Firstly, this book is not on the 52 list, but I recently heard that I should include as many books on my reading list that I send to colleges as possible, and this one was pretty darn interesting, so I am going to give it it's own blog post.
I'm also considering creating another blog for my non-classic books, but it will not be as sophisticated as this one, since I read books so fast that if I did a post like this for every one and then answered thought provoking questions afterwards that blog would consume my life!
Now to get on topic
The book "Drive" is about what motivates humans to do things and how that relates to business.
It says that businesses today operate on what it calls "Motivation 2.0," which is essentially a basic carrot and stick reward system, you do what the company wants, the company gives you money and benefits.
It goes on to say that people can not operate efficiently using this system because it does not provide intrinsic motivation, which is an actual enjoyment of the task at hand. It provides extrinsic motivators like money, but those motivators actually wind up providing a negative effect on our motivation.
The book then proposes the concept of a system upgrade to "Motivation 3.0," where extrinsic rewards are given, but intrinsic motivators are also incorporated through various methods. The main method of doing this is to encourage autonomy, also known as self direction. Basically the book says that if someone isn't pressured to do something a specific way and are allowed to engage their creativity then they will not only do the work, they will do it efficiently and enthusiastically.
An example of how this would work is given. Imagine that it is Friday and a large batch of posters that need to be packaged into tubes so that they can be mailed out by Monday, so your workers need to work on the weekend, which is something they don't normally do. In "Motivation 2.0" we would simply see a increase in pay for the work, and a set method of how and when the posters should be packaged (e.x. work from 3:00-6:00 p.m, and roll the posters up exactly like this) . In "Motivation 3.0" you allow the employees to work out how they do the work, just so long as they get it done by the deadline. Allowing workers to control how they get this work done makes it seem like less of a big hassle, and by extension motivates the workers to do it more than just giving them a bigger paycheck.
The book also goes into numerous experiments that were used to discover that offering money as a reward for tasks can actually decrease motivation. One such experiment was performed with puzzles and two groups. The first group was offered a reward for solving puzzles, the other wasn't. After a certain time the researchers said they would need to leave in order to get another puzzle, but actually they left in order to observe the test subjects. The group getting paid for each puzzle they completed continued to do puzzles for a little while, but soon stopped. The group with no rewards continued solving puzzles for the fun of it for almost three times as long as the reward group.
The results of this test indicate that people motivated by intrinsic motivators are more motivated than people encouraged by extrinsic motivators.
That was just one example of a test backing these conclusions, there were plenty others proving that intrinsic value increases efficiency and motivation.
As I read this book I thought about my own job working as a secretary of sorts for my Mom so that I could afford certain things that I want to buy. I Always find the work incredibly dull and tiresome, all it requires of me is the repetition of the same actions over and over. I can't manage to do that work without having music playing to engage my creativity. Even with music I am sick of the work after a few hours, and the motivator of money is barely enough to keep me working.
I imagine that if the work allowed more creativity that I would be almost eager to work, how that could be accomplished is beyond me, but the point remains that if there was any intrinsic value in the work I would be a much happier worker. I would also be a better worker, I start my day working at a very fast pace, but as I grow bored I slow down substantially.
I also connected this to my love of science fiction and fantasy novels, they engage my creativity just because of their nature, whereas non-fiction or historical fiction novels that I dislike with a passion do not engage creativity, again due to their nature.
This book gave me a lot to chew on, and I am mulling over ways to implement intrinsic motivation into my business, but seeing as I'm not sure what type of business I will run most of my ideas end in "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it." I believe there was a section about how this could potentially be applied to business, but I only skimmed that part since it wasn't actually part of the book (it was an extra thing added to boost sales, and those are usually almost worthless, though if there was an exception it probably would have been this...)
Read this. Take some time, maybe even a few days to consider these questions. Some will require more thought and planning than the typical question.
ReplyDeleteHow could public schools integrate intrinsic rewards to motivate students? Do you think if schools would introduce your method it would be more palatable to students?
Do you think that intrinsic rewards in business can be introduced successfully to companies in which workers have been acclimated solely to an extrinsic rewards system? In what ways, would you as a business owner introduce a new system?
Is it possible for a company to operate without extrinsic rewards? Obviously, people need money for basic needs, is it necessary for it to come from your company?
What interests of yours offer intrinsic rewards? If you could create your own position at my office to be anything you wanted it to be so long as it helped the production/profitability of the company, how would you use your time? Given your interest and talents, what type of company or specific company do you think you could be a benefit to on a volunteer basis?
