The idea of management, (as in management of people as opposed to supply chains for example)is built on certain assumptions. Daniel Pink, author of the book Drive says management "presumes that to take action or move forward, we need a prod - that a absent a reward or punishment, we'd remain happily and inertly in place. It also presumes that once people do get moving, they need direction and that without a firm and reliable guide they'd wander."
"When we enter the world are we already hard wired to be passive or inert? Or, are we wired to be active and engaged?" Pink asks.
Pink is convinced that we it is in our nature to be curious and self-directed. Have you ever seen a child who is not curious or self-directed? If by the age of 13 or 44 we have become passive and inert, it is because life has taught us to be that way, something flipped our default setting.
In my father's generation, companies viewed human beings as human resources, simply cogs in a wheel to keep the machine running. (Some would argue that many businesses are still stuck in 1950's when it comes to this mindset.) But today, economic accomplishment, and of course personal accomplishment, depends on allowing our nature to surface and thrive rather than stuffing it in a rigid box. It means that as managers, we need to resist the temptation to control people. Instead, we need to create an work environment that reawakens people deep-seated sense of autonomy and initiative. That is the key from moving from blind obedience to inspired performance in the workplace.
A sense of autonomy has a powerful effect on individual performance. Recent behavioral science studies have shown that autonomy leads to more innovation, higher productivity, less burn-out and an enhanced sense of well-being. For example, a group from Cornell University studied 320 small businesses. Half of those companies granted autonomy to their employees and the other half used a top-down approach to management. The businesses that gave their employees more freedom of action grew four times more rapidly and had one third less staff turnover than the business that had a command and control style of management.
So why is it then that the majority of companies are still relying on a style of management that still largely revolves around supervision, "if you do this, we will we give you that" type of rewards and other forms of controls?
Pink tells the story of a software company in Australia called Atlassian who tried a bold experiment in 2002. The owners of the company, Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, wanted to jump start creativity and innovation in their organization. They decided to set aside an entire day once a quarter for their engineers to work on any software problem they wanted as long as it was something that was not part of their regular day-to-day job. The day begins at 2:00 pm on a Thursday and at 4:00 pm on the Friday, engineers come together for a celebration with cold beer and chocolate cake to show off their progress. Many employees worked through the night for the fun of it.
Over the years, these creativity sessions yielded a whole variety of software solutions that might not have emerged otherwise. In the Spring of 2008, Atlassian announced that for the next 6 months, software developers could spend 20 percent of their time, rather than one intense day four times a year, working on any project they wanted. In a blog post to employees they said: "our hope is that 20% time gives engineers back dedicated stack time - of their own direction - to spend on product innovation, features, plugins, fixes of additions that they think are the most important."
A surprising fact is that one of the companies that pioneered this approach was the American company, 3M back in the 1940's (!) The president and chairman at that time, William McKnight, believed in a simple credo "Hire good people and leave them alone." 3M technical staff could spend 15% of their time on projects of their own choosing. The creator of Post-it notes, Art Fry, came up with his very profitable idea during his 15% time! As a matter of fact, most of the inventions that have carved 3M such an envious niche in their field came from those experimental periods of playing around with ideas.
The carrot and stick approach used to "motivate" employees in the workplace is seriously disconnected from what behavioral science is demonstrating: autonomy leads to innovation and to a sense of job satisfaction.
What about you? Does having freedom of action a factor in increasing your level of motivation? What has been your experience in the workplace? How could we make a solid business case for increased autonomy in workplaces? Would love to hear your ideas about this...
So why is it then that the majority of companies are still relying on a style of management that still largely revolves around supervision, "if you do this, we will we give you that" type of rewards and other forms of controls?
Pink tells the story of a software company in Australia called Atlassian who tried a bold experiment in 2002. The owners of the company, Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, wanted to jump start creativity and innovation in their organization. They decided to set aside an entire day once a quarter for their engineers to work on any software problem they wanted as long as it was something that was not part of their regular day-to-day job. The day begins at 2:00 pm on a Thursday and at 4:00 pm on the Friday, engineers come together for a celebration with cold beer and chocolate cake to show off their progress. Many employees worked through the night for the fun of it.
Over the years, these creativity sessions yielded a whole variety of software solutions that might not have emerged otherwise. In the Spring of 2008, Atlassian announced that for the next 6 months, software developers could spend 20 percent of their time, rather than one intense day four times a year, working on any project they wanted. In a blog post to employees they said: "our hope is that 20% time gives engineers back dedicated stack time - of their own direction - to spend on product innovation, features, plugins, fixes of additions that they think are the most important."
A surprising fact is that one of the companies that pioneered this approach was the American company, 3M back in the 1940's (!) The president and chairman at that time, William McKnight, believed in a simple credo "Hire good people and leave them alone." 3M technical staff could spend 15% of their time on projects of their own choosing. The creator of Post-it notes, Art Fry, came up with his very profitable idea during his 15% time! As a matter of fact, most of the inventions that have carved 3M such an envious niche in their field came from those experimental periods of playing around with ideas.
The carrot and stick approach used to "motivate" employees in the workplace is seriously disconnected from what behavioral science is demonstrating: autonomy leads to innovation and to a sense of job satisfaction.
What about you? Does having freedom of action a factor in increasing your level of motivation? What has been your experience in the workplace? How could we make a solid business case for increased autonomy in workplaces? Would love to hear your ideas about this...
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