Daniel Pink’s engaging TED talk on ‘The surprising science of motivation’ poses a compelling case on the mismatch of what science knows and what business does. In order to achieve ’21st century tasks’ businesses cannot base their policies about talent and people on assumptions that are outdated. Thus the bigger carrot or the sharper stick do nothing more than restrict possibility in this new age of business. The focus needs to be around intrinsic motivators.
A bit about carrots and sticks and when they can work. These contingent motivators work when there is a simple set of rules and a clear destination. Narrow focus = low creativity. When carrots and sticks don’t work: When there are periphery or non obvious solutions. The reward only narrows the focus.
Daniel Pink summarizes the new operating system to motivation by three essential building blocks as the new way of doing things:
Autonomy – the urge to direct our own lives
Mastery – the desire to get better and better at something that matters
Purpose-the yearning to do what we in service of something larger than ourselves.
People do things because they are a part of something. So if you want high performance and employee engagement, you will probably agree that self direction works better.
Are you part of a company built upon carrots or sticks or does a greater purpose exist for you and your team?
Daniel Pink on the surprising science of motivation:
My Mom always taught me to write a thank you note right after someone has given me a gift. It was good manners. It was polite.
Canadians, in general are polite. International media regularly reports this about us. When NBC descended upon our city for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, the reporters and newscasters got to see us up close and personal, we hoped that our Canadian politeness rubbed off on them a bit. It looks like it did. Brian Williams from NBC wrote a very kind thank you note. This is a tribute to Canada’s culture.
Brian, we’re happy that you had a great experience in Vancouver. Please come back anytime.
Nothing brings a group together like a good game of sport. And what a rush it has been for Canada. Following the exhilarating races and the heart warming stories of our athletes has really created a bonding experience for our communities and for our country.
This once in a lifetime experience for all of us in Vancouver truly does bring ‘glowing hearts’. It will be years before our little red mittens fail to rouse a smile out of a complete stranger. The spirit running through Vancouver is such a wonderful reminder. And by the looks our Olympic poll most companies are getting a chance to enjoy the games and still stay productive, and in many instances together decked out in red and white! We even saw a Canadian fan dressed in the jacket of a santa suit!
Being so close to a world class event make us think about the positive effect time spent with our own team means to us. Getting out of the structured corporate team building can sometimes unlock that special extra that brings a team together. We are due for one our own ‘out of the box’ team get togethers. We hope the Olympics inspires you too. GO Canada GO!
We are curious to see how businesses in Vancouver are affected by the biggest party in town. Aren’t you? Take this quick poll to find out. Choose all that apply.
I believe the time is right now. Stand tall and make the world proud.
In this exciting time leading up to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, there is a certain buzz about town – traffic will be crazy, visitors will flock by the 1000’s and most importantly, dreams will come true! All the dreams that were once sparked by a goal and the question of “What if I could…”
At Lululemon, we are maniacal about goal setting. Within your first week, you will develop your own amazing hedgehog and set 1, 5 and 10 year goals. Your goals are broken down into categories of Career, Health and Personal with by-when dates of when they will be achieved. Some of these may be BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) and some may feel totally achievable – either way – they are written down and plastered (literally!) around the halls and on the walls of the office. That way everyone else knows what you are trying to accomplish and can help you get there! (Chip’s goal: to do the Grouse Grind the same number of times in a year as his age!)
This has inspired a culture of attracting high performing, goal oriented, boundary-pushers who care about their health and see the glass ¾ full! Kind of like the Olympics, it creates a buzz about the office, daily. Because every day is a day a goal can be achieved and we are all one step closer to realizing the dream!
Wanna lead like Lululemon? Get your egos outta the way – and get every employee to start drafting their goals! Organizations don’t need more people. Organizations need people who will come alive! Help your people come alive and they will contribute in ways you’d never have dreamed of. (And then you might need to hire more people as you will have inspired some to go off and pursue their goals. Isn’t that awesome? Bonus: they will leave as your biggest raving fans!)
