and my belief system all revolve around that. They all help me to discover more about myself, why I am the way I am am why others act the way they do. It stems from my childhood/teen years and some perplexing behavior from the people around me. It has been an interesting journey
@Julia Chestnut Says: May 29th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Unless you ask the people in question what they want to get, it is hard to know what will work for all people.
The only problem is that you will invariably run into those that don’t know (probably why management was invented in the first place). Do you want to be asking a passive aggressive (I’m one of those) what kind of reward they want? ;)
May 30th, 2010 at 2:52 am
Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose?
Great, but these are not the only factors that motivate people.
For starters, they want Recognition and Status. Some silly one-time experiments do not provide either of those, and therein lies the big fault of these studies.
May 30th, 2010 at 7:00 am
Numerous–most–commenters have addressed the topic as a critical assignment: “What’s wrong with this picture?” Suggestion: look at your own life and consider why you do what you do, and not limited to work–but that too. Is money a factor in all aspects of your life? In which do you think it is the primary factor? And, would you do those things even though you made less? If your answer to the last is, No, consider whether your job is purposeless to you and is connected to unhappiness.
Recognize what underlies the thesis presented: some efforts belong in the competitive realm; here the reward has to be visible: the goal posts, pile of money, dessert, good grade, pat on the head. (This is what you jamokes here are doing.) Other efforts attach to the purpose realm: here the reward is connectedness, fulfillment, gratification, awareness.
Show me a gravestone that reads: ‘He was smart, he worked real hard, he made lots of money’
May 30th, 2010 at 7:04 am
I gave this more thought and tried to apply the concept to professions where money must not be the biggest motivator.
I thought of education where a teacher/professor has a certain amount of autonomy, has a sense of purpose and is constantly working toward mastery. If anything, they are at this point losing financial status – furlough days etc.
There are not many lower -paid positions where money isn’t the most important motivator. You would have to first be paid enough that you weren’t constantly worried about how the bills were going to be paid before the intrinsic motivators kicked in.
Educators are in that position because (supposedly) they feel their future financial situation (pensions) alleviates the strain of constantly trying to one-up the worker next door.
One can only hope they are teaching students to be self-directed and desirous of mastery in their work.
May 30th, 2010 at 8:27 am
An expert always comes from somewhere else
Luck is usually confused for skill, especially when the lucky bastard implies he is an expert.
People really believe ‘experts’ don’t lie because someone in authority would stop them if they really were lying.
The ability and willingness to push people around and make implied threats if they don’t do what you say is ‘management’ without the management theory nonsense taught in college.
Most people will believe anything you tell them if you graph it out (Re: magic charts)
If you’re likable, you can sell anything. Most ‘get rich quick’ schemes are promoted by likable people. People are pre-disposed to automatically believing likable people, especially if the sales pitch involves affinity fraud or the sales pitch includes references to what people ‘know’ at a visceral level. People want to believe in someone.It’s hard wired.
People are lazy. Winners believe in winners. If you tell someone you’re a winner, they will follow you without looking into it. Most people think they can’t be fooled at a certain level and when you create confusion at that level, you own them.
The best way to make someone mad at you quick is to challenge them to think about something new. If you challenge them to think about something they already think they ‘know’ you will make a friend and make the shit you’re selling much easier to sell.
May 30th, 2010 at 8:55 am
I just watched the video; It’s horsecrap.
Look at the financial meltdown. People gave away loans to people who shouldn’t have had them. They were sold in complicated ways to idiots. Fantastic synthetic financial instruments were designed to bet on them.
All of this was done with creativity and intense purposefulness.
What about GS and the creative and purposeful way they sold junk derivatives to Greece. Nobody would fault their business model for a lack of creativity, purposefulness, or intensity. Kablooeee goes the euro, thanks to GS.
Besides, it’s a straw man argument. If you don’t believe in the obvious crap in the first part of the video, then we are communicating on an honest level and the balance of the presentation is the ABSOLUTE TRUTH you are now pre-disposed to swallow hook line and sinker … thanks fools …a And thus goes our successful sales pitch making people believe what we want just by setting it the pitch correctly.
