More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
November 19 - November 24, 2022
By reducing ethics to a checklist, suddenly affirmative action is just a bunch of requirements that the organization must meet to show that it isn’t discriminating.
In other words, people might meet the minimal ethical standards to avoid punishment, but the guidelines have done nothing to inject purpose into the corporate bloodstream.
the results for people with profit goals were more complicated. Those who said they were attaining their goals—accumulating wealth, winning acclaim—reported levels of satisfaction, self-esteem, and positive affect no higher than when they were students. In other words, they’d reached their goals, but it didn’t make them any happier. What’s more, graduates with profit goals showed increases in anxiety, depression, and other negative indicators—again,
Clare Boothe Luce, one of the first women to serve in the U.S. Congress, offered some advice to President John F. Kennedy. “A great man,” she told him, “is a sentence.” Abraham Lincoln’s sentence was: “He preserved the union and freed the slaves.” Franklin Roosevelt’s was: “He lifted us out of a Great Depression and helped us win a world war.”
look for small measures of improvement such as how long you practiced your saxophone or whether you held off on checking email until you finished that report you needed to write. Reminding yourself that you don’t need to be a master by day three is the best way of ensuring you will be one by day three thousand.
These brain bombs are a great way to keep your mind open despite constraints you can’t control. You can buy the deck at www.enoshop.co.uk/ or follow one of the Twitter accounts inspired by the strategies, such as: http://twitter.com/oblique_chirps.
Remember that deliberate practice has one objective: to improve performance. “People who play tennis once a week for years don’t get any better if they do the same thing each time,” Ericsson has said. “Deliberate practice is about changing your performance, setting new goals and straining yourself to reach a bit higher each time.”
Try any of these sites: Despair Inc (http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php [inactive]) Big Huge Labs (http://bighugelabs.com/motivator.php) Automotivator (http://wigflip.com/automotivator/)
One of the best known forms of noncommissioned work is “20 percent time,” which you read about in Chapter 4. Organizations encourage employees to spend one-fifth of their hours working on any project they want.
Set aside an entire day for noncommissioned work—where employees can work on anything they choose, however they want, with whomever they’d like. Make sure they have the tools and resources they need. And impose just one rule: People must deliver something—a new idea, a prototype of a product, a better internal process—the following day.
Ask everyone in your department or on your team to respond to these four questions with a numerical ranking (using a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 meaning “almost none” and 10 meaning “a huge amount”): 1. How much autonomy do you have over your tasks at work—your main responsibilities and what you do in a given day? 2. How much autonomy do you have over your time at work—for instance, when you arrive, when you leave, and how you allocate your hours each day? 3. How much autonomy do you have over your team at work—that is, to what extent are you able to choose the people with whom you typically
...more
It’s remarkable sometimes how little the people running organizations know about the experiences of the people working around them. But it’s equally remarkable how often leaders are willing to do things differently if they see a little data.
Involve people in goal-setting. If you’d rather set your own goals than have them foisted upon you, why should the people you’re working for believe otherwise? A considerable body of research shows that individuals are far more engaged when they’re pursuing goals they had a hand in creating.
Use noncontrolling language. Next time you’re about to say “must” or “should,” try saying “think about” or “consider” instead.
Hold office hours. Sometimes you need to summon people into your office. But sometimes it’s wise to let them come to you. Take a cue from college professors and set aside one or two hours a week when your schedule is clear and any employee can come in and talk to you about anything that’s on her mind.
Hand everyone a blank three-by-five-inch card. Then ask each person to write down his or her one-sentence answer to the following question: “What is our company’s (or organization’s) purpose?” Keep the answers anonymous. Then collect the cards and read them aloud.
Trouble is, most of our workforce policies are designed for the 15 percent. These autonomy-crushing restrictions exist to threaten the shirkers and constrain the bad actors rather than assist the workhorses and liberate the good actors.
when we design systems that assume bad faith from the participants, and whose main purpose is to guard against nasty behavior, we often foster the very behavior we’re trying to deter.
more than 95 percent graduate and go on to college. For more information, go to http://www.bigpicture.org/. (Full disclosure: I have served, unpaid, on the board of directors of Big Picture since 2007.)
Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else BY GEOFF COLVIN
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience BY MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI
Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation BY EDWARD L. DECI WITH RICHARD FLASTE
Type I Insight: In the book and likewise on her website, www.mindsetonline.com, Dweck offers concrete steps for moving from a fixed to a growth mindset:
Then We Came to the End BY JOSHUA FERRIS
Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet BY HOWARD GARDNER, MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI, AND WILLIAM DAMON
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln BY DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN
The Amateurs: The Story of Four Young Men and Their Quest for an Olympic Gold Medal BY DAVID HALBERSTAM
Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes BY ALFIE KOHN
Once a Runner BY JOHN L. PARKER, JR.
Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace BY RICARDO SEMLER
The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle; Encore by Marc Freedman; Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson; Linchpin by Seth Godin; Just Listen by Mark Goulston; Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath; Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh; Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov; Mastery by George Leonard; Employees First, Customers Second by Vineet Nayar; How Full Is Your Bucket? by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton; Wellbeing by Tom Rath and Jim Harter; Learned Optimism by Martin E. P. Seligman; Do More Great Work by Michael Bungay Stanier; Start with Why by Simon Sinek; The Motivated Student by Bob
...more
The first approach, which he called Theory X, assumed that people avoid effort, work only for money and security, and, therefore, need to be controlled. The second, which he called Theory Y, assumed that work is as natural for human beings as play or rest, that initiative and creativity are widespread, and that if people are committed to a goal, they will actually seek responsibility.
Collins suggests four basic practices for creating a culture where self-motivation can flourish: 1. “Lead with questions, not answers.” 2. “Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion.” 3. “Conduct autopsies, without blame.” 4. “Build ‘red flag’ mechanisms.” In other words, make it easy for employees and customers to speak up when they identify a problem.
Among the basic tenets of ROWE: “People at all levels stop doing any activity that is a waste of their time, the customer’s time, or their company’s time.” “Employees have the freedom to work any way they want.” “Every meeting is optional.” “There are no work schedules.”
You can learn more about ROWE at their website: www.culturerx.com
Set your own goals. Don’t accept some standardized, cookie-cutter exercise plan. Create one that’s tailored to your needs and fitness level. (You can work with a professional on this, but you make the final calls.) Equally important, set the right kinds of goals.
COCKTAIL PARTY SUMMARYh When it comes to motivation, there’s a gap between what science knows and what business does. Our current business operating system— which is built around external, carrot-and-stick motivators—doesn’t work and often does harm. We need an upgrade. And the science shows the way. This new approach has three essential elements: (1) Autonomy—the desire to direct our own lives; (2) Mastery—the urge to make progress and get better at something that matters; and (3) Purpose—the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.
