The Motivation of Ashley Burnham

"I thought, this is a perfect platform for me because I'm relatable to people, I've experienced this myself and I'm able to speak about it," she said. "I'm glad I'm able to use this title as a way to speak for others that can't speak for themselves."

If you're running for political office and have any experienced advisers on your team, they will always ask you to answer one basic question - why are you running?  

There's no one right answer - it can be to ensure a specific issue gets addressed, or because you feel the representation your riding/ward/community has had is inadequate, or because you want to be part of a party that does good stuff for a broader constituency.  The key thing is knowing why you feel voters should entrust you as their voice rather than someone else, which means knowing why you believe you are the best person to be that voice.

It's not as easy a question as one might first think.  Not everyone runs because they have a burning cause, after all.  Some like the idea of being in power, some feel it's just a natural option for them.  I've known a couple of ex-political staff to who ran for office because they couldn't seem to get work anywhere else - it's what they knew, and it worked out for them.

Ideally, the reason your running isn't you and your personal interests, but something that is beyond you.  It's a bit like throwing a punch; the goal isn't to be the one hitting, nor to hit the target - to land a solid, earth-shaking punch you need to aim past your target and see yourself as a conduit for the kinetic energy of the punch itself.  Whether you're a politician, a fighter, a singer or an advocate, that's the kind of power that propels people to do great things.

Which is why I love Ashley Burnham.  Like the best advocates for anything, she has taken her life experience and decided "I want to create better conditions so that those who follow me won't have to go through the same hardships I did."

She didn't want to be Mrs Universe; that was simply a platform for her to achieve her goals.  With this motivation, she brought things unique to her - her culture, her life story - and infused her Miss Universe activity through that lens.  This allowed her to excel, bring forward something unique and interesting to broader audiences.  It also allowed her to tell a powerful story to an audience that hadn't heard it before.

Now, as Mrs. Universe, she is carving out a role for herself as more than just a pretty face, but as an ambassador and as a public figure.  When she speaks, her voice resonates.  

"This government is very controlling of our people and soon enough our rights might be taken away.  And if I have that voice to bring awareness, I'm going to use it."

She's no partisan spewing over-blown rhetoric for strategic political gain.  She's a real aboriginal women expressing real concerns based on her own experience, using her platform to channel the voices of countless others, including Canada's missing/murdered indigenous women.

Hers is a voice not so easily dismissed by a government that likes to frame everyone as either unloyal employees or enemies of the state.

Investment and Social Impact: The Garden of Innovation

 

"Founder Henry Chong started the company Revelo Electric which specializes in electric bikes for urban settings. His idea, which started as an undergraduate thesis project has come a long way."

Technically speaking, an undergraduate thesis isn't R&D.  It isn't market research. Yet how many start-ups are emerging from ideas or needs first explored in academic settings?

Then there's Figure 1, which is a brilliant idea that bridges the gap between professional peers communicating relevant information and end-user privacy/info security.  I won't go into the massive growth potential of this App here.

How many innovative, problem-solving and potentially massively profitable enterprises have emerged from non-product oriented processes?  A ton.  Meanwhile, the money governments are pouring into financial incentives to nudge traditional private-sector players to be innovative isn't having much impact.

Also, the increased pressure on what used to be Not-For-Profits to be financially stable on their own (through sales, not grants) isn't making organizations more lean, it's denigrating services.  Pure science as a profit-focused tool?  All we're ending up with is less science and fewer idea opportunities.

 This is a good thing for the survival-of-the-fittest mentality of our current government - they feel that this shrinking of the pool increases the financial viability of what actually emerges.  But where beyond talking-points is the evidence to support this?  Where are the metrics?

There are none.  It's an ideological perspective as removed from reality as the idea of communism.

You can't motivate innovation with financial pressure.  It doesn't work; neurobiology and evidence from countless studies prove it doesn't work.  Instead, what financial carrots and sticks do is encourage more "fake it 'til you make" it hustlers who talk the talk, but tend not to provide metrics of distance covered for it.

So why do we have a government with access to massive amounts of data and professional support actually impeding the sort of innovative success that any economy should want?  Why, instead of heeding the data, is this government stifling its collection and undermining it's presentation?

