Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: autonomy, Dan Pink, Drive, mastery, motivation, purpose, W.E.B. Du Bois
The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world’s need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this – with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need – this life is hell.
– W.E.B. Du Bois, Founder of the NAACP
Mr. Du Bois got it – and I think Dan Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, would agree.
In Drive, Pink focuses on three things people desire in work:
Autonomy
This is another word for freedom. Knowledge workers want the ability to manage themselves – to determine how they reach specific results. Illustrating this, Pink quotes Tom Kelley, the GM of world-famous design firm IDEO:
The ultimate freedom for creative groups is the freedom to experiment with new ideas. Some skeptics insist that innovation is expensive. In the long run, innovation is cheap. Mediocrity is expensive — and autonomy can be the antidote.
Mastery
In the military, orders are given and carried out with precision. Disobedience brings painful consequences. The Industrial Revolution installed a similar hierarchy in businesses. If you’re on an assembly line, cutting apricots, or doing defined, repetitive work, such a structure is understandable.
Does it elicit our best work? Probably not. It certainly doesn’t get people engaged and liking either their job or their organization. Pink cites Teresa Amabile of Harvard University:
The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspieres the highest levels of creativity, whether it’s in the arts, sciences, or business.
Purpose
When we work toward a goal that has a higher motive than just bringing home a paycheck, we’re more deeply motivated. Higher purpose is present in both corporations and nonprofits, as noted in this post by Penelope Trunk (see #2). On this topic, Pink quotes Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi:
One cannot lead a life that is truly excellent without feeling that one belongs to something greater and more permanent than oneself.
Autonomy, mastery and purpose – the three keys to motivation. If you’ve got all three, it’s very likely that you’ll say yes to the question posed in the title of this post.
More on the book Drive and the topic of motivation…soon.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: birds, Dan Pink, Drive, motivation, Nilofer Merchant, NYT, O'Reilly, Rubicon Consulting, TED, Ted Cross, The New How
Here’s a key point of the new Daniel Pink book on motivation (and other topics) Drive: the best, the most lasting, the really important motivation comes from within us. It’s intrinsic, and it’s far more powerful than the old school reward-punishment syndrome.
Pink’s contention is supported by scientific studies by Harry F. Harlow, a psychology prof at the University of Wisconsin. Even more proof comes from Edward Deci, an MBA from Wharton who had a hunch that people in business hadn’t gotten motivation quite right.
In short, Deci’s work found that rewards can actually have a negative effect on performance.
Nilofer Merchant, Silicon Valley CEO of Rubicon Consulting, TED presenter, and O’Reilly author of The New How has known this about motivation for years.
A strong proponent of team motivation, Merchant gets intrinsic motivation big time and has long said that the pseudo-military business structure is dated and needs to be changed.
Ted Cross also knows motivation – but in a way entirely different than Pink and Merchant. He personifies intrinsic motivation. In the second half of his life he fell in love with birds. Now 85, that love was so powerful that it motivated him to travel thousands and thousands of miles over 16 time zones and many decades in search of the illusive perfect avian photograph.
More to come on Drive and motivation…
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: Atlassian, Daniel Pink, Drive, ROWE, Zappos
Daniel Pink’s latest book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us will be released at the end of the month. I’ve spent the last several days reading the galleys and it’s a meaty read that will make you think. His thoughts about autonomy are important because, more than almost anything, that’s what we crave in the workplace:
But today economic accomplishment, not to mention personal fulfillment, more often swings on a different hinge. It depends not on keeping our nature submerged but on allowing it to surface. It reuires resisting the temptation to control people — and instead doing everything we can to reawaken their deep-seated sense of autonomy. This innate capacity for self-direction is at the heart of Motivation 3.0 and Type I behavior.
Pink is talking about the companies that support skunk works – loose groups of people who come up with the next ideas a company will develop.
Companies like Atlassian in Australia that demand employee creativity and do everything in their power to encourage it – and in the process, produce some of the world’s best software with extremely low engineer turnover.