And most of you suckers fell for it.
May 30th, 2010 at 8:57 am
Many jobs turn out to be just glorified cog-turners. Michael Lewis (Liar’s Poker) described how he couldn’t believe how much he was given as his first Wall St bonus for the work he’d done. It was simply he was (a cog) in an industry designed with a pay structure to justify huge executive pay by paying large sums to the lower echelons.
Even within a single organization there are strata where different incentives will work. The purpose/mastery model is likely best suited for those with creative impulses, as they need to express those skills in a way that is meaningful to them. That is why software developers express the outcome of the study best. Other cog-turners (accountants, even the CEO unless he actually started the company) will be moved more by the carrot.
His comment about becoming “unmoored” from “purpose” is probably a reference to the financial industry, which after all, is a “service” industry. It’s original purpose was to “service” the productive companies where creative people originated and produced products to grow the economy. Driven only by self-profit and becoming unmoored from its original purpose (and even from properly servicing its own clients), it decided to service – itself. The results are plain to see.
May 30th, 2010 at 9:43 am
Human behavior is not Science. Not just “not a” science; it is NOT SCIENCE. It’s primate behavior built on a core of bio-chemistry that’s environmentally reactionary and stimulated by contradictory sensory input, with a thin layers on ‘free will’ and cognition atop. Then another primate and reactionary layer. Repeat this layering, then shake.
Try to predict outcomes as if it operates like the math-based Gravity Model. Get disappointed…or pretend otherwise and see what you wish was true.
One could spend a lifetime blogging on that truism, but I only have 2 minutes to make my point here, so I start with that as a given.
All the real-world examples this guy cited are software or IT-related firms, esp regards to doing work for free and giving it away which is such a recent phenomenon that it’s basically a blip in the time of human existence; hardly proven to be enduring and with little ‘en masse’ precedent. Where in 18th century China or 19th century Europe or 15th century Africa did the folks (above subsistence) en masse give away stuff for free? Consistently. This observable human behavior remains a blip until it proves its endurance across professions, occupations and cultures.
Maybe from his vantage point the world consists of only IT, people with good paying jobs, bright MIT undergrads; each hardly representative of American demographics.
Back in the real world, I’d have to work hard (and not for free) to successfully adapt the study’s findings to the real world where people are distracted by daycare scheduling snafus, petulant teens at home, their thickening waists and ill-fitting clothes, their sore middle-aged feet and aching backs, and bombarded by online ads telling them they’ll have a great sex life if they just buy this car model or shampoo brand.
That’s the demographic of the American workforce.
I think I can make some adaptations and applications of the points in this video…but probably would NOT show this video to that American demographic cuz they’ll see the holes I described above and it will likely cause em to dismiss all the ideas out-of-hand. That’d be a bummer.
May 30th, 2010 at 9:44 am
If this was true US government would be doing splendid job on all fronts. Senators and Congressmen all get paid enough to take the issue of money off the table, they are relatively autonomous and their job description includes transcendent purpose. However, what is result of all that? Result is that 72% of people disapprove the way Congress does its job.
May 30th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Many good comments above..
(and, thankfully, I’m pretty sure they saved me ~10 minutes)
But, LSS: This type of S****, of the video, only works if we believe, aforehand, two Major Lies:
1) “One Size fits All”
2) Finance=Economics
(as others, above, have already pointed out..)
the good news is that ‘Thinking People’ aren’t so readily herded, even after coordinated assaults like http://www.sott.net/articles/show/209230-Poisoned-Water
May 30th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Avl Dao Says:
May 30th, 2010 at 9:43 am
Maybe from his vantage point the world consists of only IT, people with good paying jobs, bright MIT undergrads; each hardly representative of American demographics.
reply:
————–
I just see a motivational speaker who is selling his product, knows what people at a certain level want to hear, and knows how to set it up. I wonder if he believes his message or just sees it as product. The top managers who buy the speech want to believe. The workers attending the speech mostly know it’s horseshit and the real managers would probably fire anyone who actually tried any of this crap out.
