Rational Plans in a CrAzY wOrLd

When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances fit in with them.  Sir William Osler (1849-1919)

Have you ever despaired of making plans and setting long term goals in a rapidly changing world? Long ago, I once asked my CPA how I could plan rationally for retirement.  She said “Unfortunately, that’s impossible.” I now have a new accountant. 

That old CPA’s worry was that things change too fast and too unpredictably to allow for reasonable advance planning. But the best plans resiliently anticipate a changing future. The best plans themselves often need to be changed and tweaked in light of what develops, and what we come to discover as we implement them. But it's amazing how often a well thought through and resilient plan will fit in with developments that could never have been anticipated with any degree of specificity or certainty. Osler was right. Circumstances will somehow fit them.

When a good plan is laid out in a rich and complex world, it can indeed sometimes surprise us how well things work out. So don’t hesistate to plan for the future. Just plan to adapt as your plan develops.

What Motivates You?

The more forms of motivation you have for your work, or anything, the better - right? Well, not necessarily. A new study by Amy Wrzesniewsky, professor of organizational behavior at Yale, and Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore, announced in today's New York Times, has found the opposite.

There are basically two forms of motivation for any behavior, or activity: intrinsic and extrinsic, or instrumental. With intrinsic motivation, you do what you do because you love it, or find it meaningful, or you value its natural innate rewards. With extrinsic, or instrumental, motivation, you engage in an activity because of external rewards you think it will bring, desirable things that are not inherently tied to the activity, but are promised to you for some form of excellence in that activity. As an example, when you're learning something new, you may be motivated intrinsically by the fascinating nature of the subject, or your own personal curiosity. You may value learning and growing and enriching yourself by the study you do. That's all intrinsic motivation.

In principle, you could work just as hard, even if you weren't that interested in the subject, or in the growth it would bring you, but just to get an A grade in a course, a 4.0 grade point average, Dean's List, and admission into your favorite next school along the way. That would be extrinsic, or instrumental, motivation, where the activity is being used as an instrument or tool for the attaining of something that's not inherently tied to it by its very nature. Someone not in school at all could be reading the same books, and doing the same analysis and memory work, where there were no grades, or lists, or future admissions at stake. That shows those rewards to be extrinsic, or not inherently tied to the activities in question.

Wrzesniewsky and Swartz claim that their research shows something interesting. Intrinsically motivated people do better over the long run than extrinsically motivated people. That in itself, or intrinsically, is interesting, and is a truth explored at length in Dan Pink's very nice book, Drive. But what's perhaps more surprising is the new body of evidence that adding extrinsic, or instrumental, motivation to an intrinsic interest, can actually be problematic over the long run, and degrade results.

How can that be? Isn't it always more motivating to add on an extra promise of reward? "Do the job well, and we'll give you extra credit, extra pay, a promotion, a cruise!" Well, it turns out that, no. The research being reported indicates that those who have both motivations for a longterm activity actually do less well than those whose motivations are simply intrinsic. Why? The researchers don't really say.

Let's suppose their study is right. How could it be that adding on an extra level of motivation for excellence in a longterm activity might actually be counter-productive? Well, one simple hypothesis is orientation conflict. People can't serve two masters, as the old biblical phrase has it. Whenever you have two distinct motivations, they can in principle come into conflict. There can be situations where there's a way to get the A, the Dean's List, the raise, or the bonus, that is actually out of step with what the intrinsically motivated person would do, and even more, where it's detrimentally contrary to a path of overall, longterm excellence. And because extrinsic motivators like prizes and grades and bonuses are available in the relatively immediate future, are commonly coveted, and appear, when they do, suddenly and dramatically, as well as often in a public way, they can easily begin to edge out the intrinsic motivator as what primarily forms your behavior. And this means that when there is a conflict, the wrong motivator wins.

People who love their work and find meaning in it tend to do better work than those who work only for the money. We know that. But wait. Does this new research show that we shouldn't pay people at all, lest we tempt them to serve two masters and do lesser work?

Not at all. There's a big difference between a consequence and a motivator. If a paycheck, or a royalty, or a financial return on investment of effort or expertise were not a part of the picture, most people could not afford to do the work at all. But the best people are often those who enjoy the consequence without being motivated by it. They do the work because they love it. They do it because it's meaningful to them. And, because of that, they do it best.

Secondly, this new research, at least, as it's reported in the Times, doesn't show that adding extrinsic rewards to intrinsic rewards can't in the short term enhance performance for a wide range of people. It's just problematic over longer time horizons where excellence is an issue.

Therefore, what?

Work for love. If you haven't already, then go find something to do that you love to do and would want to be involved in even if you weren't being paid for it. And then, when you can, make sure to hire people to do it with you who feel the same way. Create a keen sense of the excitement and meaning of the work - its nobility - both in its impact for good on others and in the fulfillment that comes to those who do it with world-class excellence. 

Ironically, then your extrinsic rewards will tend to be greatest. Which just shows again that we live in a wonderfully crazy world.

The Inner Game of Everything

Imagine two outer actions, which would appear exactly the same to an onlooker. In one case, the act springs from a routine in a job that's long lost its luster. And if we could walk into that office and ask the guy involved in that action, he might tell us that he was excited about his job at first. It was his big break. It was an entry level job, but in a big company. The building was beautiful. His colleagues were smart and ambitious. He seemed to have his foot firmly in the door of greatness. But the culture around him soon became clear. It was all about the sale, all about the money. Profits were the air they breathed. But breathing that air, and only that, every day over time, had taken a toll. He had lost the true excitement of the early days. The enchantment was gone. It had gradually become a matter of pressure, and routine. He now still kept up the pace, and all relevant appearances, and did the work, but it was almost automatic, and without any inner soul.