Zappo’s is used as an example because the organization empowers call center employees to make decisions on the customer’s behalf and respect their individuality – no phone scripts.
One of the methods used is called ROWE – Results-Only Work Environment. This is the direction that supports autonomy – the focus is on getting the work done. How, when, or where is left up to the individual. Figure it out, then get it done. The ultimate in workplace freedom, with every action centered on completion of the task to reach the needed results. It’s the opposite of a scheduled, timed GM assembly line where workers perform the same task over and over.
My view? HR will be a key player in the transition to ROWE and worker autonomy. Stay tuned for more…
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: Daniel Pink, Drive, interview, job
I was sixty seconds into the interview, confident that my path to the executive suite in a large retail corporation was assured, when Miss Egan, the VP of Executive Training, dropped the bomb.
“Are you pregnant?”
I shook my head, not believing what I’d just heard but realizing I’d better respond. “Uh, no.”
“Are you planning to have children in the next few years?”
“I don’t think so – not at this time.”
This was the interview as judo (and, of course, would be illegal now). After throwing me off balance, she went for the jugular — “Why do you think you’re different from the hundreds of executive training candidates who call me every month? What’s so great about you?”
I listed my work achievements, my sales increases, my ability to manage and lead, my expertise in display.
She got up, walked around her giant grey battleship of a desk, held open her office door and said, “Yes, that’s very nice. Keep up the good work. If an opening comes up, I know where to find you.”
I’d been dismissed. I hadn’t even had time to warm the seat – what happened? In retrospect, I see three ways I missed.
Lack of an internal champion
I wasn’t politically savvy. It was early in my career and I didn’t realize that I needed a mentor or someone who would serve as my internal champion and help grease the skids for me within the company. Instead, I thought I could do it all myself. My strategy backfired – Miss Egan was looking for someone who knew the ropes. I demonstrated that I’d tied myself in knots. She was not amused.
In this company, it was important to win your way to promotions by having several well-placed and influential executives call and pave the way for you. Demonstrating that I had a relationship with such an influencer would have spoken volumes to her about my ability to plan and establish relationships. It also would have told her that the executives had confidence in me.
Lack of preparation
I came off like a bumpkin because I couldn’t demonstrate to her that I had support from people who mattered in the organization. Miss Egan actually expected – and probably already knew – all the stats I gave her. She wasn’t blown out of the water because she was way ahead of me. She wanted a demonstration of my social and cultural understanding of the company. When I demonstrated my ignorance and gave her something else entirely, she showed me the door.
I should have checked with others already in the training program to find out how they’d succeeded. A couple of coffee meetings would have provided the information I needed to give her what she wanted.
Lack of drive
In Daniel Pink’s new book, Drive, he talks about the importance of intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation. When it’s intrinsic, there’s no carrot or stick. Instead, the desire to perform is intense because it comes from deep within you. More about this in a later post when I review the book – which, by the way, is excellent and well worth reading. After I finished it, I understood why one job I held was a complete setup for failure – I won’t have to make that mistake again.
Back to Miss Egan – who saw that I didn’t have the internal stamina and desire to make it at that time.
But I was tenacious, I learned and found another way to the path I wanted. That way? Mastery. For me, high proficiency went hand-in-hand with drive. The more capable and knowledgeable I became, the more drive I had to learn about the business and do well.
While I certainly didn’t have Miss Egan at hello, I turned the situation into a win by tapping into my internal desire to learn, grow and succeed. And I never again went through an interview situation like this one.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: headhunter, job, Recruiter
Be an honorable client – don’t screw over your recruiter. How do candidates do that? By being difficult and changing your mind about the amount of salary you want, after telling the recruiter a lower range. By pouting over a title you feel you should have – when it’s way out of the ballpark for the particular employer you’re talking to. The above actions torpedo your candidacy big time. In effect, you’re saying to the employer, “Forget about everything I said and did to make you want me – this is what I’m really like.”