The time is right now. Set goals. Take yourself on. The world is waiting for you!
Stephanie Corker Irwin is the Head of Recruitment at Lululemon athletica. When she is not in downward facing dog, she is a keen triathlete and a buzzing entrepreneur with the launch of her first business: NoMoSolo, coming to Vancouver March 24th. (Yep, it was on her goals!)
McNeill Nakamoto’s office is located in Yaletown, where one of the LiveCity locations for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics is located. Already, we are experiencing some new activity and rearranged traffic patterns in our neighbourhood. Our business will be open as usual. We will still be available to service our clients and conduct interviews. We’ve made adjustments to our way of doing our work as effectively as possible, whether or not our employees can make the commute to Yaletown.
A wonderful legacy that the games has already left for us, is the addition of the Canada Line. Our staff use “the line” exclusively when attending meetings in the downtown area. This has helped McNak with our green initiatives.
Embracing what today’s modern technology has to offer, most of the team at McNak will be able to access their office computers remotely from home during the Olympic Games. Some of our staff will be telecommuting, and some will stagger their work hours. I know that I will be glued to my iPhone to keep in touch, as well as using Yammer to keep up to date on what my co-workers are doing.
As an employer, McNeill Nakamoto has offered their staff the utmost of flexibility during this time. We have approached this situation as not a challenge, but as a once in a lifetime event that we can embrace. Our team will continue to work effectively and be productive even if we don’t see each other every single day during the largest event our city has ever produced.
What plans do you have in place to keep your company running during the games? Please share by leaving a comment.
It doesn’t happen that often that a disgruntled top employee takes on their employer in the most public of public spaces. But with Conan O’Brien speaking directly to millions of viewers in prime time America is like a regular day in the office for the rest of us. This is show business, afterall. For some reason I have been captivated by the explicitly public discussions around Conan O’Brien’s departure from The Tonight Show after less than a year into his new job. In a brilliantly written blog post Marc Effron and Miriam Ort take a look at the series of decisions NBC and Conan O’Brien have made over the past couple of years that ultimately led to such a public display of resentment and disappointment. Here is what Marc and Miriam suggest NBC and any company that depends on top talent could have done differently:
Avoid defensive talent strategies: Conan was promised the host role of The Tonight Show in response to efforts by competitors to steal him away from NBC in 2004. Jay was promised the 10PM slot due to fears he would go to another network. Both decisions suggest a defensive approach to talent — keep them because “they’d be dangerous at the competition” rather than “they’re the perfect fit with our strategy.” Talent choices should be made proactively and to hurt the competition, not merely to avoid pain.
Place big talent bets: It can take new talent a while to reach their full potential. Give them that opportunity. Once they’ve identified their “stars,” organizations should focus all their resources on making them successful. Early missteps aren’t necessarily predictive of failure — it’s often just moving up the learning curve. A little patience can result in a big payoff.
Diversify succession risk: Lining up successors against individual jobs is a rather outmoded approach. Is it expensive to have two talk show hosts in the succession pool? Of course — just as it was expensive for GE to have three CEOs in waiting. Yet that gave them tremendous flexibility when it came to replacing Jack Welch. Somehow, GE’s succession planning rigor didn’t seem to reach NBC.
No question, more than ever before companies understand how important it is to nurture their Power Employees and to build a culture that allows for top talents to find fulfilment while realizing their full potential. At McNak we have been fascinated by corporate culture and are amazed by companies when they truly get it. But what if a company’s best intentions still have to yield profit-driven directives? Marc Effron and Miriam Ort recommendations can serve as an excellent reminder for every high potential employee:
No organization can make reasonable promises of future placement — you’re setting yourself up for disappointment trusting an organization to honor that agreement. In fact, that’s essentially today’s career deal. The corporation will give you an opportunity to acquire a bundle of experiences that have some market value. They are under no obligation to take advantage of that combined experience but they have the option to do so. If for some reason they choose not to take that option (or to revoke it) you walk away and apply those skills to an employer who values them.