May 30th, 2010 at 10:00 am
Human behavior is not Science. Not just “not a” science; it is NOT SCIENCE. It’s primate behavior built on a core of bio-chemistry that’s environmentally reactionary and stimulated by contradictory sensory input, with a thin layers on ‘free will’ and cognition atop. Then another primate and reactionary layer. Repeat this layering, then shake.
If it is not science then how did you just quantify it?
Just because human beings can’t explain it or study it effectively doesn’t mean there is not a rational science to its explanation
And to hobo: You sort of glossed over it but there is another aspect to incentive that is rising in North American culture and quickly being adopted by the mainstream. It is evil. Specifically evil done to others in order to gain. I don’t mean the bad-deal-sucker evil but the wounding or crippling for life sinister evil
As the Judeo-Christian work ethic is rapidly evaporating in society it is not creating a vacuum. It is being replaced by a group of actors that see nothing wrong with sticking it to their fellow man with little or no remorse.
I was going to lecture but I think I’ll stop there
May 30th, 2010 at 10:07 am
How the Common Man Sees It Says:
May 30th, 2010 at 10:00 am
And to hobo: You sort of glossed over it but there is another aspect to incentive that is rising in North American culture and quickly being adopted by the mainstream. It is evil. Specifically evil done to others in order to gain. I don’t mean the bad-deal-sucker evil but the wounding or crippling for life sinister evil
reply:
————
Actually, thinks are better than ever. Hoards and armies no longer travel from town to town murdering and pillaging such as was so common throughout most of recorded history. Evil is a relative term.
Besides, the truth is we are all just characters in a Sims game in a computer maybe 500 years into the future from where w think we live in today. For all I know, I might really be a snot nosed kid with ear buds or maybe this is what passes for Great America or Disneyland. Nothing around you really exists as you think it does.
May 30th, 2010 at 10:08 am
Talk about stating the obvious. The scary part is he thinks this is all breakthrough analysis of some deeper human economic conundrum. Too funny. I say this not to be snarky but to mock academia when they think they have stumbled onto the obvious. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who has run a crew successfully knows every detail of this demonstration. Virtually all small business operators fall into the same. Admittedly they may not be able to explain as well but they do it on a day to day basis.
Where this all gets lost are when the MBA’s show up creating tripe to validate their existence. Thankfully it is only on the large corporate level where very few people work!
The best part of this vid–his drawing ability.
May 30th, 2010 at 10:09 am
An interesting video. I think the ideas here would have a hard time catching on, but not for the more cynical reasons already expressed in other comments.
Businesses are about making money. Profit is the main purpose, not making people feel fulfilled or autonomous. The people who make management decisions (Boards of Directors and C-Level management) don’t care about the day-to-day triumphs and struggles of workers. They are just line items on spreadsheets. As long as the stock price is up, THAT’s what matters.
In that sense, I can see the ideas the video describes working in small, private companies where there is not as big a distance between the bosses and the line workers and where Wall Street doesn’t dictate purpose.
Also, I think a lot of managers would have a hard time implementing these concepts because it would involve them giving up power. Some people like being in charge and ordering other people around. It would take a major change in attitude to move them to supporting and encouraging workers instead of lording over them. There are also many managers who, to be blunt, just aren’t smart enough to grasp ideas beyond simple money reward systems.
Thirdly, if you want to see a real-time example of what happens when a company that used to value autonomy, purpose, and mastery abandons much of that for profit purposes, check out a Starbucks employee blog. That company is having a personnel crisis in middle management as experienced workers who used to love the company are bolt the second they get a chance. This could have implications for future stock value, BTW.
May 30th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Cleaning up the BP mess could turn into a stimulus for LA,MS,FL and TX residents!
BP is doing more damage to O’B's reelection hopes than Turbo Timmy
May 30th, 2010 at 10:36 am
cewing,
note the dichotomy between:
“Businesses are about making money. Profit is the main purpose, not making people feel fulfilled or autonomous. The people who make management decisions (Boards of Directors and C-Level management) don’t care about the day-to-day triumphs and struggles of workers. They are just line items on spreadsheets. As long as the stock price is up, THAT’s what matters.”
