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  • [applause]

  • >>Teresa Amabile: Thank you so much. I'm really delighted to be here. And please don't feel

  • shy. Come on down in front. I'd love to have people sitting down close. I get a lot of

  • energy from being able to talk to you in this way. I'm really excited to be here and to

  • be able to share with you some, what I think, are some fairly surprising results from our

  • recent research.

  • The basic research question is a pretty simple one. What makes people happy, motivated, productive,

  • and creative at work? Now obviously, this is a pretty important question because presumably,

  • we all want to be happy and motivated at work. And our organizations want us to be creative

  • and productive.

  • But the answer to this question really isn't very simple at all. For one thing, do these

  • even go together? Think about the prototypical starving artist. Do happiness and creativity

  • work in the same direction or might they work in opposition? Another question about this.

  • Should managers care how happy people are at work? And also, what influences any of

  • these? Take creativity for example. People have been wondering about creativity at least

  • since the time of Plato. I, myself, have been studying creativity since I was about five

  • years old.

  • Really. True. At least, that's the first time I remember hearing the word "creativity."

  • I was in kindergarten and I overheard my kindergarten teacher tell my mother, "I think Teresa shows

  • a lot of potential for artistic creativity and I hope that's something she really develops

  • over the years."

  • I was ecstatic when I heard this. I don't think I really knew what creativity meant,

  • but it sounded good. I was glad I had it. And I was looking forward to a lifetime as

  • a creative artist. Well, unfortunately, that kindergarten year was the high point of artistic

  • career.

  • [laughter]

  • I really have never done anything with art after that, and I've often thought about why.

  • What is it that happened to that promised artistic creativity? As I look back on it,

  • I think it might have had something to do with the kind of day by day experiences that

  • I had with art in those years following.

  • So, kindergarten was in a very progressive, open-school kind of situation where we had

  • a lot of free play time and a lot of access to these wonderful art materials all day.

  • The following year, my parents enrolled me in a very strict, traditional, parochial school.

  • There it is. St. Joe's Elementary in North Tonawanda, New York. Doesn't that look like

  • a lot of fun?

  • [laughter]

  • So, at St. Joe's, art, rather than being something that we did all the time every day, art became

  • a subject that we had once a week. And every week, we got the same, pretty bizarre activity

  • given to us. We were each given a small reprint of one the great masterworks in painting and

  • we were asked to copy it.

  • So, this is something that we got in Second Grade--da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi. And

  • we were told to copy this with absolutely no skill training and with material that looked

  • pretty much like this.

  • [laughter]

  • This was obviously an exercise in frustration. And what's more, we were really strictly graded

  • on these monstrosities we produced. Mine were true monstrosities. I couldn't even figure

  • out how to get all those horses and Saints on the page, let alone make them look like

  • horses and Saints.

  • And there was only one time in all those years in school that I heard the word "creative."

  • I decided to do something interpretive on this particular day. I was doing something

  • abstract during art. And I heard the nun walking up the aisle. And then, I noticed that she

  • stopped by my desk and she was looking down at me.

  • And then I heard her say, "I think maybe we're being a little too creative."

  • [laughter]

  • I was mortified when she said this. I was embarrassed. I was angry. I looked at her

  • as being a cruel person. I saw myself as being ridiculous. And I certainly lost all of my

  • motivation at that point for doing anything with art. It was like the last straw in my

  • drive to do anything with art as a kid.

  • Now, in an adult at work, I would call that kind of reaction "poor inner work life." Let

  • me show you what I mean by inner work life. It's the combination of perceptions, emotions,

  • and motivations that people experience at they're reacting to and trying to make sense

  • of the events going on in their work day.

  • So, inner work life consists of perceptions. That is, your thoughts, impressions, your

  • judgments about the place where you work, your co-workers, your bosses, the work that

  • you're doing--even yourself as an employee. So, those are your perceptions. It's also

  • your motivations, your emotions and your emotional reactions to what's happening with what's

  • going on.

  • And also, you're general mood on a given day. And it's your motivation for doing the work.