It's not particularly rational, is it?

And that's the point.  When you know you're right and endlessly confident in your righteousness, anything that disagrees with you feels wrong.   When you're impatient for wins, the objective becomes the removal from your path of that which feels like an impediment to victory.

Even knowledge.

There is a world of difference between wanting economic success and wanting power.   If you see money and wealth as the conduit to personal power, then getting lots of money fast becomes the objective.  Iterative development, learning, exploration, etc. become frills, time wasters.  All that matters is the low-hanging fruit.

Innovation isn't about the low-hanging fruit; it's about figuring out how to reach the higher-up fruit.  Or teaching yourself to garden.

We're trying to solve the wrong problem.  And so long as we KEEP trying to solve the wrong problem, we're going to keep falling short of the mark.

But not the guys like Henry Chong.  They're not in it for them; they're in it for what they can do.  What we can do.

 

See, you don't buy innovation, you nurture it.  Supporting innovation is more like growing a garden than building a tower.

 And the people really interested in strengthening our economy are ignoring the Stephen Harpers of the world and spending time with the Henry Chongs.  Some are even funding them, turning Corporate Social Responsibility into R&D, merging social innovation and user-generate content.

 Something to think about.

 

 

 

Right To Innovate

For example, the unthinking implementation of performance-related pay may be counter-productive in industries that rely on creativity and innovation - some of the most dynamic parts of the modern economy.

Unless you live in Canada (or an Ontario governed by Tim Hudak).  But we don't believe in innovation, anyhow - it's too much like progress.  Besides, with all the natural resources we have to exploit, we see our economic success as a no-brainer; who needs to think?

Are You a Brandlord or a Leader?

The feudal system was simple - lords were masters over plots of land that they would defend through the employments of soldiers.   The people who lived on that land did so at the whim of the lord, but the right to space and the relative security from brigands the lords' knights came at a price.

The peasants privileged enough to live on the lord's land had to give something in return - a portion of crops grown for instance, or a certain number of hours working directly on the lord's work.  Peasants rarely had to do things they would not have done regardless for their own survival - they simply had to produce more.  

So long as the lord provided space an relative security, his job was done.  Soldiers served not only as guardians of the realm, but also enforcers of production.

That was the arrangement - space and security for labour, which was supervised by a middle class of managers.  There was no cause for the peasants to collaborate on anything except the lord's work, and then under tight supervision.  It was not in the lord's interest to let his peasants fraternize, lest they get ideas (which happened anyway).

Feudal societies tend not to be very innovative ones, as you can imagine.  That's not to say innovation never happened, it simply wasn't nurtured.

This basic laissez-faire model - lord (or boss), enforcers (or middle management) and at the bottom, the labourers has been repeated across time and geography.  The rules are the same - stay in line, or you'll be punished.  Produce more, you'll be rewarded.  Do things differently, well, there's not much place for that.  It's the model that sustained the Industrial Age, Tokugawa Japan and arguably, many an organized religion.  It's become the de-facto model of the Knowledge Economy as well.

How many employers today believe that, by providing their employees with a desk, computer and phone, plus the right to slap the company name on their card, they have lived up to the fullness of their responsibility   How many of these brandlords believe it's up to their employees to self-motivate, create content, satiate clients and do the ever-demanding job of sales?  How many mangers feel their role is about driving activity, not coordinating success?

We have entered a new world of neo-feudalism where the it's the job of the bottom to sustain the top rather than the top to empower and propel forward the whole.  Adding value, at least in  Canada, isn't of interest - simply more of the same is.

Which is why, in a pandemic of youth unemployment, the message being conveyed is that kids these days have unrealistic expectations when they think that higher education in promoted programs will translate into higher starting salaries.  It's a privilege to be able to hold a job and earn any kind of salary - to expect more from those with capital is unrealistic.

It's not that the bar is being set higher so much as it is the floor has been raised.  Is it any wonder that the middle class is shrinking?  In a society that promotes management over motivation, how many middlemen do you really need?

While nations the world over are evolving their economies, Canada remains frozen.  We don't care, though - instead of nurturing collaboration and new ideas, we're pushing competition over natural resources.