The other guy, across town, the one performing apparently the same outer action - say, reaching for a phone, or filling out a form, or making an entry into his computer - lives and works each day with a strong sense of purpose, and a real passion for what he's doing. He's with great people who think and feel the same way. They have a camaraderie and a sense of mission for the work they do. They're building something new together. They're making a difference.

I submit that the two identical looking actions of these different individuals are really not the same at all. One of the actions is ennobled by the inner state from which it springs. The other is not. And this is not some flaky mumbo-jumbo mysticism. It's a difference that makes a difference. One action embodies something almost magical, and it will, eventually, if not right away, have seriously different results, on many dimensions, regardless of how small an act it is.

I've come to think that it's the inner that's always definitive of the outer, in everything. When the spirit is right, the enterprise is just different, and vastly more. Plato distinguished clearly between appearance and reality. We should all do so, as well. No matter what the appearances might be, it's what bubbles up inside us, what animates us in our minds and hearts, that makes all the difference.

Inner purpose, real passion, and the sort of commitment that embodies a spark of nobility simply brings something different into the world. Don't you think?

What will animate your actions today?

Your Deepest Resource

The conscious mind is a high walled fortress, with only a few small gates, all under guard. Those guards are your prior beliefs, attitudes, interests, and fears. It's amazing how little of anything new these strong sentries will ever let through.

The unconscious mind, by contrast, is a vast garden surrounded by only a short and open fence. It absorbs energy and intelligence and deep truth from all around it.

The fortress is cut off and isolated. The garden is wonderfully connected. Hordes of small flying envoys tend its flowers and pollinate its plants. The radiance of something greater comes into it and elicits its growth. And it's always open to the rains that come down to nurture it and wash it clean.

You live in the fortress, but need what's in the garden. Without it, you'll never thrive. The good news is that there's a secret door to the garden. The bad news is that it's normally blocked by the clutter and debris of a noisy and busy life. The realization that you need to live with, every day, is that you can sweep aside the clutter. You can reduce the chatter of the conscious mind, and get beyond it, and open the secret door, not just in quiet meditation by a stream or in a dojo or in a closed room alone, but at your desk, in your car, or on the treadmill at the gym.

But there's a lot to let go, a lot to release. Guards will rush into the room and try to block the door, and they will tell you that it's for your own protection, but nothing could be farther from the truth. You need what's out there. And when you dismiss the guards, quiet the chatter, and remove the clutter, the door will open itself.

And then the light will shine in and you can find yourself suddenly, wonderfully, able to move into that wild garden of insight, and energy, and hope, and that distinctive form of love that alone connects us to the best we can be and do.

When I walk in the garden, I'm refreshed and inspired and emboldened to do something new. I grow. I see in new ways. I hear quiet whispers. And I connect up with so much that, for too long, I've let the clutter and the chatter and well-meaning guards keep from me.

How do you get into the garden? What happens when you're there?

I have a story about this that I'll tell soon.

Freedom Riders and The Magic of Commitment

What brings people together with a special sense of excitement and meaning? What amps up motivation and commitment through the roof? What bonds people into great winning teams? I recently watched two PBS broadcasts about the civil rights movement in the United States, in the early sixties. The many student volunteers who rode buses from northern universities into the far land of Mississippi to engage in voter registration in the June of 1964 faced hostility, violence, and constant threats during a hot and scary summer. And now, decades later, looking back, they report that it was the time of their lives. They say things like, "When it was time to leave and go home, I knew that I'd never have an experience like that again, a sense of doing something to change the world, and a sense of extended family with people I'd probably never see again."

A friend of mine once talked with lots of veterans of World War Two and was surprised that he kept hearing them speak of their wartime experience as "the time of my life." They were being shot at and bombed, under the most difficult daily living conditions they had ever experienced. But they often reminisced about those days as something truly special. They spoke of bonds they made with guys who were very different from them in so many ways, but who became like a band of brothers.

Those two contexts clearly involved (1) a strong sense of purpose, (2) constant danger, and (3) a special bond that seemed to arise out of elements 1 and 2. It could be that from our collective early human history as hunters and gatherers, we developed a special experience of purpose amid danger, and an intensity of commitment in relationship to those who shared that purpose and that threat. It was a matter first of survival, and second, of flourishing. Those who did not bond and arise to overcome the odds did not survive. And we are the inheritors of those survivors.

It could well be that there is a deep motivational mindset that arises in such a context, which allows us, in turn, to rise to the occasion and do great things that go far beyond the mundane, and become almost magical.

You occasionally see it on sports teams, without the extremity of danger confronted by those in the civil rights movement, and those who have fought in wars. I saw in on one particular Notre Dame football team, during my many years there, the team that, interestingly, won the National Championship of 1988. So, it seems possible that the special bonding and motivation that we're talking about depend, not on danger itself, but on a sense of very high stakes. When the stakes are high enough, we respond. And, if that's true, then, in principle, we could create the conditions for this in our work lives. Why should it be that those who came back from the second world war, and those who returned to school or work from The Freedom Summer of 64, should never have that special experience of service again?

A friend just came back from the big rock music festival of the summer, in Dover, Delaware. He said of the 80,000 people around him that "They were all so happy to be there." They wanted to be there. They were there with a purpose. And, he said, "They were a happy bunch, as a result." They were part of something big, something they believed in, and they were there with a commitment that was "all in."

Why can't we create conditions in our companies where nearly everyone feels a sense of purpose, a sense of being part of something big, something that's going to "change the world" for the better in some way that makes them feel "all in"? When the purpose is great enough and the stakes are high enough, it can happen. Then, why do we ever settle for so much less?