  • And we found that the most important motivation for creativity is what we call "intrinsic

  • motivation." And that's your passion for doing what you're doing, your drive to do it because

  • you find it interesting, exciting, because you're personally challenged by it.

  • So this complex of psychological experiences are inner work life. Inner work life is called

  • "inner" because it's mostly hidden. Let me give you an example of this. Have you ever

  • been in a business meeting with higher status people? When one of those people says something

  • so outrageous that you're momentarily stunned--I see some heads nodding--I think many of us

  • had had that experience.

  • So, did you say what you were thinking? If you're like me and most people, you didn't.

  • Do you let it show on your face? If you're like me, you did something like this.

  • [laughter]

  • When, in fact, you wanted to react by saying, "What? What did you just say?" So, it's really

  • hidden away. Co-workers are often not aware on inner work life and bosses certainly aren't

  • aware of it, especially if the reaction is negative. But does it matter?

  • Does it really matter what people's innermost thoughts, feelings, are at work? In short,

  • you bet it does. It matters a lot. In fact, inner work life is a central construct in

  • our research. It matters a great deal for the work that people do and it matters for

  • the people doing that work.

  • I'm going to illustrate the importance of inner work life by telling you two contrasting

  • stories of two companies from our research. I think of these companies in Dickensonian

  • terms. The best of time and the worst of times.

  • Because the worst company, in terms of employee engagement and actual success, was like the

  • evil twin of the best company in our research, because these two companies were oddly similar

  • before we started our research. They were both very well-known companies.

  • I can't tell you the real names, by the way. I'm gonna use disguise names because we have

  • some pretty confidential information on them. Very well-known companies, very profitable

  • and known as the innovative leaders in their industries. I'm gonna start with the worst.

  • And it's a company that we call "Karpenter Corporation." It's one of the best-known consumer

  • products brands in the world. Imagine that you're standing with your co-workers in the

  • parking lot of the building where you work. And you're watching silently as the contents

  • of that building are being auctioned off--your computers, CADs, work stations, your desks,

  • your telephones.

  • Your chairs are being auctioned off. You used to be proud to work for this particular company

  • because it was known for its really cool innovative products. But the last few years, innovation

  • began to fizzle, profitability tanked. The company was acquired by a smaller rival and

  • now it's being completely closed down.

  • And it's breaking your heart. That's the story of Karpenter Corporation. And it's the story

  • of the demise of one of the great consumer products companies of the 20th Century. Now,

  • let me tell you about the best of times. A company that we call "O'Reilly Coated Materials."

  • This company makes coated fabrics for weather-proof clothing and a wide variety of other products

  • that are known around the world. We studied Karpenter and O'Reilly at roughly the same

  • time period. And they actually use a lot of the same raw materials, so the economic conditions

  • for these two companies were pretty similar.

  • And yet, Karpenter lies dead and O'Reilly is still at the top of its industry and is

  • still known as the innovative leader. So, what made the difference between these two

  • companies that looked so similar at one point? My research team and I studied these companies

  • in real time in great detail and I can tell you what it's not.

  • It's not any of these things because the two companies were the same, essentially, on all

  • of these aspects. Both public companies. Both had similar incentive systems. Because they

  • were so well-known, they were able to hire the cream of the crop in their disciplines,

  • highly-skilled employees, and we had personality profiles on people in these companies.

  • And there were no differences. The personality profiles were in the normal range. So, my

  • co-author, Steve Kramer, and I are both psychologists. We're not the kind of psychologists who can

  • cure your neurosis for you, but we are able to give you a view of what really happens

  • inside organizations.

  • And when we took this deep look into these companies, we realized that what really differentiated

  • them was inner work life--the inner work life experiences that their employees were having

  • day by day. So it turns out that shortly before we started our study, a new management team

  • had come in at Karpenter.

  • And by what they said and did every day, they slowly changed the climate at Karpenter. And

  • they essentially poisoned inner work life. And this is something that we saw happening

  • day by day. So, let me tell you a little something about how we got our look at inner work life.