They need you to perform when you get the job. The search is over, you’ve inked the contract, champagne corks are popping and the hiring company is excited. It’s been a long job search. You feel exhausted. The first day of work comes and you’re a no-show. Someone completely different from the person they interviewed shows up. The spark, the attitude, that drive – they’re missing. The candidate? DOA. Nothing is a larger disappointment. You create an image during the interviewing process – you’ve got to live up to it on the job. Don’t make your recruiter look like a liar.
You don’t get placed, they don’t get paid. Recognize that it’s a buyer’s market for talent right now. Many recruiters are working strictly on a commission with much less front money (if any) than they received 18 months ago. If this were a reality show in the UK it might be called “Strictly Come Recruiting.” The recruiter needs to complete the search and fill the job with the best possible candidate – someone who will be a great living, breathing advertisement for the recruiter’s skills. That’s you, ducks. The really memorable candidates for recruiters are people who perform and lead the employer back to the recruiter for seconds, thirds, and more.
When you’re hired and perform for the employer, you’re also cementing yourself as a winner in the mind of the recruiter – which will come in quite handy when you’re ready for the next opportunity.
Filed under: General, Legal | Tags: attorneys, Wall Street Journal, Madoff, job, lawyers, paralegals, depression
Layoffs may abate in law, according to Jane Genova of Law and More, and the WSJ Law Blog reported on the case of a lawyer gone bad…so bad there’ll be cell time with Bruno – which is definitely not the same as tea time with Auntie Mame. It’s a tough row to hoe…
Genova mentions a Pennsylvania Law 2009 Managing Partners Survey. When 93% of managing partners queried don’t anticipate attorney layoffs, maybe we’re starting to see some kind of end to the recession. Or maybe there’s a ton of litigation going on that isn’t happening in other parts of the country. Regardless, stay tuned. We’re looking for an improved 2010 for lawyers.
Jennifer Forsyth’s piece for the WSJ left me incredulous. Just when you think it’s impossible to be more audacious than Madoff, along comes Gene Cauley, an Arkansas attorney who will now serve more than 7 years in prison plus 3 years probation after stealing $9.3 million from clients. His take? He was depressed and too proud to lay off staff, so instead of ‘embarrassing himself’ (his words, not mine) he solved his cash flow problems by dipping into the award his clients had in an escrow fund he controlled.
Think with me on this – you’ve just been sentenced to 7+ years, you’ve been paid $500K in compensation with more to come, and you didn’t want to ‘embarass’ yourself with a layoff? Maybe buying the commercial real estate, a community bank, an oil and gas exploration company, and a chain of car washes wasn’t such a good idea after all.
I’m always sad when I see an attorney go down the wrong path, but this is also a weird kind of proof that people just hate laying off employees more than anything else you can imagine. Business owners will do almost anything to avoid it – and in Cauley’s unfortunate case, he’s losing his reputation, his law license and years of his life.
It couldn’t possibly have been worth it.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional | Tags: headhunter, irritate, job, job search, Recruiter
There’s a lot of misunderstanding about how recruiters work and their role in a candidate’s job search. Many of us aren’t entirely clear about how to work with recruiters. But we are clear that a recruiter who detests you can stop your progress.
Here’s an idea. What if you knew five things that would make a recruiter hate you – I mean things that really irritate them – and you didn’t do them? Wouldn’t that speed up your search by eliminating a stumbling block? You bet it would.
Here they are:
1. Act as if you’re the only person they’re in contact with
Everyone knows that the way to get a recruiter’s attention is to monopolize their time, call frequently to make sure they’re on the job for you, and act as if their job is to get you a job, because it is, right?
Wake up. Recruiters are hired by companies to find the best candidates and help their client (the company) fill important positions more easily. I’ve said it before and here it is again – recruiters work for the companies that hire them.
Yes, they can’t get those candidates without having a huge contact list. Yes, you might be the right person for one of the positions they’ve got to fill. Yes, smart recruiters are very nice to work with.
