File under Meet Yourself
After leaving the Army I was in a career Bermuda Triangle. I had taken a job doing water treatment sales and service, but I was lost. It was a good job with good benefits and commissions. But I wasn’t seeing any of those. See, I was average, and that’s being generous. I mean really generous. The higher commissions, the less I sold.
It’s counter-intuitive and I beat myself up about it for a while, but I slowly realized that no amount of money could entice me to care about water treatment. I had no desire to improve in that field. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I clearly understood why those incentives had no effect on me. That happened when I saw a video of researcher Dan Pink, a.k.a. Danny Tanner, giving a talk at the Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) Symposium in 2009.
Now this talk is 18 minutes long, but completely worth your time. In it, Pink provides evidence that incentives don’t work for solving complex problems. He shows that the key to success is the opportunity for autonomy, mastery, and purpose. No amount of incentives will entice you to act if it’s something you don’t care about.
When you can identify and remove the external ‘carrots’, you can identify what truly motivates you and direct your actions accordingly.
Song of the Day
I’ve got two of them today and both are in honor of the recent passing of two musical legends. In honor of the lead singer of the Coasters, Carl Gardner, and Clarence Clemmons of the E Street Band, the songs of the day are the Coasters’ Poison Ivy, and Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run.
See Ian, that is why you needed to stay in the Army... There are plenty of people that just do enough (or not) to keep bosses off their case (referenced one of your first blogs I read). Truly, I work with one that completely stopped working the day she figured out that she was retiring 14 months out... and you know what, nobody even cared or even noticed. Others totally just do dick while the 20% that does preform keeps things running in a somewhat smooth system. But not without the leaders who are leaderless when it comes to running a section (not talking about your past efforts) but something I am currently dealing with.
ReplyDeleteI guess for me, my carrot is my career or family that I constantly strive to be better for (it keeps me sane or insane - however you view it) but I am real jealous of those that are capable of just sitting back and watching.
I really enjoy your blogs!