  • It is hidden most of the time. We decided that the best way to get a window into what

  • was really going on was to ask people working on creative projects to send us daily confidential

  • electronic diaries describing what had gone on for them in their own work experience that

  • day and what their inner work life was like for that day.

  • So that's what we did--daily, confidential, electronic diaries. We studied three industries

  • in this entire project, a total of seven companies in these industries, 26 creative project teams.

  • These are projects that required creativity. They required innovative solutions in order

  • to be done successfully.

  • In these 26 creative project teams, we had a total of 238 professionals participating

  • in the research. Because they participated every day during the entire course of the

  • project they were working on, we amassed a total of nearly 12 thousand daily diary reports,

  • which we were able to analyze.

  • This was a real treasure trove of data for us. We had numerical data. We actually had

  • day by day scale ratings from these people of what their inner work life was like--their

  • perceptions, their emotions, and their motivation. We also had numerical data on their performance.

  • Quite apart from their diaries, we had performance ratings by co-workers and supervisors throughout

  • the entire course of the time that we were studying these people. And we actually had

  • behavioral measures, too. I'll tell you a little bit more about that in just a minute.

  • To me, the most interesting part of the daily diaries were the stories that we got about

  • people's days. So, at the end of the diary form, we asked a question: "Briefly describe

  • one event from today that stands out in your mind from the work day. It can be anything

  • at all."

  • These stories were incredibly rich, often very detailed accounts of something that had

  • actually happened that day in these people's work lives. Let me give you an example of

  • some of these diaries that we got. This first one is from a product manager at Karpenter

  • Corporation named Sophie.

  • That's what we call her anyway. This was one of Sophie's worst days during the time that

  • we were studying Karpenter Corporation.

  • She said, "I don't understand why R&D kills so many of my projects, yet I'm supposedly

  • measured on new product development. The VP of R&D killed my new hand-held mixer three

  • times before it was approved a couple weeks ago. Very conflicting goals causing us to

  • start, stop, restart, etc."

  • This really was a worst day for Sophie. Her intrinsic motivation on this day was over

  • two and a half standard deviations below her own baseline. And her affect, her mood for

  • the day, was one and a half standard deviations below her own baseline.

  • Now for contrast, this is a diary from someone in O'Reilly Corporation, two thousand miles

  • away, almost at exactly the same point in time.

  • This is a team leader named Dave. "Presented 1.5 hoursworth of technical data, market

  • information, process capability and cost information in the project review. The review was very

  • well-received. Much assistance was given and we passed. We were allowed to go on to the

  • next stage."

  • Dave's intrinsic motivation on this day was almost one standard deviation above his average.

  • And his mood for the day was one and a half standard deviations above his average. So,

  • this was a best day for Dave. And I could give you lots of examples just like this from

  • O'Reilly Corporation.

  • I could also give you many examples like Sophie's from Karpenter Corporation--many days where

  • that kind of thing happened to a variety of people. Now let me tell you something about

  • how we measured creativity. We got a quasi-behavioral measure by looking at what people reported

  • doing that day in their diary.

  • Now, we didn't tell them that we were looking for creativity, that we wanted them to tell

  • us about their new ideas. In fact, we didn't even say that we were focusing on creativity

  • in this study. But if they happened to report that they came up with a new idea on a given

  • day, or that they solved a complex problem, we counted that as an example of creativity.

  • So here's an example from a different company. This is a high-tech firm. This is from an

  • engineer's diary. He said, "Working on the details of how the image will be produced,

  • I really got into the problem and came up with an elegant method for dealing with overloaded

  • tasks."

  • So when we put these creativity data and our other performance data together with inner

  • work life data, we made our first discovery. We call it the "inner work life effect." And

  • that is that inner work life drives performance. We found that all three aspects of inner work

  • life--perceptions, emotions, and motivation--predict four dimensions of performance.