Why do Historical Fiction and Nonfiction seem to not "engage creativity"? You seem to really enjoy this particular book which is....nonfiction <>. Not only is it nonfiction, and you enjoyed it, but it seems to have also pecked at the edges of your creativity by getting you to imagine what tactics you might use in your business. Would you agree then, that the content and writing style of a book is more important when considering what might be engaging rather than genre?
In your example of creating poster mailings, working on the weekends is an anomaly. Even with intrinsic rewards do you think a company could retain employees if the underlying structure was constantly in flux?
As always, lots of questions, so I want to take a second to tell you I'm proud of how much effort you've been putting into your studies. <>
C=<>
I love you. :-)
Oh boy this is even more than usual :p
ReplyDeleteQuestion one, public schools and intrinsic motivation. Personally I don't think school and intrinsic value mix, the nature of school is just too different from anything even resembling satisfying for intrinsic value to be drawn from it. School forces students to attend classes that they most likely hate and threaten legal action if they refuse, that alone crushed any hope of intrinsic value by itself. It would help if students were truly allowed to customize their schedule (instead of saying that 6 out of 8 classes a year are mandatory and the two that aren't are limited to a select few options and of those options several need to be taken before you graduate, doesn't sound very flexible does it?) but students still don't want to attend school and I don't think that this could counter that fact, as well as the constant HSPA craze students are put through (which I can say is probably the most exasperating aspect of school, because EVERYBODY, including teachers, knows how much of a waste of time/energy/money/etc... it is, but we do it anyway)
So I think that school could improve slightly by allowing full customization of classes (which will NEVER happen), but school will always be a lost cause.
Next up, about introducing the new system, that question reminded me of something in Drive that I had forgotten. Intrinsic value CAN be incorporated into existing companies, why do I know? I know because it's been done! In an experiment at Google (which is a massive and successful business) employees were allowed one day a month where they didn't have t work in their own fields and could pursue their own ideas. The result was several programs we use today, among them being Google translate, Google Docs, and more. Those were created mostly on that one day (obviously employees continued those projects on following days during their own time or got permission to continue them on work time)
The results were so impressive that Google tried that experiment again, only this time employees were expressly told NOT to work in their own fields, the results were just as or more impressive than the first time around.
Google's owners were so impressed by this that they decided to dedicate 20% of employee hours to allowing them to work on their own projects. The results have thus far been significant.
Question three, can a business operate without any extrinsic rewards, the answer here is no. Businesses still need to pay their workers, people, as you stated, need money to put food on the table, pay the bills, and satisfy other needs. However, businesses using intrinsic rewards don't need to pay workers a constantly increasing amount of money to keep them happy, if employees are working for a reasonable amount of extrinsic reward (enough to keep them alive and to allow them to enjoy life at home as well with vacations, theme parks, and all that good stuff.) and they are also rewarded intrinsically, then employees will be satisfied. Therefore both intrinsic and extrinsic value is needed, you can add 2+2 and get 4, but you need both 2's to do that, if you cut out half the equation the answer is no longer 4. The equation here is intrinsic value + extrinsic value= happy worker.
oh my god it is telling me my original post was too long >:( I am breaking it up now, bear with me.
Question 4, I'll answer part two of it first, as I said in my original post, I have no clue how I would make my job at your office intrinsically valuable to me. Actually forget that statement, I just had a epiphany. My idea is that perhaps I could handle a larger part of the business part of the business, I could try and advertise, talk to potential clients and try and win them over to become actual clients, and the like, at the same time you and your boss would handle the actual appraising and stuff that you know how to do (and i don't, on second thought that would make winning over clients harder, but I bet I could learn enough to sound good)
ReplyDeletePart one and three of that, My own interests lie in trading card games, video games, RPG games, soccer, and fantasy novels. As a result a business that had to do with those things (or a few of them I doubt any store has something to do with trading card games, RPG games, and soccer simultaneously) would benefit from my services greatly.
Question 5, Nonfiction generally does not engage my creativity due to the fact that it states mere facts and is usually on a subject that holds no value for me, historical fiction is a somewhat creative way of trying to teach history, nothing more. In nonfiction I will concede that books on certain subjects may hold value for me.
Question 6, That was an example of an example given in the book, it was in no way meant to reflect a real situation, it was simply meant to show a way intrinsic value could possibly be used to make a bad situation better, even if that situation is unrealistic. If a company was as unstable as that it would probably fail, close, and then whether or not the employees liked their jobs would be a moot point, since the jobs would no longer exist.
There, that's all of them, and I'm happy you are proud of my effort.
oh and what was <> supposed to be? i think it was supposed to be like this >_<