For those of you unable to attend the Webinar hosted by Rypple, with Mr. Daniel Pink live, following here is a quick update of events for your feedback & review:

Webinar host: Daniel Pink, (@dpink) – author of Drive: The Surprising Truth of What Motivates Us
**Note: This Webinar assumes a familiarity with Mr. Pink’s books &/or TED talks

Focus: Motivation and Behaviour Theory

• Metaphor: Computer Operating Systems vs. Societal Operating Systems (OS)
• Motivation 1.0 (M1) = resonates with our biological drives
• Motivation 2.0 (M2) = “Carrot & Stick” (if/then) Reward & Punishment OS is fine for mechanical/algorithmic work
• M2OS is inadequate, however, for post-Millennial Societies, where contingent (if/then) Rewards don’t often resonate with the highly conceptual/creative-type-of-work that drives economies today
• M2OS is therefore “crashing” and being moved off-shore to M2OS motivated societies such as India, China, etc.
• Motivation 3.0 (M3) = resonates with our humanist drives, such as: freedom, sovereignty & influence – where we want the work that we do to matter, &/or to make us better

Q&A: So What Matters?

1. Money – but not in a traditional sense; with M3 you have to pay people more-than-enough so that the issues is “taken off the table” – so that people no longer have to think/obsess about money, and can therefore simply concentrate on their work.
   • Transparent/Open-book policies help empower trust – even w/ re: to salaries
2. Autonomy/Mastery/Purpose – absolute key factors of M3;
   • Autonomy (M3) vs. Management (M2) – organizational management is an OS technology from the 1850s that was designed around compliance principals, which has become completely outdated
   • Compliance (M2) vs. Engagement (M3) – in order to stem the tide of declining employee engagement, it is absolutely imperative to promote self-direction/empowerment, i.e. Autonomy
3. Engagement – comes down to four areas of principal (**Give employees autonomy over these areas & they will automatically engage!):
   • Time
   • Technique
   • Team
   • Task
4. Mastery – people are most motivated when they’re making progress at work, and that’s when they’re the most engaged too. Progress depends on feedback, which should come daily and not just in annual performance reviews.
   • DIY Performance Reviews & Peer-to-Peer Rewards are valuable tools.
   • “Now-that” Rewards are a less toxic system vs. “if-then” because they’re unexpected & therefore appreciated more – esp. if something like a $50 gift certificate comes from your empowered peers
5. Purpose – employees are “thirsting for context” where Leadership becomes more about “how” not “why”
   • The Purpose Motive: companies who perform at the highest level doing work that is a meaningful contributor to a better world, i.e. “a purpose bigger than your product” – are the most successful across all indicators

Prime examples of M3 at work

1. Netflix – for example, w/ ‘vacation time’ Netflix gives employees as much holiday time as they want, when they want it, provided employees perform well; Netflix treats their employees as adults, making them accountable for their own results, otherwise they offer “generous severance for mediocre performance”
2. Facebook – for example, FB’s “recruitment boot-camp” allows each new recruit to select their own team & what project they want to work on; so FB hires the talent, and then the talent chooses their work
3. Zappos – for example, to counteract the usual 100% turnover rate w/i telemarketing industry, Zappos gives their telemarketers total autonomy vs. scripts; TMs are therefore empowered with innate belief &/or muscular strength that TM can be engaging work, and that’s effective! Makes people believe that what they do is worthy work.
4. Atlassian – the establishers of “Fed-Ex” days (case study in the book) that have been imported by many other companies incorporating creative free-thinking flex-days into their schedules with much varying success

Other Tips

Take the “Autonomy Audit” online: +28 score is excellent; anything less than 28 is worrisome – watch also for autonomy distribution between areas to ensure its as balanced as possible, as you want to avoid an outlier area(s) that might become pain points. For example, if your employees feel they have enough autonomy over task, time & technique, but none over their team – the latter is an outlier pain point that needs attention.

Summary

In an M3 world we want to work on things that matter – so societies that build their motivational OS on this third drive will be the most successful in our evolving post-Millennial culture. Build autonomy/mastery/purpose in the four principal T-areas (Time, Task, Team, Technique), and your company/economy/society will be the better for it!

So that’s my quick update! Hope you find it a useful go-to quick tip-sheet, and stay tuned for my weekly Webinar updates, on relevant topics related to social media, employee engagement, empowerment, and other Kudos areas of interest.

Please join me on Twitter @EleniKudos too!

Much Kudos,
~eleni