There's a big difference between harvesting the fruit of someone else's labour and nurturing innovation and value-add.  You don't grow a garden by expecting vegetables to audition for the right to be planted in your soil; similarly, you can't expect your employees to add value unless you're providing direction, support and coordination.

Are you an employer?  If so, are you a leader or a brandlord?  

If it's the latter and you've got a simple model that just requires unchanging mass production, carry on.  

If, however, you're in a business that relies on creating new solutions, products or services for your clients, you might want to try a different approach.

Employee Engagement is More than Motivation (Dave Willis)

Employee Engagement is More than Motivation

In my previous blog post I talked about why employee engagement is critical to any business endeavor and is your most important job as a manager. I referenced part 7 of Mike’s Leadership Principles, He Drinks 7-Up, as a key lesson in how to create highly engaged employees. But of course, the point of that story is not that you need to know your employees’ preferred brand of soda. The point is… well, let’s hold off on that for a second. I’ve got a beverage story of my own.

Several years ago I was mentoring a rising star in the consulting firm I worked for. Let’s call him Darren. Darren accompanied me on a number of client presentations. After several of these sessions, I asked Darren if he wanted to take the lead role in the next one. He was more than ready, and he eagerly agreed.

Unfortunately when the day came, it was a disaster.Not sure if it was nerves, sun spots, or just a bad hair day, but Darren didn’t do a good job. And he knew it. From my perspective there were two problems to be solved. One was the damage control needed to repair the relationship with the client. That wasn’t going to be fun, but it was comparatively easy. The other challenge – much harder – was how to turn this experience into a productive one for Darren.

Immediately after the session, I took him out for a beer. Instead of chewing him out, or providing him with a full review of his mistakes and a litany of suggestions for improvement, I asked him what he learned and what he intended to do differently as a result. His response was amazing. For thirty minutes he talked non-stop about his performance, and it was obvious he knew exactly what he needed to do to improve. I told him that was good enough for me, and that he had my blessing to do the next client presentation as well.

I worked with Darren for another 24 months, and across that time his level of commitment to the job was as strong as any employee I’ve managed. Oh, we had disagreements, and there were other times I needed to deliver some tough messages. But we had established a basis of trust. He knew I trusted his ability and his work ethic, and that I wasn’t going to jump down his throat (or submarine him in a performance review) if he made a few mistakes along the way. And if you think about it, did that half hour really cost me anything? Actually it did: about $20. I paid for two rounds of Stella Artois. I’d say that investment produced a pretty good ROB (Return on Beer).

It also led to one of the proudest moments of my career. A couple of weeks later Darren was relating this story to a co-worker, and he finished by saying “if you look up the definition of ‘good manager’ in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of Dave Willis.”

The lesson of the Darren story (and the 7UP story) is that you create highly engaged employees by exceeding their expectations. At the end of his presentation, Darren was feeling very low. He knew he’d underperformed. He knew he had not met my standards; he knew he hadn’t meet the clients’ standards. And perhaps most importantly, he knew he hadn’t met his own standards.

Knowing how most organizations and most managers provide feedback, he had every right to believe that his conversation with me was only going to (a) state the obvious, that the event was not successful and (b) make him feel even worse. Instead, we used the opportunity to provide him with helpful feedback – which he himself delivered – and to reinforce that I believed in him.

I’m not suggesting that exceeding your employees’ expectations is easy. There is an art to it. You have to get to know your people and really care about them in order to exceed their expectations. How well do you really know your current employees? What do they want out of their current job? What’s their dream job, and is at your company or somewhere else? How can you help them get there? What skills do they most want to develop? What’s important to them outside of the job? Do they prefer more direction and oversight from you, or less? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, or haven’t thought about them in a long time, start there.

There are lots of books and articles written with very tactical suggestions on how to engage your employees. Many of them have good advice, but they miss the bigger picture. Engaging your employees isn’t about the tactical task of buying them 7-Up. It’s about knowing what they care about and why, anticipating their needs, remembering their preferences, and solving problems for them before they even know they have them. It’s about being a better manager, and delivering a better employment experience, than they ever expected.