  • When people have more positive perceptions of their organization, their co-workers, their

  • bosses, the work that they're doing, when they have more pleasant emotions like feeling

  • happy, feeling proud, and when they feel stronger intrinsic motivation, on those days they're

  • more likely to be creative, productive, committed to the work, and they're likely to be better

  • colleagues to the people around them.

  • So for instance, one study that we did, we found that when people had more positive emotions

  • on one day, they were more likely to have creative ideas that day. And not only that,

  • they were more likely to have creative ideas the following day. Even controlling for that

  • next day's mood.

  • So we found a carryover effect of positive emotion on creative thinking. You could call

  • this inner work life effect, the Zappos effect. You're probably familiar with the fact that

  • Zappos has built this online commerce powerhouse in part, based on the happiness philosophy

  • of CEO, Tony Hsieh.

  • He says, "We believe you can't have happy customers unless you have happy employees."

  • And there are a number of people who really believe that the happiness philosophy is at

  • least in part responsible for the very high-quality work you see at Zappos from people, whether

  • they're working in those call centers, taking customer orders and dealing with customer

  • issues, or whether they're working in the bustling warehouses.

  • So, this is an anecdote that supports the inner work life effect we found. But there

  • was another study that came out just a few months ago that gives further support to the

  • inner work life effect. These researchers used a very different methodology. They have

  • survey data from over 140 thousand employees in a variety of companies, business units,

  • a variety of industries around the world.

  • They wanted to see what effect job satisfaction and people's perceptions of their work environment,

  • basically, what effect inner work life would have on bottom line performance of the company.

  • They found that when a business unit's employees had higher levels of job satisfaction and

  • more positive perceptions of their managers, their co-workers, and their jobs, at one point

  • in time, that business unit at a later point in time was more likely to have higher sales

  • growth, greater profitability, higher levels of customer loyalty, and greater employee

  • retention.

  • So think about it. Inner work life leads to better bottom line performance for companies.

  • So, if inner work life drives performance--and it does--what drives inner work life? We decided

  • to take a look at this by isolating the very best inner work life days from those 12 thousand

  • days of data that we had and understanding what events actually happened on those days--categorizing

  • the events, coding them.

  • And contrasting the events on the best inner work life days with those on the very worst

  • inner work life days. And when we did this, we found that one kind of event stood out

  • on those best days. Simply, making progress in meaningful work. We call this the "progress

  • principle."

  • The number one driver of inner work life is progress in meaningful work. And let me just

  • say something about meaningful work. To take a random example, people might find it motivating

  • to work for a company where the mission is to organize all of the world's information

  • and make it universally accessible and useful.

  • And even if a company doesn't have such a lofty goal, as long as people, as individuals,

  • can see a connection between what they're doing every day and something that they value,

  • something that has a sense of purpose for them, as long as that's true, then making

  • progress can ignite their inner work lives.

  • [pause]

  • Interestingly, this can happen in a variety of ways. Let me show you how prominent progress

  • is on the very best days at work. When people are feeling happiest, most intrinsically motivated,

  • and having the most positive perceptions about their work environment, progress dominates

  • all other events.

  • It's by far the most common event on those best days at work. Setbacks are the opposite

  • of progress. And that means being blocked in the work in some way, having obstacles,

  • feeling that you're stalled or that you're actually moving backward. And setbacks were

  • quite minimal on the best days at work.

  • The worst days at work are almost exactly the opposite. Setbacks dominate on those days.

  • They dwarf all other events. And progress is much less common. So, the progress principle

  • isn't just about progress. It's also about setbacks. As a pair of contrasting events,

  • these two are the number one differentiators between best and worst inner work life days.

  • But the progress principle isn't only about huge breakthroughs and devastating failures.

  • One of our most surprising findings is that even small events can have a huge impact on

  • inner work life. Even making small, incremental steps forward in the work can lead people

  • to feel great.

  • And we call this "the power of small wins." I'm gonna give you an example of this from

  • a diary of an engineer named Tom. This happened after he had finally defeated a bug in some

  • software that he was trying to create.

  • He said, "I smashed that software bug that's been frustrating me for almost a calendar

  • week. That may not be an event to you, but I live a very drab life. So, I'm all hyped.