But no, your helpful phone calls and pushy attitude won’t endear you.
The right way to do it is view the recruiter as an extension of the company. They’re the first screen. The recruiter can let you through the gate, but you’ve got to do more than that. You’ve got to give them a reason to champion your candidacy, not just support it.
Tell your story so well that the recruiter is excited about representing you to the company. When I worked with one of the best recruiters in Silicon Valley, she took extra care to get details from the top candidate that she knew would smooth the way for them.
2. Misunderstand your relationship with the recruiter
It’s great to develop a meaningful relationship with a recruiter. The last one you met was like your best friend – your sister, even. You could tell her everything – and did. The job didn’t work out, but, like, you’re buds, right?
Wrong. A recruiter may be friendly, but they are not your friend. You have a symbiotic relationship with them. Together and aligned, you can make wonderful things happen. To do that, be clear that they’re not a relative or friend.
You help the recruiter pay her mortgage, buy gas and put shoes on her children’s feet. But only if you have the skills to do the job and the social ability to fit into the work team and the company.
Don’t call the recruiter at midnight when your boyfriend dumps you. Don’t let them know that you just liquidated your 401K so that you won’t lose your house. Keep the conversation focused on the one thing that is important – being engaged in the process that leads you – step by step – to convince the people in the hiring company that you are the candidate they should make the offer to. Never forget that what you tell the recruiter will be circulated to the hiring company.
Finally, the recruiter is not your therapist.
3. Act as if they work for you
You’re bringing money to the recruiter because they get a huge commission with every placement – in fact, they’re swimming in cash. The more you think about it, you’re really the boss.
Sure. Believe that and call me immediately because I’ve just marked down the Brooklyn Bridge.
What the recruiter earns is none of your business. But for the record, companies are being more and more difficult with how much and the way recruiters are paid than ever before. Recruiting isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s time consuming, the clients are often tough to work with because they need someone excellent yesterday, and they have to sell the client on the top candidate.
Whoa! The recruiter has to sell the client? Yeah. It’s a shock, but there it is. The best recruiters know the people at their client company well, their likes and dislikes. Even though these are smart execs and managers, they want the recruiter to agree with them that Cal Montana is a great move for them – and for the company.
4. Lie
It’s no problem not to tell a recruiter the truth. They’ll never know and there’s no harm in it. Your friend Steve did it, got a great job offer and is working at the company of his dreams.
Lying to a recruiter is the same as lying to the hiring company. No matter when you do it, you’re placing your candidacy at risk. Don’t do it. Ever.
I’ve seen candidates who became employees fired more than ten years after the lie was told. Nothing will be worth it.
5. Be difficult and inconsiderate
You’re doing the recruiter a favor by helping them get their commission. And really, they should be taking your side on this little dispute with the company. So you said you’d call them yesterday and didn’t, so what? They’ll get over it when they get their check.
Attitude is important. In fact, even with more than the desired skills, if the recruiter doesn’t see you getting along well with interviewers and living up to your commitments, you’ll be toast.
They won’t get over it – they’ll get over you.
Every contact with the recruiter is an opportunity to prove that you’re a respectful, bright, capable person who will fit in and do the job. Don’t let yourself be lulled into complacency. A recruiter who sees a candidate unable to step up to the challenges of the hiring process will find a way to axe that person. Recruiters don’t win with clients when the candidate doesn’t stick and isn’t successful. You don’t have anything until you’ve started the job and completed the probation period. It’s critical to do your best all the time.
One candidate I worked with who was in the lead for a great job lost out because she wouldn’t agree to the title the company proposed. Know the ‘make or break’ and be aware of what you want vs. what you need.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: apply directly, headhunter, job, The Jobs Guy
There’s a great discussion going on over at The Jobs Guy about recruiters – with some recruiters participating to add spice. Hat tip to Ken Horst for getting the ball rolling on this.