&
“if you want to see a real-time example of what happens when a company that used to value autonomy, purpose, and mastery abandons much of that for profit purposes, check out a Starbucks employee blog. That company is having a personnel crisis in middle management as experienced workers who used to love the company are bolt the second they get a chance. This could have implications for future stock value, BTW.”
along those line, this Author http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=The+Loyalty+Effect+Reichheld Reichheld, in an excellent Work, delineates, in “The Loyalty Effect”, the long-run ‘value-add’, to Organizations, of MGMT, actually, ‘giving a s***’ about their Employees(and the, subsequent + ‘knock-on effects..)
May 30th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Many are now working for less and they know, with the high unemployment rate, they can be replaced in a heart beat. Now there is an incentive to be productive.
Companies have pared down and are employing as few people possible to make their numbers work. When you have to have that paycheck, I doubt finding “purpose” at work is at the top of your priority list.
Better just play your guitar on the weekends and do what you’re told during the week.
May 30th, 2010 at 10:57 am
The obvious risks of oversimplification of theories about human motivation are certainly at play here. However, I think a major concept does apply that seems counterintuitive to the traditional “Skinnerian” behavioral science mantra I was taught in the 70′s. It is the concept that higher level thinking involving true analysis and creativity cannot be conjured up at will by the conscious brain. As an educator I dealt with that problem on a daily basis. The book “Punished by Rewards” discusses this at length as it relates to education. It basically states that the “locus of control” must be in “intrinsic” to the individual and that extrinsic rewards actually inhibit performance requiring higher level skills.
May 30th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
I doubt the Bonuses that Banksters pay themselves would generate as much, ahem, productivity if they were anything other than cash or an equivalent. What possible purpose can there be other than personal cash, money, pelf, for someone(s) to create monstrously huge, economicidic pieces of paper that contribute to nothing but the onset of a financial asteroid aimed straight at the middle class? Utterly worthless labors from Lord Blankfein, the pinup boyo for cash, money, pelf that do nothing but act as a transfer mechanism of cash into the banksters unnumbered accounts all over the world?
And the protection of those bonuses has gone as far as stealing money from the public, REGARDLESS of the awful performance of those who confiscated them, via the auspices of Hank Paulson and further endorsed and supported by theBamster.
May 30th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
dead hobo Says:
May 30th, 2010 at 8:55 am
I just watched the video; It’s horsecrap.
Look at the financial meltdown. People gave away loans to people who shouldn’t have had them. They were sold in complicated ways to idiots. Fantastic synthetic financial instruments were designed to bet on them.
All of this was done with creativity and intense purposefulness.
What about GS and the creative and purposeful way they sold junk derivatives to Greece. Nobody would fault their business model for a lack of creativity, purposefulness, or intensity. Kablooeee goes the euro, thanks to GS.
Besides, it’s a straw man argument. If you don’t believe in the obvious crap in the first part of the video, then we are communicating on an honest level and the balance of the presentation is the ABSOLUTE TRUTH you are now pre-disposed to swallow hook line and sinker … thanks fools …a And thus goes our successful sales pitch making people believe what we want just by setting it the pitch correctly.
And most of you suckers fell for it.
I think they just demonstrated the video.
those at the top were paid lots of money.
but were to be kind.
completely and totally
incompetent failures.
that sold the rest of us a bill of goods
that we are now having pay for
May 30th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Great video. It covers some very realistic points regarding the aspects that motivates us to do all of what we have to do in order to achieve the goasl we want to get to. All the comments have valuable opinions from what I can see, and I specifically agree with @cewing with the quote “Also, I think a lot of managers would have a hard time implementing these concepts because it would involve them giving up power.” That’s real.
Thanks for sharing this post.
May 30th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Interesting video. The conclusions should be considered by anyone who is running a corporation that requires cognitive skills from its employees. And I would also add the point that tenured professors at universities are not motivated primarily by money. (And certainly, people who post comments here are not motivated by money).