  • No one really knows about it. Three of the team members who had been involved are out

  • today. So, I have to sit here rejoicing in my solitary smugness."

  • Doesn't Tom sound happy there? We found that 28 percent of small events can have a major

  • impact on inner work life. Twenty-eight percent. There are a number of interesting things in

  • this diary of Tom's that I just read. First of all, Tom tells us about the causal link.

  • He doesn't just say that he made progress, he defeated this bug and he felt good. He

  • tells us that he felt good because he made progress. And we saw this over and over again

  • when people reported making progress in their work. They said that they reacted very positively

  • to it.

  • The other thing to notice is that this was just a bug. In the grand scheme of Tom's work

  • on this project and the grand scheme of his professional life, it was no big deal. But

  • it was. It was a big deal to him on the day that it happened. Unfortunately, it operates

  • in the negative direction, too.

  • So, small losses can have a pretty significant negative impact on inner work life. And unfortunately,

  • setbacks in the work have a negative effect that's two to three times more powerful in

  • the negative direction than the positive effect of progress on inner work life.

  • So there are a couple of implications here. One is, it's really important to try to minimize

  • inhibitors to progress, minimize things that can lead to setbacks in the work. Even, and

  • maybe especially, minor daily hassles in getting good work done.

  • Another implication is that if you have big, audacious goals for a project, which is great--it's

  • wonderful to have goals like that--it's really helpful to chunk those goals down into more

  • meaningful pieces where people can get a more frequent sense of achieving small wins.

  • So, the progress principle is about small events. It's about big events. It's about

  • best days at work, worst days, and all kinds of days in-between. In fact, we analyzed all

  • 12 thousand days that we had data on. We found significant differences in inner work life

  • as a function of whether the day had a progress event, a setback event, or neither.

  • And progress is much more likely in some teams and companies than in others. I'm going to

  • show you a couple of ratios of progress to setback events in a couple of the 26 teams

  • that we studied. These are really the extremes. One of these teams was from Karpenter Corporation.

  • The other one from O'Reilly Coated Materials. This is the ratio of progress to setbacks

  • in the diaries from these teams. Let's see if you can just guess which is Karpenter team,

  • which is the O'Reilly team. Yeah, it's not too hard, is it? [chuckles] The vision team

  • is from O'Reilly Corporation.

  • They were doing a technically very difficult project. They had a lot of setbacks. But for

  • every setback they reported, they had five progress events. The domain team at Karpenter

  • Corporation, you've gotta pity them. For every step forward, they make two steps backward

  • in their work.

  • Imagine how different it would feel to be working in these two teams. So, let's take

  • a step back ourselves right now and think about the big picture. Putting together the

  • inner work life effect with the progress principle. If inner work life drives performance--and

  • it does.

  • That is, inner work life leads people to be more creative and productive in their work,

  • to make progress at these creative projects. And progress leads to better inner work life.

  • We have a positive feedback loop going on. And we call it the "progress loop" because

  • progress is really the greatest leverage point to get this positive cycle going.

  • When people are making progress in the work, that leads to better inner work life, which

  • in turn will make it more likely that they'll be creative and productive in their work,

  • which can keep that positive cycle going unless something intervenes, something interrupts

  • the progress, something happens to block the progress, or something interrupts positive

  • inner work life and leads it to become negative.

  • This spiral happens in the negative direction, too, unfortunately. So, when people have negative

  • inner work life, that makes it more difficult for them to make progress, be creative and

  • productive, which in turn will lead to deterioration further in inner work life leading to the

  • kind of death spiral like we saw going on in the Karpenter Corporation.

  • Unless something happens to intervene and to make progress more likely or to life inner

  • work life or both. There was one very bad day for a product designer at Karpenter Corporation

  • where he seemed to realize that this spiral was not gonna go away, that things were not

  • going to be getting better.

  • And he was pretty depressed on this day. And he said, "It's clear to me now that we are

  • no longer the leader in product innovation. We are the follower." So progress is really

  • important. What can people do? What can managers do? What can team leaders do?