What do you do to ensure that you don’t end up like NBC and Conan?
This team knows how to have fun. We like the team’s spontaneous tribute to their corporate culture. It isn’t easy to manufacture corporate culture. And this is a team who has a culture that works. They are so aligned that they will take risks together. Trust is high. And they’ve allowed themselves to have fun. Don’t we all need it once in a while! We’d put bets that this team does some great things together. (perhaps however, not a career in performing arts).
This spontaneous video reminds us of another more structured video where the team is fully engaged and united on a common goal. You can see the magic is real in both environments. Both work. How dull work could be if one couldn’t have smiles on no less than a few faces?
Top performers. They are most often the true indicator of a company’s culture and are part of the integral root system of a company’s success. They are the first to speak up and also the first to pursue feedback. What they will not do is sit idle.
These individuals know how to push the right buttons of a corporation by continuously seeking improvement, not just their own improvement but for the greater good of the company. The biggest risk for a company is to not create an environment that supports their abilities. Their insights often could provide the means to key business improvements and directions.
By understanding the nature of a top performer, you can take their energy and inspiration and use it to grow other future top performers. Everyone can benefit from a mentor. These power employees know this value and seek out mentors for themselves. Their thoughtful communication style engenders teams to them. People want to be in their keep.
Stack power employees together and you get phenomenal teams and powerful collaborators. They thrive on each other’s energy and provide high level strategy and offer a boldness to try new things. They are innovators and executors.
When they set goals they think of them in terms of what they really need to be doing. These types of people think about ways to maximize opportunities and leverage their potential. They visualize their success. They are seriously good at measuring themselves for improvement and look for points where they can take calculated risks and prove successful.
Many of the companies that make it on Top 100 lists have an impressive roster of power employees. There’s a reason these companies can reach breakaway success in their industries.
One of the biggest challenges in corporate culture is finding ways to effectively measure and gauge the strength of your culture. Over the past decade companies have used various survey methodologies in an attempt to uncover the truth about their cultures with the most popular one being an Employee Engagement Survey. The problem is that these surveys are time consuming, difficulty to analyze without outside support, and require a fair investment to implement.
The answer for companies who aren’t ready to take the plunge into instituting a full-blown employee engagement survey actually comes from the world of customer experience. By combining two questions together you can create an easy to use survey that’s fast and efficient, and so simple to complete that your response level will also be considerably higher (important with any type of survey).
First, we need to talk about the Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS was designed to measure how likely clients are to recommend a product or service to a friend. Satmetrix Systems, the company behind NPS, researched companies that experienced above average profitable growth and their research showed that customers who answered one simple question with a 9 or 10, are promoters of your business, customers who answer 7 or 8 are passive, and anyone that ranks your company 6 or less is actually a detractor – they are highly likely to actively recommend that people not do business with you. The question, “How likely are you to recommend our product or service to a friend or colleague?”
Here’s how to modify the NPS for a simple corporate culture survey: take the Net Promoter Score question and alter it slightly to focus on your employees’ perception of your business instead of your customers:
1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend to a friend or family member that they come work at our company?
2. If you gave a score of 8 or less, what would need to change in order for your answer to be a 9 or 10?
Using these two questions you can rapidly put a corporate culture survey in place. Although this will not give you the richness of a full Employee Engagement Survey, these two questions will provide you valuable insight into the core areas that you need to pay attention to now.
*If you’re interested in learning more about Net Promoter Score, Harvard Business Review has a fantastic article that summarizes the entire concept entitled, “One Number You Need to Grow” .
Mike Desjardins is the Driver (CEO) at ViRTUS (www.virtusinc.com), an organizational development consulting firm with expertise in strategic planning and implementation, leadership development, change management and succession planning for medium to large organizations. He regularly blogs at www.mikedesjardins.com.
McNeill Nakamoto
Sharon Tong
Sarah McNeill
Cheryl Nakamoto
Dennis Wolff
Sandra Mebs
Jessica Rozitis
Julie Steele
Bradley Cuzen