But there is another issue which is relevant here, and that is the subject of taxes; in particular, taxes on capital gains. People who are investing their money care (almost) entirely on the after-tax return on that money. For them, the conclusions presented in the video don’t apply.
May 30th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
dl not sure they are employees are they?
May 30th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
As the US and world economy evolve, this type of thinking will more and more become the norm.
Creative problem solving cannot be done at gunpoint. It may seem touchy-feely to alot of the baby boomer types, who bought the 9 to 5/ pension/ brick and mortar office job = productivity mentality. That approach leads to corporate inefficiency, doesn’t tap the human spirit, and wastes talent.
Sorry we have enough shit in the world. More shit is not better. A more thoughtful, efficient approach is what we need. Not more cars, but better cars. Not more homes, but smarter homes. Not cheaper and more plentiful computers, but more useful ones.
It is the companies who subscribe to this approach, that are currently changing the world. (apple, facebook, google, etc….)
Go to the googleplex. You will see incredibly driven, motivated, and productive 20 30 40 and 50 somethings putting in 80 hour weeks because they really wanna do something good.
The perfect analogy for this thought process can be found in pro sports. If you want a championship run, you need a team that is inspired. Inspiration cannot be only about money. That won’t hold up on a cold november morning on the battlefield. The players have to be united for a cause. People who wake up inspired don’ t do it for the $$$$.
Even the top earning nutjobs at investment banks don’t do it for the money. They are in it for the game. They are winners. Sick and misguided winners maybe, but winners. That’s what gets them out of bed.
Creating this environment is the holy grail of performance. Its why the spoiled kids of Generation Y are changing the world.
I am very much drinking the Kool-Aid of this post.
This approach was not meant to be used at Burger King, this is for peak performers.
Great post.
May 31st, 2010 at 1:59 am
Wow, the cynicism!
I’m with scharfy on this one.
I think most of the comment’s have missed what I take as the primary point of the video PURPOSE!
Granted I work in the IT field, but as a manager, any success I have had is based on getting people to understand how and why what they are doing is important. Usually the more difficult part of this process is getting folks to think bigger and grander, but it all comes down to selling ‘purpose’. Showing through pure logic how what they are doing makes what we are trying to do happen…and the vision of what we are trying to do is/has to be BIG.
Maybe I have been lucky in landing roles where I am able to make that sell because I believe in what I am saying and have always been able to connect the dots for people that worked for me. The type of smart and/or hard working people you want on a team can see management ‘smoke blowing’ a mile away. But if you believe in ‘a’ big picture and can show a way to get there then the rest is easy. Just get out of their friggin way!
Kicking people out of the office so that they don’t burn out (and have real lives) is a lot more satisfying than keeping track of timecards.
My $.02
May 31st, 2010 at 8:01 am
well, it is a good video, unfortunately he proves another theory, “COMPLEXITY”, he taught something that is fairly easy, yet, to remember it and embrace it is a little complex because what points do you remember to get better……………..
mastery invovles PASSION, this is not something that is universal, although for maybe 90% of success stories it plays a big part
the high performers, perform less well most likely because they push the COMPLEXITY BOUNDRY, because they have an incentive, money and recognition and above all they want to try one more new idea they have, and if it fails they don’t care cause there will always be another chance down the road, like a major league hitter changing his stance or whatever, he can always change it back
all of these are good things to know, yet, the difficulty is just plain and simple teaching old dogs new tricks, the old dog has a billion lines of code in the brain from the old stuff in childhood and in times of stress and mess revert too whatever was tried and true in the past, to create a new billion lines of code is a ganormous task, and above all you have too belieeve it is the right path, expecially at the crossroads and at times of stress and that is all about who is in power at the time, ie, there’s that complexity thing again
the facts are the brain is wired 7,000 different ways, primary inputs are visual, auditory, kiniesthetic, so in essence since we’se all animals we’se all the same, yet, we are all different in different ways based on our own past, and own futures, ehhhhhhhh, more complexity
by and large this really is the best way, what he speaks about in general terms, yet, the complex part is teaching it too leaders, and most are self taught, and there challenges are usually in terms of crisis, and that’s a whole nother ball of wax
May 31st, 2010 at 8:35 am
scharfy Says:
May 30th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
This approach was not meant to be used at Burger King, this is for peak performers.
reply:
—————
1) 90% of the working world is Burger King
2) The video is just a motivational speech that employs manipulation to make you come to the correct conclusion
3) Think of it as a free sample
4) All entrepreneurs have always thought this way. Then they expect worker bees to follow the business model.