  • What can co-workers do for each other to make progress more likely? We identified a couple

  • of different classes of actions that can keep this progress loop going. One we call "catalyst."

  • These are things that can catalyze progress in the work directly. The other is what we

  • call "nourishers."

  • And these are things that nourish people's human soul at work. These are things that

  • directly lift inner work life. I'm gonna give you examples of both of these. First of all,

  • we identified seven primary catalysts that can jumpstart progress in the work. The first

  • of these is having clear and meaningful goals in the work.

  • And the second is, even though you have these clear goals of what you're trying to achieve,

  • you have some autonomy in deciding how to achieve those goals. So, this is the mountain

  • we're going to climb, but you have the autonomy to use your own skills, talents, your own

  • expertise in deciding how to climb that mountain.

  • The negative of the catalysts we call "inhibitors." And you can imagine the negative form of these.

  • Think about Sophie's diary at Karpenter where she was talking about how conflicting and

  • unclear the goals were. Starting the project, now stopping it, now restarting it again.

  • She never really knew what she was supposed to be doing and neither did her team. At the

  • same time, they had very little autonomy, very little sense of control over what they

  • were doing or how they were doing it.

  • Contrast that with Dave at O'Reilly Coated Materials, who had a clear sense of where

  • his project was going in that project review, yet a sense of autonomy of how to do it. He

  • got sufficient resources from upper management to continue to the next stage of the project

  • and got help.

  • He said much assistance was given in that project review--actually got helpful feedback

  • for going forward in the project. Now when we say sufficient resources, we don't mean

  • essentially lavish resources, but just resources that are sufficient to get the work done.

  • Other catalysts.

  • Learning from problems. One of the most important ways of catalyzing progress is to have an

  • atmosphere of psychological safety where people feel they don't have to hide errors or mistakes

  • or experiments they try that don't work out.

  • But where they know that people are welcome hearing about these things so that they can

  • talk about what went wrong, what can we learn from this, and how can we go forward, rather

  • than having blame affixed or having people punished if things don't work out quite right.

  • This has a huge impact on people's ability to be creative and productive in their work.

  • And notice that it's important to learn from successes as well, not just celebrate it when

  • something goes well, which is important. You can do that. But also to say, "All right,

  • let's debrief. Why did this work? And what can we learn from it going forward?"

  • Having an open idea flow within teams, across the organization, and even with people outside

  • the organization. Now, this doesn't mean that every idea is going to be accepted, but every

  • idea will be respected and at least listened to. And finally, having sufficient time to

  • do the work, but not too much.

  • We found that the optimal level of time pressure for creativity is low to moderate time pressure.

  • We also found some other, more complicated effects of time pressure on creativity and

  • productivity, but we'll save that for the Q&A. If you're interested, please ask me about

  • it.

  • And now onto the nourishers. These are things that directly support inner work life, directly

  • support the people trying to do the work. First of all, basic respect and recognition.

  • A sense that people know you exist and that your efforts are valued inside the organization.

  • Encouragement when the work is difficult. A sense of confidence. "We know you can do

  • it." You can imagine the opposite of each of these, which by the way, we call the opposite

  • of nourishers, the "toxins" that can poison a work environment. Emotional support.

  • If someone's having difficulty in their professional life or their personal life, simply having

  • that acknowledged, having it validated at work, can make a huge difference in the quality

  • of their inner work life. And affiliation and camaraderies. A sense of bonding with

  • the people you work with.

  • A sense of being able to trust each other and count on each other. Sometimes it's a

  • matter of having fun with each other. And that's opposed to the opposite--the toxins--which

  • are really negative interpersonal conflict that can flare up. And if it goes unchecked,

  • that can poison inner work life.

  • So, given these catalysts and these nourishers, we now have some sense of how to answer that

  • opening question. Remember, the question was what makes people happy, motivated, productive,

  • and creative at work? So, what makes people happy and motivated?

