Another Comment on the Daniels-Pink Debate Post - More on Motivation #management

Bret is a reader of Management Craft. He tried to leave a comment (on this post about the Aubrey Daniels slam on Dan Pink's book Drive) but was unable due to length (again!). I looked at my Typepad settings and could not find anything I could check or uncheck to change the allowable length of comments, sorry! I don't quite know why this is happening. Here is Bret's comments, my thoughts at the end:

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Hi Lisa:

Great series you have going over there! I hate to be negative, but your blog platform is not facilitating conversation. It is VERY hard to leave anything but a short comment at your blog. 

Here is a comment I tried to post but failed (ugh). 

Once again, Lisa, a GREAT post you have going here. Let me again preface my comments by saying I have yet to read either of the books these guys have written, and let me remind you that I AM a behavioral scientist. I personally would never even consider trying to do a scientific study on motivation - it is just too difficult. I always try to *explain* some aspect of behavior in every study I do, but I never try to package  that in a motivation theory framework.  And even if a study can show a *correlation* between some personality trait, individual attitude, or organizational level variable and some behavior (e.g. performance), VERY, VERY few have ever been able to show causality. We just can't design field studies (those where real people do real work) to control all the variance (possible alternative explanation) to establish that any variable caused any behavior. 

I actually do like broad concepts (theory) because that helps managers understand why people might do the things they do. Remember, most of the "hows" have not been supported by rigorous research. 

Great stuff! thanks, Bret

--
Bret Simmons

www.bretlsimmons.com 

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Thanks, Bret. I appreciate your comment and that you took extra energy to get it to me by email.

I like giving managers both the concepts and some specifics and here is why. I think it is helpful to facilitate a deeper understanding with examples and "what this might look like in practice." Take something seemingly simple like:

• Showing we care
• Removing obstacles
• Collaboration
• Partnership
• Catalytic coaching
• Clarifying expectations

I have worked with managers who thought they knew what these practices looked like and would have said they are using them. But when we talk about some specifics - what it looks like on a daily and weekly basis, what it looks like in action at a staff meeting, what it looks like in a morning huddle, etc... they find that they did not understand the practice and that they are not currently doing this much at all. The specifics are not the ONLY ways - they are examples of ways for doing _____.

Organizations spend a lot of time defining desired practices, expectations, core competencies, values, and such but not nearly enough time training managers on what this looks like at their level and what this looks like on an every day basis.

I recently designed a four-hour class, for example, that does only one thing - it takes two concepts (accountability and ownership) and progressively drills down on what they are, how they are different, and the daily and weekly actions supervisors do that affect both.

Comments

[Scot Herrick]

Lisa - this is the great disconnect between management theory and practice. The theory is great (provable or not), but no one gets to the level of detail that you are doing in your class to help managers actually manage to the theory.

When you get down to how managers work with people in cubes, it is sooo inconsistent that theories mean nothing. We need to improve the management practice. Good to see you go after this.

[Bret Simmons]

Theories mean EVERYTHING! Without a good theory - an understanding of WHY things might work - all a manager can do is wait to have someone tell them what to do. I call that spoonfeeding and it is allowing yourself to become dependent on someone else (e.g. a consultant). It you will struggle with the theory, you can create a new and unique solution for you and your people instead of copying what someone else has done and hoping that it works.

[lisa haneberg]

Scot and Bret - I see that BOTH theory and spcecific are the key to creating understanding and application. I don't want the specifics to be so prescriptive that it leads to management by the numbers. And I don't want the theories to be so abstract that managers give up because they can't amekt he connection between the concept and how they ought to manage.

[College Term Papers]

Thanks for this info, this issue has been bugging me like crazy for the last couple of days