Tell me, how do you prevent some total goofus from being empowered to the point where you get sued because said goofus doesn’t know or care about important laws that affect the workplace? Your employee .. your fault. What about the great empowerment plan used by BP in their oil drilling operations? They’re a fucking model of success.
May 31st, 2010 at 11:25 am
Check out Netflix Prize. Netflix prize
Netflix had been trying to improve their prediction model (the Amazon style suggestion function) internally for a few years. They had failed.
They offered a million bucks to the winning group who could make it better. (ok that’s what we’d call an incentive bonus) Of course, 2,000 teams competed, and they improved accuracy by 10%. Working for the money? maybe.
Here’s the kicker though. Being part of the winning team was such a prestigious resume’ builder that the next four years, that even though the prize was reduced to 50k$, now 20,000 teams were competing, then 45,000 teams!!!! From 150 countries. For only 50k!!!!
Further, teams were combining near the deadlines to improve their ability, even though it would dilute the prize – they just wanted to win. To say that they had it on their resume. Productivity was organically occurring!!!! By creating a purpose.
All this was achieved with about 1.2 million.. Take that for productivity!
I’ll bet dollars to donuts in 100 years companies behave more like that in 100 years than a sweat shop.
Passion man – Maybe I’m naive. But good topic anyway.
(Funny postscript, some anonymous netflix user sued on privacy grounds and the program had to be cancelled.)
May 31st, 2010 at 4:44 pm
dead hobo Says: “Tell me, how do you prevent some total goofus from being empowered to the point where you get sued because said goofus doesn’t know or care about important laws that affect the workplace?”
————————–
1) A great HR team (purpose?) – I’d assume the goal is to avoid recruiting total goofuses into the organization in the first place. While this is likely never going to be 100% successful, a great HR Dept should be adept at recognizing goofuses in the organization and then either show them the door, correct the behavior, or find the total goofus a role that minimized his negative impact.
2) A great Compliance team (purpose?) – Again the goal would seem to be to create a system of checks & balances & audits that would insure that the spirit and letter of the law are always followed, even by goofuses.
New ideas still require a vetting process, a so called ‘empowered’ employee doesn’t have carte blanche to do whatever he/she wants. Not every idea will be a good one, heck most might be bad.
Re: BP – It’s probably safer to say that BP Compliance professionals were not very ‘empowered’, respected, supported, or listened to while those that rolled the dice and skirted regulations were rewarded. That sounds like a management problem and it likely comes from the top of the BP food chain.
May 31st, 2010 at 7:53 pm
[...] I love this video from Barry Ritholts’ site: “The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us“ [...]
June 13th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
What about the proof of performance? Has Corporatism stopped the marauding hordes? Has the Financier promoted a better Society? I think Countrywide may have behaved much like the Cossacks in their attacks on particular groups and demographics. Is society improving more than marginally? I do not think so. The modern financial market may have started with Lloyd’s of London and the accrual of Mercantile wealth. The wealth created when salt become a commodity and less and oddity in culture. The better food lead to healthier populaces and more cognitive skills, perhaps. I am just saying that the Ipad and Google Chrome and even electric cars are not equivalent changers of the status quo as the spread of liability among investors that first launched a commercial shipping vehicle in 17th century England.
Not applicable to this that or the other group, is just a slicing and dicing of the issue. This system is not working, it is controlled by the groups that have accumulated the wealth. How can their be an argument? Corporations and Special Interest Groups have “Captured” the greatest democratic Legislature of modern times. Corporations have “Captured” the cognitive and developmental fountainhead of civilization.