  • What gives them positive inner work life? Making progress on meaningful work. And getting

  • nourishers that we just talked about to sustain their inner work life. And interestingly,

  • catalysts can also directly lift inner work life. You notice that curved arrow at the

  • bottom of the figure?

  • When people find out, for example, that they're getting a new resource, which is one of the

  • catalysts. Well, if they find out they're getting a resource that they really need to

  • make progress in their work, they feel great. You feel great, don't you, when you find out

  • you're getting a resource you really need?

  • Even before you get it. Even before it can possibly add to your progress, you know that

  • you'll be able to make that progress in the work. And also, it shows that you are valued

  • by your organization. You and your work matter enough to get this resource. So, it can have

  • an interesting direct effect on inner work life to get a catalyst.

  • And what makes people productive and creative at work? What helps them make progress in

  • their work? First of all, having positive inner work life. And also, getting a regular

  • supply of the catalysts day by day. So progress is key, but is it obvious?

  • It does seem a little bit obvious sometimes that well, of course people feel great when

  • they make progress in their work. So we wondered, is this really top of mind for managers? Do

  • managers know what an incredible motivational force it is to just get support for making

  • progress in your work?

  • So, we recently surveyed nearly 700 managers from a variety of companies at a variety of

  • levels around the world. And we gave them a very simple question. We said, "Here are

  • five employee motivators. Rank them in terms of how important you think they are."

  • And these are the motivators. Recognition, incentives, clear goals, progress in the work,

  • and interpersonal support. Now, all these are motivators, right? But we know from our

  • research that making progress in the work is number one. So, did these managers rank

  • progress as number one?

  • Yeah, not so much. Number one, recognition, in the view of these 700 managers that we

  • surveyed. Number two, clear goals. Number three, incentives. Number four, interpersonal

  • support. Yes. Progress in the work, which we know is number one as a motivator, came

  • in dead last.

  • In fact, only five percent of the managers taking the survey ranked progress number one.

  • If they were making their choices randomly, 20 percent of them would've chosen progress,

  • right? [audience chuckles] So they were actively saying they didn't think progress was that

  • important for motivation.

  • They didn't think it was that important for them to support progress in the work. And

  • that's what the question said, actually--supporting progress in the work. They didn't think it

  • was that important. And certainly, in the companies that we studied, we didn't see a

  • lot of evidence that managers acted like they thought it was really important to support

  • daily progress in the work.

  • In fact, of all seven companies, only one had managers at all levels and co-workers

  • across the organization who consistently supported the progress of the people working in the

  • creative trenches. It was O'Reilly Coated Materials, of course.

  • And by the way, O'Reilly was the only company to have a true technological breakthrough

  • in all the months that we were studying them. And I don't think that's a coincidence. So

  • what is the implication here? If you're a team leader, if you're a manager, what's the

  • implication?

  • The implication is not that you have to somehow try to psychologize the people who work with

  • you and the people who work for you. You don't have to become an emotional intelligence genius.

  • You don't have to pry into people's inner work lives. In fact, that would really be

  • a bad idea.

  • And it doesn't mean that you have to bring in comedians at lunchtime to cheer people

  • up. What it does mean is that you have to support progress every day. And the first

  • step is to simply keep yourself aware of it. Put in on your mental agenda. Pay attention

  • to it.

  • And we think it can help to have a daily progress checklist. I don't know if any of you are

  • familiar with this wonderful book from 2009 called "The Checklist Manifesto." Yeah, a

  • few people have read that. It's by Atul Gawande, who's a Harvard Medical School surgeon and

  • author on a number of health topics.

  • Gawande decided with his research team a few years ago to see if they could do something

  • to reduce the incredibly high incidence of unnecessary complications, and even deaths,

  • because of surgical accidents.

  • So they created what they call the "safe surgery checklist" as a discipline for surgical teams

  • to follow--something that they actually have to physically check off the items to make

  • sure that they've taken care of these things before and during surgery. This checklist

  • consists of things that are blazingly obvious to any surgeon.

