Overcoming Einstein’s Law of Insanity – A Review of “Drive” by Daniel Pink

We have all heard variations of Einstein’s Law of Insanity – to expect a different result from doing the same thing over and over.

Unfortunate confirmation of the pervasiveness of this law is all around us in the form of people and organizations who keep making the same mistakes over and over, constantly repeating failure or diminished results without appearing to learn from previous efforts.

While such behavior can be fatal and at the very least, demotivating and demoralizing, we continue to do it anyway.

Why?

Creatures of Habit – Breaking the Habit Before it Breaks Us

Being creatures of habit, we often will not follow a different path unless we are forced to or we are offered a significant motivation to change.  Surprisingly, fear of failure for many people is not sufficient motivation, since they believe that they will always save themselves right before things collapse completely.

How do we change our motivation model and therefore our results?

If you are a leader, owner or advisor to companies who suffer from the results of Einstein’s Law of Insanity, then you need to apply a cranial defibrillator to the head of the leadership team (or perhaps have someone apply it to you).

Daniel Pink’s latest book, “Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” is such a cranial defibrillator.

I found Mr. Pink’s book to be a blast (not just a breath) of fresh air.

Using a writing style that is engaging, informative and enjoyable, Mr. Pink takes the last 50 years of research in diagnosing and improving motivational behaviors and presents it to the reader in such a way that the reader says “Duh … of course”.

Now That We Know What Motivates and Demotivates

Having come to such obvious conclusions, then the reader is forced to ask themselves these questions.

Why am I not doing this? 

Why is my organization not doing this? 

How can we change how we motivate ourselves and others?

“Drive” explains what motivates and demotivates us personally and professionally. 

The author adeptly describes models commonly used today, including the carrot and stick model, which we use to motivate people but in fact, in most situations, are actually demotivating them instead.

Mr. Pink posits that it is important to understand intrinsic and extrinsic motivators before blindly applying such models.  Intrinsic motivators are the things that motivate us from within (based on our purpose, passion and sense of self-fulfillment) while extrinsic motivators are external factors that are offered in an attempt to motivate people or artificially guide results.

Implementing New Models

Many books in this genre tend to end discussions about motivation with fuzzy conclusions, leaving the reader hanging; wondering “ok, you’ve got me all excited but how do I move towards a better model?”.

Mr. Pink doesn’t disappoint.  The last part of his book contains a toolkit with practical strategies and ideas to enhance motivational improvement in a number of areas.  He offers guidance for individuals, organizations and parents for a variety of scenarios.

He closes his book with a wealth of guidance from experts who “get it”, the likes of Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, Gary Hamel and more.

Without a doubt, I rank this book as one of the top books in its space in terms of addressing how to motivate yourself and others.

The next time you or your organization needs a little ummph added to the team’s level of motivation, forget about people who sell you rah-rah corporate events or tell you that you just need to communicate more effectively. 

I blogged recently about how hundreds of us were once flown across the country so that we could literally play “pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey” at a corporate motivation-builder event.  I don’t know how you would react, but personally I was offended for my team and I to be treated like 5-years-olds at incredible expense and my client was incensed to hear that we were out of the office for a few days for a truly non-essential event.

Don’t fall into this trap and don’t allow your teams to be further demotivated.

Instead, pick up a copy of Daniel Pink’s book “Drive”, strap on your seatbelt and prepare to be whisked into a new paradigm – a paradigm where we finally embrace a true understanding of what motivates ourselves and others and shows how to use that information to create greater productivity and a sense of fulfillment – both personally and professionally.

It will one of the most refreshing and informative books you will have read for a while.

And it could change your life and the life of your company.

I choose transforming my knowledge, execution and sense of purpose over pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey any day of the week.

How about you?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog on “Overcoming Einstein’s Law of Insanity – A Review of “Drive” by Daniel Pink”, please click here.

Collaboration – Life Lessons From a Sandbox

Collaboration, teamwork, empowered teams ….

Buzzwords that we like to throw around, brag about, lay claim to and espouse as our personal mantra when telling others the “secret to our success”.

Collaboration was on my mind as I watched a group of kids playing in a sandbox and as I observed their behaviors, it occurred to me that it may be possible to predict tomorrow’s collaborators just by observing these young people.

The kids fell into a variety of different groups.

The “Results and Fun” Group

The kids who were focused on having fun and accomplishing the desired result.  They mattered to each other.  Ego wasn’t important.  They represented human creativity and collaboration at its best.

The “My Way is the Best Way” Group

They struggled with whose idea was best.  During the fighting, some would start to cry and leave the group.  Some left in anger.  Some left in boredom when they realized their contribution didn’t matter.

Some stayed anyway, contributed for a bit and then suddenly kicked the castle down because they never liked it anyway – their idea was much better.