The topic? Using a Headhunter vs. Applying Direct to a Company.
This is important to people at all levels, in all types of jobs. Here’s my take – do both.
In my experience, you get recruiter love when you’re a match for what they’re currently trying to fill. If they can see you in the spot, you’ve got their attention. That’s great when it works for you. And keep in mind that companies may be pitting 2-3 headhunters against one another in the mistaken notion that they’ll get the opening filled faster. Unfortunately, all that does is provide an opportunity for lots of confusion.
When you apply directly to a company, you control your own destiny. You’re not dependent on the recruiter, but you can be screened out just as quickly if you don’t present yourself as the right fit. Other difficulties? Apply too early in the cycle and it’s tough to get in. If you’re the first or second candidate, they’ll always want to see more and by the time they make the decision, they’ve forgotten a lot of the reasons why they were so impressed with you.
Between the two, I think a candidate’s time is better spent going direct.
Reserve about 10% of your total effort for recruiters and keep expanding your circle of relationships.
Filed under: General, Legal | Tags: Flip Chart Fairy Tales, job, libel, New Moon, UK
Let’s hop across the pond to the UK where Flip Chart Fairy Tales has an interesting post on some employee/employer litigation.
Employees are accusing a recruitment firm of abuse and as details have leaked, the employer has brought libel charges against them. It’s the first time I’ve heard of such a thing happening and I’m wondering if it’s going to migrate to the U.S.
You can see it – bad mouth a company in your blog, get a letter informing you that you’ll see them in court. And where does this leave HR? Like there’s a need for an additional warning in the employment contract about this – or a briefing for E-staff and directors to caution them to ‘watch for libel and notify HR as soon as you see evidence’? I can imagine that adding hugely to HR’s popularity. It’s not like there are spare cycles for it, with budgets as tight as they are.
There appears to be a big difference in libel laws between the UK and the US. Here, the presumption of innocence is maintained. In the UK, laws on this point are different. While innocence is presumed in other areas, when it comes to libel, you’d better be able to prove you’re innocent or you’re toast.
Employee – employer relationships can be freighted with all kinds of baggage, but I feel that it’s important to maintain the presumption of innocence in this area especially because it’s in alignment with our justice system and is fair to both the individual and the corporation.
Filed under: Executive, General, Legal, Professional, Recent Graduates | Tags: HR, Godin, PR, finance, DoD, DARPA, adaptable, adaptability
Seth Godin talked about market change and having the right tool the other day. His take? It’s particularly important to know what the right tool is and use it when the market changes.
I’ll go a step further and say that organizational need – and customer need – help dictate the tool you select.
In HR, things get done with people. In PR, it’s a news releases, social media, special events. In finance, the spreadsheet is often the tool of choice.
The key point? It really comes down to adaptability.
In ‘Unpacking Personal Adaptability at Work,’ David J. O’Connell, Eileen McNeely and Douglas T. Hall make a case for the importance of the highly adaptable worker:
If indeed personal adaptability is so central to career success, perhaps both individual workers and workplace managers have a role to play. Based on this study, the value of personal learning is clear. This should offer further encouragement to pursue both formal and informal educational opportunities on an ongoing basis. The finding that managerial support is related to personal adaptability raises the stakes for managers. By offering appropriate support to workers, it seems that managers may bolster individuals’ motivation and sense of competence in dealing with change.
The role of HR becomes leading managers to help the workers increase their adaptability.
While adaptability is seldom taught expressly, we learn it wherever we are. It’s called survival. If you’re a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan, survival is a result of hypervigilent awareness caused by adrenaline and your knowledge of danger. And if you’re deeply traumatized and develop PTSD, here’s how you are helped to adapt:
This vid from The New Yorker accurately depicts how the DoD uses video to train and help people adapt to war based on my experience writing a technical user manual for simulation software used by DARPA and the U.S. Army.
Adaptability isn’t a ‘nice to have’ in any situation – it’s the first tool in everyone’s kit.
