Global Leadership Summit 2010 Day 2:Daniel H. Pink

From the conference notes:

Best-selling author, business thinker, and former White House speechwriter, Daniel Pink has been credited with defining a new era in the workplace. His provocative business books describe the changing world of work.

In A Whole New Mind, Pink examined the rise of "right brain" skills that will be required in modern economies. His latest book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, analyzes the scientific data behind high performance and vocational satisfaction.

Pink's articles on business and technology have appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Wired where he is a contributing editor.

A sought-after speaker, he addresses corporations, associations, and universities around the world on economic transformation and the new workplace.

From my personal notes:

• People are so much more complex than their biology – their physical needs – their biological drive.
• Humans respond exquisitely to their "reward and punishment drive".
• We do things because they are interesting.
• For example, attending this conference does not satisfy either the biological drive or the reward and punishment drive.
• There exists about 50 years of research on human motivation.
• The 2-dimensional view of human beings that requires suppressing the biological drive to focus on the reward and punishment drive does not work so well.
• A study said that a greater reward increased performance except when the requested task was less complex or required less creativity, which caused decreased performance.
• Big rewards tend to create tunnel vision – this phenomena is shown again and again in the research, but this is routinely ignored.
• Red Gate Software did something radical. Salespeople were gaming the system, so the CEO eliminated commissions. Instead, salaries were raised and profit sharing was provided.
• Part of the problem with organizations is that we make assumptions about people: that human beings are "machines" and that human beings are "blobs".
• The assumption is that human beings are complicated machines, but "mechanical" – they respond the way you want them to respond given certain inputs.
• The assumption is that human beings are passive and inert blobs, but our essence is to be active and engaged.
• There are 3 elements for motivation: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
• Management is a technology from the 1850s. What other technologies do we use from back then?
• Management was designed to "get compliance". Our organizations are too complicated.
• People want engagement. Autonomy in 4 things leads to engagement: time, task, team, and technique.
• Attlassian Software has "Fed-Ex Days" where people can work on anything on Thursday as long as they deliver overnight on Friday to the rest of the company. Fed-Ex Days worked out so well that they now have "20% Time" where people can work on anything they want for 20% of the time. According to the company, all the "good" ideas have come about from this time.
• Since it can be difficult for a company to adopt something like 20% Time in a short period of time, 20% Time with training wheels (or as the Brits would say, "stabilizers") or 10% Time are options.
• It can be difficult to initiate such measures quickly. Some "scaffolding" is helpful to gradually move in this direction.
• The "single, largest motivation at work is making progress".
• Mastery is partially met by contributing more.
• People are more likely to have "flow" at work than at leisure, so this is a great opportunity. Unfortunately, the workplace is one of the most feedback-deprived places in the world, and performance reviews are worthless.
• Workplace performance reviews are America's version of Kabuki theatre (great laughter from audience).
• Pink thinks that we are seeing the limits of the "profit motive", even though it might be good morally and financially.
• The bad and the mediocre result when the profit motive and the "purpose motive" are not working together.
• "Most businesses are not run very well."
• To be motivated by purposes larger than oneself is important.
• Pay attention to determine whether people refer to their organization as "we" or "they". Use of the pronoun "they" points to alienation. The pronouns being used say a lot.
• One person cannot change one's organization, but one can change as an individual what they do tomorrow.
• Anything good in life begins with a "great conversation" – this is what changes the world.