The “My Way is the Only Way” Group of One

One kid was building castles by himself.  It didn’t take very long to figure out why.  Every time another kid showed up to help, the first kid would say “I want you to do this or that”.  When the new child would offer a new idea, it was promptly rejected.  Some kids were more stubborn than others in pressing their point of view but eventually, the stubbornness of the one kid was too much and the others left.

The “If I Wanted  Your Opinion I’d Give it to You” Group

One kid who struggled with his castle asked others who were successful for help and when they told him what he was doing wrong, he told them they were wrong.  The kid went back to his castle, got angry and stomped on it, walking away from it.  He was frustrated with failure, not realizing that he was the cause of it.

The “Teamwork in Name Only” Group

One group of interest built a decent little sand castle and the parents were called over to admire it.  One kid prattled on and on about “the best castle in the park that he built”.  I’m sure the hearts of the other kids sank as they listened to him – the potential for a collaborative spirit being torn out of them by one person seizing the rewards. 

The “Non-Creative Way is Safest” Group

This is the group who constantly turned down one kid’s creative contributions with responses like “if we do that, it will fall down anyway so we won’t do it”.  The new kid offered a few suggestions as to why that wouldn’t happen and then walked away to play on the swings.  The potential for a great castle died because the strongest personality in the group didn’t like the idea.

The “I Don’t Like Any Of Your Ways” Group

This group was the saddest group of all.  They in fact were not building anything in the sand.  However, they took delight in occasionally running through the sandbox, destroying everyone else’s work.

They had no intention of creating anything.  Maybe they felt they couldn’t.  I don’t know.  All I know is that they didn’t want anyone else to create anything either.

Looking In My Own Sandbox

The sandbox was in fact a microcosm of the world I have been a part of for a long time.

We have all seen failures that fall into one of these groups – the leader who would not share credit but preferred the glory, the leader who delegated all the blame, the bully who crushed creativity and contribution, the leader who only liked their own ideas and nobody else’s or the leader who seemed to exist to take the wind out of the sails of others, crushing their projects and dreams without offering a contribution of his / her own.

The people who failed missed the key ingredient that the first group I described knew all along.

The first group knew that we need each other.

That our collective ideas are stronger than single ideas.

That focusing on our result and not on our ego produces a better result.

That sharing the credit encourages us to continue to work together on new projects and assures us that others will stick around to help us with the next sand castle.

That embracing team creativity takes all of us further than if we chose to follow our own ideas only.

Maybe the next time a team is looking for a consultant to help them solve their collaboration problems, maybe we should pay a bunch of kids $1000 a day to allow us to sit and observe them.

They will not offer us “stuff” to please our ego or to tell us what we want to hear.  They will not offer advice influenced by their own life experiences which may be empowering or disempowering.

They will just be themselves and in doing so, place staggeringly profound lessons in front of us.

If we are open to those lessons, it may be the most authentic lessons we will ever learn, lessons that are placed in front of us with no ulterior motive.

Aren’t they the most profound lessons of all?

I wish you well with your own “sand castles”.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog “Collaboration – Life Lessons From a Sandbox”, please click here.

Fellowship

It is a cool, sunlit day and as I scan the faces of those in attendance at today’s Remembrance Day ceremony, my gaze falls upon one person in particular.

He is not standing with the throngs that have gathered to honor those who serve and who have served.  He is elderly, perhaps 80’s or 90’s in age and is in uniform.  The sun is behind him and casts him in shadow as he stands on a small hill overlooking the ceremony.

He stands alone.

As I listened to the prayers and speeches being made, I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking.

Was he thinking about the horrors he may have experienced?

Perhaps he was remembering the good times that also manifest in the midst of the nightmare of conflict.

It’s possible he was thinking about his comrades – his brothers-in-arms who went forward together and experienced times of mirth and moments of horror.

His comrades and many other men and women sacrificed much to preserve our freedom.  They are part of a fellowship that those of us who have never served will probably never understand or truly appreciate.

When the ceremony was over, I looked in his direction with intent to walk over to him.

He was gone.

Seeing this man and pondering what he might be thinking got me to thinking about fellowship in general and how much we cherish those whom we serve with.

We often take the concept of fellowship and camaraderie for granted.  We reach out to people once in a while with a cursory “how’s it going?” and often receive a perfunctory “fine”, “good” or something similar in return.  We often respond in the same manner when queried.

When I compare the depth of the fellowship that those who have served have compared to many of us in today’s society, it makes me realize what a gift their fellowship is.

They knew that they could always rely on their comrades.  Their comrades also knew that they could always rely on them in return – no matter what the cost.

How many of us can say this about the people within our circles of influence?

How many people can say this about us?

To those who have served, to those who serve, to the ones who have paid the supreme sacrifice and to all of their families, I say “thank you”.

We not only owe them an incredible debt of gratitude for the freedom they earned for us.

They also offer us incredibly powerful lessons in fellowship and camaraderie that would serve us well to understand and learn from.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog about “Fellowship”, please click here.