I was promised the Jetsons, born in ’64, I expect delivery. It has been forty years and nothing has changed. Computers, internet connections are innovations that “cost” me money every month. My benefits of “technology” pale to the benefits to corporations. The technology with their wealth helps them, more than ever, to control the advancement of society.
The Merchants of the 17th century were not part of the establishment, they were the culmination of 100′s of yrs of wealth accumulation outside the existing feudal system. Their power in opposition to Monarchy and Despotism created the modern Nation State. The East India Company is no different than Goldman Sachs, they controlled, manipulated, and maintained their market to their benefit. It is time to move on … Corporations are designed to protect their interests, no argument. Anything that changes the status quo or threatens the dominance is an adversary.
For me it boils down to this. At a local Starbucks they have had in place for over 5 years and hand dryer in the bathroom that is one of those super jet blast blowers that does a superior job of getting hands dry. Yet the new Target, or Walmart, or local Deli continually install the old style that take forever and never get your hands dry. What is getting in the way of this type of innovation burning through the marketplace with assistance of the “invisible hand” ? What other innovations are being buried by mega corporations and their highly cognitive super elite executives that deserve to get 300% more than the average employee? An increase of average compensation from 30% in the fifties to 300% today ! These guys are not paid to push the envelope , they are motivated to protect it.
Why isn’t there a cooperative movement in America? Isn’t it possible for an organization not motivated by profit to deliver necessities like insurances, food, electricity, etc ? Don’t throw innovation being thwarted without a compensatory model as an argument. Stop and Shop and Big Y do not offer any agricultural innovation. Duke Power and United Illuminating have had 100 years to deliver electricity and it is one of our weakest national infrastructures. Mobil, Exxon, and BP benefit from our use as oil for transportation and yet there is no innovation there since the Model T and now our roads and bridges are crumbling.
Discussing why things work and don’t work is great. The video said to me ” hey here is another way to look at things”
The job is not getting done. Things need to be looked at in a different way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_cooperative_movement
June 18th, 2010 at 8:10 am
Maseratij Says:
“My benefits of “technology” pale to the benefits to corporations. The technology with their wealth helps them, more than ever, to control the advancement of society.”
Ah, but I read you, I understood you, and I thought about what you said. I was not alone in these acts.
You were heard you…more than you ever could have been heard in the past.
How long have most American’s been on the internet, had e-mail, etc? How many American’s are used to receiving many (not just one) point of view? How many American’s have begun to see that network/cable news is not news…check the ratings recently? Corporations control the old media, and are trying like hell to control new media. Have they made much progress here? I see kicked up dust, mud in the eyes. One more point of view among thousands. I definitely don’t see control.
At worst, technology is a wash. You have more reach, corporations have more reach. But the curve is in your favor. It’s not a one way broadcast anymore. Their wealth still controls the levers of government but only because the majority still lets them. The majority still adjusting to having to read, and think, and read some more. The majority incapable of seeing gray. The majority that’s soon to realize that their retirement is a pipe dream. The selfish generation.
Nothing has changed because people have not changed. Corporate wealth, corporate power, corporate sociopathy are the symptoms, not the problem. I don’t fear corporations or government, I fear a boomer majority that’s been religiously incapable of unselfish act. The new internet generation is more immune to being told what to believe. They know the truth is found not delivered. Will they care is the question? Will they be their father’s daughter, their mother’s son…with a bit more tech savvy?
“Corporations and Special Interest Groups have “Captured” the greatest democratic Legislature of modern times. Corporations have “Captured” the cognitive and developmental fountainhead of civilization. ”
Really? I mean really? You say nothing has changed, yet you somehow imagine this is new, this capture of democracy. Moneyied interests have always found and always will find their way to the levers of power, as long as the electorate lets them. Democracy curbs extreme excesses through ballots instead of defenstration and pitchforks. In the middle of the extremes, progress in a democracy is determined by an educated voter that thinks and votes for thinkers. I still hold out hope that technology can help deliver that kind of voter.