  • Anyone should know to do this, right? This is good surgical practice. Things like, everybody

  • on the surgical team should introduce themselves by name before they get started, so that if

  • anything bad starts to happen during the operation, they can call each other by name.

  • Something else on the surgery checklist. Before the surgery starts, we should all say out

  • loud what side of the body we're going to be operating on. Make sure we all agree. And

  • before we close the incision at the end, we should make sure that any instruments and

  • sponges that went into the body have now come out of the body.

  • Very basic things. And yet, following the safe surgery checklist had an unbelievable

  • impact--a 36 percent reduction in serious complications and an incredible 47 percent

  • reduction in deaths. Now management isn't brain surgery, but it is pretty complicated

  • and there are a lot of things you have to keep in mind.

  • That's why we recommend using a daily progress checklist. Just spend five minutes at the

  • end of the day to write down, "OK, what progress did my team make today? What might have been

  • holding them back? What inhibitors might they have been encountering? Were there any toxins?"

  • And then, this is the most important piece, think of one thing that you can do--just one

  • thing--the following day, even if it's something small that can enable your people to make

  • more progress in their work. And you can do this as a co-worker as well. In fact, those

  • nourishers and those catalysts come just as well from co-workers as they do from team

  • leaders or from higher-level managers.

  • In fact, sometimes more effectively. And keeping a daily checklist or some kind of a work diary

  • can actually have positive benefits for your own inner work life and your own sense of

  • progress. There's some great psychological research lately showing that simply writing

  • about something difficult you're dealing with can help you feel better about it and can

  • help you plan to deal with it more effectively.

  • And noting your progress every day, even if it's been a frustrating day, noting whatever

  • progress you did make can rescue your inner work life at the end of the day and can help

  • you plan to make better progress the following day. So, your big takeaway here is to support

  • progress every day and support the people trying to make that progress.

  • If you can do that inside your organization, inside your group, inside your own little

  • team, you will support the inner work lives of the people around you. They will feel happier

  • and more motivated in their work. They will make more progress in their work.

  • And that will lead to long-term benefits. So not only will their personal well-being

  • be enhanced, but these people will be more committed and more collegial--

  • [digital voice]

  • OK. I'm not sure what number I'm supposed to press, but I will finish up. Let me end

  • with a quote from a programmer named Tom on an information management team. This comes

  • from a project that his team was doing where they were working nearly around the clock

  • for eight days to solve a very complicated problem where 145 million dollars were at

  • stake for the company.

  • We saw more examples of the progress principle, more catalysts and nourishers, during those

  • eight days than we saw in some other teams during the entire months that we studied them.

  • The top management in that company cleared the decks for the team, taking away all other

  • demands.

  • They even stopped by to encourage them late in the evening as they were working by bringing

  • food and treats. Other groups inside the company really helped out doing whatever they could.

  • The team members rallied around. One person even postponed her vacation so she could come

  • in and work with her team.

  • And of all the catalysts and nourishers, I think the best came from the team leader herself,

  • who got in there, rolled up her sleeves, worked alongside the team every day, helping them

  • to solve multiple technical problems that came up and she provided nourishers.

  • The seventh night, when people were starting to get really discouraged because they had

  • one more hurdle to get over, she lifted their spirits by singing a silly song as midnight

  • approached. The result was a superb solution. Really creative, productive work--

  • [digital voice]

  • OK. I'm assuming that somebody's been dialing in here and they're trying to get through,

  • but maybe they can hit their mute button or something. So, this is what Tom had to say

  • in his diary during that golden week.

  • He said, "The truth is everyone is working crazy hours, doing impossible tasks, and still

  • keeping on the cheery side of the street. God help me. I do love them so." So, I've

  • seen it happen. If you can apply the progress principle every day, you can make a real difference

  • in your organization and in the lives of the people working in it and in your own life.

  • Thank you very much.

  • [applause]

[applause]

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TED - Teresa Amabile - 進步定律 (Teresa Amabile: "The Progress Principle" | Talks at Google)

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    shiaitelu13 發佈於 2016 年 04 月 22 日
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