This Newsletter
... is a quick tip ezine for Managers who believe in "Results Derived from Within"
Written by: Vickie Bevenour, a Professional Certified Coach, PCC
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April
2013: Human Motivation
Recently
I was invited to speak at a conference for Human Resources
Professionals. The keynote speaker was Daniel Pink, author of five
provocative books about changing the world of work.His keynote was
titled "Drive: What the Science of Motivation Can Teach You about
High Performance". Human motivation is something that has excited
me for a long time. Human behavior is driven by motivation and if you
want to understand/influence behavior, it is good to start with
understanding motivation, which is exactly what Daniel Pink did in his
talk.
One
of the studies that Mr. Pink cited was to answer the question,
"what motivates artists?" In the study, a panel of art experts
evaluated 463 works of art: some were commissioned and some were
non-commissioned. The findings were that both groups were technically
the same, yet the non-commissioned works were deemed "less
creative" than the commissioned works. How do the findings of this
study translate to the world of work? To answer this question, think of
the characteristics of both groups: the commissioned and
non-commissioned work. For a start, with the commissioned work, the
artists knew that they would get paid and in many instances they knew
exactly how much they would get paid. (Does this translate to receiving
a salary?) In addition, commissioned works come with a set of
constraints which the artists viewed as a set of rules that no longer
make the art work "mine" but it is more about what the person
who commissioned the art work wanted the pieces to look like. The key to
this whole discussion is that in the current work place there is
essentially only commissioned work.....WOW now that is a way to stifle
creativity!
Daniel
Pink then proceeded to give some examples of companies who are embracing
the concept of providing workers with the opportunity to carve out some
time for non-commissioned work. The following are a few examples:
- A global software company takes one day a
month and asks their software developers to develop something new in
that one day. Some of their most successful products have come from
these "free day" innovations.
- At some Whole Food locations, a new hire
will work in a department for 30 days, then the department TEAM
decides if that person is a good match and can stay as part of the
team.
- At Zappos Call Centers, new hires go through
a two week training program. After the program, if you decide that
this is not for you, you are paid $3,000 to leave. If you decide to
stay, you are given one mission - to solve the customer's problem.
There are no metrics, no measure of the number of customers you talk
with or how long you stay on a customer call. Zappos is in turn
diligent on soliciting feedback from their customers and adjusting
their Call Center goals accordingly.
- At another technology company, employees are
given one hour per week to work on any problem that they choose.
Every two months they have a meeting to see what new
innovations/solutions have been created during this "genius
hour".
So
here is the question for you....how do you encourage yourself and your
team to find the time to do more non-commissioned work? What can be done
within your current environment to promote a "genius hour" or
encourage innovation? If you were to promote this creative outlet could
this be where your next big innovative idea will come from?
Congratulations, by embracing the concept of
giving your employees time for non-commissioned work, the innovation
in your organization could potentially skyrocket and you would be deriving
results from within.
Yours
very truly,
Coach
Vickie Bevenour
919-303-4780
*To review any of these past newsletters, please visit the Newsletter section of www.CoachVickie.com
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