A response from Aubrey Daniels to my post about his Dan Pink Slam Post

A couple of days ago, I wrote a post called: http://www.managementcraft.com/2010/01/aubrey-daniels-versus-dan-pink-bam-management.html

Aubrey Daniels tried to leave a comment on that post, but the system did not let him because of its length. He emailed his comment to me and I said I would share it here.

See Aubrey Daniels' post about Dan Pink's book Drive here.

Find Dan Pink here.

See my original post here.

Now here is the comment from Aubrey Daniels. Thanks, Aubrey, for taking the time to share this!

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Lisa,

Thanks for the comments about my blog post about Pink. I would love to have a long discussion about this whole topic with you and Pink as well but lacking that I will make a few comments about your post.

The issue about intrinsic motivation is not its importance at work or in the rest of our lives, but how to create it.  How is it that people come to love their work?  Were they born loving a particular job?  Can you decrease intrinsic motivation?  Can you increase it?  If the answer is yes, then it follows that the environment is responsible.  Some environments increase intrinsic motivation and some decrease them.  The science of behavior analysis seeks to understand just how that happens. 

I have been working in the private sector for about 40 years and I can tell you that we have seen many examples where managers have "tapped into that inner fire" and turned a dreadful workplace into one where discretionary effort is the norm.

You say we need to "build our organizations around the idea of how can we work so that everyone can and will be driven to do their best work."  I certainly agree, hence my book, Bringing Out the Best in People.  You also say we should train managers differently.  I also agree but quite frankly I don't know how to do that without some pretty specific guidance, even to the point of using templates and routines.  When you have a manager who for decades has never told one employee that he liked, valued or appreciated her work, how do you get him to the point of showing "admiration, gratitude, and care.?"  It is not easy but we think it is worth the effort.

My bottom line is that everybody has opinions about motivation but until the subject is researched scientifically, we will never know which opinions are correct.  In the meantime, if we are wrong we can not only decrease intrinsic motivation but severely limit employee's ability to express themselves fully in all aspects of their lives.

In the last hundred years, behavior analysis, the science of behavior, has discovered a lot about why we behave as we do.  Unfortunately, most people (including Dan Pink) don't know it. Until they do we will continue to waste time, our most precious resource, being influenced by persuasive opinions even when they are "wrong headed."

Aubrey C. Daniels

 

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I believe in good, healthy, debate about things of importance like these, and I thank Aubrey Daniels for taking the time to share his thoughts on Management Craft. In his comment, he asked:

When you have a manager who for decades has never told one employee that he liked, valued or appreciated her work, how do you get him to the point of showing "admiration, gratitude, and care?"

This is a common problem, for sure. I would first ask, what is the root cause of the problem? On what basis is this manager deciding what to do, what to communicate, and how to manage? Often what I see is that the only training this manager has received has reinforced the wrong things (paternal practices, a focus on extrinsics, and that people are essentially machines - although it is usually phrased less directly) and that what needs to happen so that the manager can improve is a shift in his or her thinking about how to best manage people. Well intended structure with forms and check sheets will only reinforce the old and inadequate beliefs that underlie a detached management style.

Aubrey also asserts that he thinks we need to give managers pretty specific guidance. I wonder if he is suggesting that I think managers ought to be taught abstract and broad concepts and not trained on the specifics of what great management looks like. Actually, Aubrey, you and I agree that specifics are important. I think that the specifics we each recommend would be quite different, however (as related to motivation).

Also, I think that we know more about motivation - scientifically - than Daniels seems to believe.

What's your take? Read all the posts and information and weigh in. This is fun!

Comments

[Tim Griffith]

What an interesting debate!

The descriptions on both sides remind me of what some would call "transformational" (intrinsic) and "transactional" (extrinsic) leadership.

I've been reading on how different leadership styles can be more or less effective in different cultures, and it's been interesting to learn how one style or another may work well in one culture, but less in another. And in the research I've seen so far (and I think people on both sides of this argument would agree), the "laissez-faire" style is generally ineffective.

Personally I find myself believing in the both/and more than the either/or side.

I wonder if we could take it back to Herzberg's motivation and hygiene factors, aligning extrinsic motivation with hygiene (i.e. it has to be there to some degree), and aligning instrinsic motivation with Herzberg's motivators (i.e. if the basic external mechanisms are in place, the instrinsic, transformational style is what drives passionate and creative work).

What do you think?

[lisa haneberg]

Tim - thanks for weighing in! The only downside to using both ways to motivate performance is in circumstances where extrinsic motivators wreck intrinsic motivation and where creative and engaged thinking is needed. In these sitautions, our good intentions can backfire.

[Tim Griffith]

I read this blog this morning and couldn't help but think of this debate - it lends support to the notion that sometimes extrinsic motivators can actually keep people from doing their best!

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/02/a-story-about-motivation.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

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Thanks for the information! The issue about intrinsic motivation is not its importance at work or in the rest of our lives, but how to create it. How is it that people come to love their work? Were they born loving a particular job? Can you decrease intrinsic motivation? Can you increase it? If the answer is yes, then it follows that the environment is responsible. Some environments increase intrinsic motivation and some decrease them. The science of behavior analysis seeks to understand just how that happens.