Yesterday, I had the pleasure of hearing Dan Pink, author of Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It was a packed room.
I love to hear people who have captured something that I have always felt and understood, but never managed to find the words to capture it. I am grateful to them, because when they put it into words, and it becomes popular, I feel justified and emboldened.
That is what I hope to do someday with the concept of Harmony. I hope to put it into words in a succinct enough and clear enough way, and show enough examples, that more people will embrace it, adopt it, strive for it, and ENJOY IT!
If you haven’t read Dan Pink's book – I strongly recommend it for people that manage people, for people that work, and for parents.
The gist of his message and the book is that our motivation is driven mainly by three things:
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
This conclusion is arrived at by study that audited a group of employees from all over the country in many types of jobs. It’s objective data.
So, what does this have to do with harmony?
Have you ever been in a situation where you are trying to get someone who works for you to do something? Achieve some goal?
Have you ever been in a situation with a child (likely above 7 or 8) where you wanted them to achieve something?
So, the absolute truth of our motivation, is that we are most engaged when:
we get to set our own direction (and goals)
we are learning or doing something particularly well
we understand the real purpose of our activity.
Is this surprising? Probably not. What is surprising, is that studies have shown that for jobs that require at least “rudimentary cognitive activities”, incenting people with money actually produces lower performance.
Harmony is about moving ourselves, our companies, our families toward where we want them to be…
Drive is the impetus, the self motivation to move toward that goal.
When we understand the purpose (or the absolute truth) of the activity we achieve significantly better results at achieving what is desired of us. The study that drove this, actually had call center employees read a letter from someone who benefitted from the non-profit company for which the employees were calling to fundraise. They read different letters everyday before making calls – and they produced more than twice the collections.
I need to work to find more objective data and studies that demonstrates the efficacy of an approach of Harmony vs Disharmony.
Those types of studies bring real credibility to the concept.
So many books (non-fiction) that I read about strategy, performance, management speak so specifically to the concept that if you start the activity / moment from a place of understanding and getting close to the absolute truth, the why, the whole perspective… you then achieve the desired want so much more frequently.
While I want to make this whole concept better understood and embraced, I struggle with whether objective data or story telling of anecdotes is most effective.
Chances are we benefit from understanding both.
Dan Pink ask yesterday, “Just ask people about their “favorite boss” ever and see what they say?”
You could use the same approach to harmony…
You should try this…
Think of the moments in your life when you have felt most happy, most successful, most satisfied. What exactly were you feeling at that moment?
I think it is easier for us to look at it the opposite way, at least for me…
Think of moments in your life when you have felt most anxious, most stressed, most distraught. What exactly were you feeling at that moment?
The thing about HARMONY… in life… you can’t SEE it. You can’t HEAR it. You can’t touch it… BUT YOU CAN FEEL IT!
Be aware of feelings of harmony and disharmony, and tease out exactly the thoughts in your head.
When you do that, you can then redirect your thoughts back to gratitude, back to the why you do what you do… and find your DRIVE again back to HARMONY…
Nestor Benavides