And if you think that sounds very similar to the recipe for great customer service, you’re exactly right. But that’s a subject for another blog post.

Wander, My Friends: Visionaries, Entrepreneurs and Political Nomads

Desert tribesmen, he argued, always have more courage and social cohesion than settled, civilized folk, so every once in a while they will sweep in and conquer lands whose rulers have become corrupt and complacent. They create a new dynasty — and, over time, become corrupt and complacent themselves, ready to be overrun by a new set of barbarians.

 

 

Sound familiar?  Such was RIM, now defunct.  Such were the Federal Liberals, now clawing their way out of the abyss (as the Federal Tories keep digging).

 

The greatest warriors, greatest thinkers and greatest visionaries of history never settled, literally.  Wealth was not their goal.  They were not their goal.  Something bigger was.

 

By never settling, by never getting comfortable, they never stopped - and in the process have changed the world.

 

Wander, my friends...

 

 

"There is God's wine, and there's this other.  Don't mix them.  There are naked pilgrims clothed only in sunlight - don't give them clothes."

 

  - Rumi as expressed by Coleman Barks

 -

What motivates employees? It’s not just the money (HARVEY SCHACHTER )

 

What motivates employees? It’s not just the money

 

Many managers believe they can motivate most of their employees with money. Others counter that appreciation and recognition is the driving force. But Ilona Jerabek, a Montreal-based psychological researcher, says it’s much more complicated. She has tested 23 tangible and intangible incentives, and says motivating employees is multidimensional.

 

“What we discovered is that we can’t single out one or two motivators and say: ‘These are the Holy Grail of motivation and inspiration; these are the keys that will unlock your team’s potential.’ The idea that motivation is not a one-size-fits-all solution is a concept that many managers fail to grasp, says the president of Psychtests Aim Inc.

 

Ms. Jerabek’s testing found these top 10 motivators: achievement; learning; inspiration (the chance to inspire others); creativity; fun and enjoyment; improvement; financial reward; change and variety; identity and purpose; and stability.

 

So financial rewards fall seventh on the list. (It’s actually fifth for men, but 12th for women.) If employees feel underpaid and used, that will drag down motivation in a work force. But offer financial carrots and many people aren’t particularly revved up (although some definitely are). But many people aren’t particularly revved up by financial carrots.

 

Appreciation and recognition fared even more miserably, landing 14th on the list. Fun and enjoyment does not necessarily mean parties, and it will vary depending on the person. Ms. Jerabek says she finds looking at results from her testing to be highly enjoyable. Somebody else may get excited by the chance to brainstorm. An accountant may relish working with numbers. The key is understanding how employees define their own fun and enjoyment.

 

“If you motivate people properly, their job satisfaction and engagement improves. And when they are engaged and happy, they are more productive,” she says.

 

She feels it’s helpful to categorize employees into five clusters, according to how they prefer to be motivated, while not forgetting that everyone remains an individual with their own particular dynamics:

 

Trailblazers: This is the most common group, with 35 per cent of respondents falling into this category. They want to make an impact on others and leave their mark on the world in general. They have an altruistic streak, they are forward-looking, and they love social contact. They are not extremely ambitious for themselves; they want to be promoted, but they won’t step on other people’s toes. Their top motivators are altruism, customer orientation (the desire to truly satisfy customers), inspiration, achievement, social contact, identity and purpose, learning, creativity, contribution or legacy, and fun and enjoyment.

 

Workhorses: This was the second most common grouping, 23 per cent of the sample. They are the worker bees of your organization, liking structure and wanting to get the job done well. “They are people you can rely on to show up on time and do the job to the best of their ability. Work is really, really important to them,” she says. Ask for 100 per cent and they will give you 150 per cent. Their top motivators are achievement, stability, financial reward, structure and order, recognition and appreciation, power, and status.

 

Heavyweights: This was the third most common type, at 12 per cent. They like a fast-paced, pressured environment, and they are interested in achievement and influencing others. They seek to be in control, craving status and approval. Work-life balance is not a motivator. They are often workaholics and quite enjoy that pressure as long as they are properly compensated. They also cherish challenges. “The more motivated heavyweights are, the more obstacles they will plow through, the more ladders they will climb, the more competition they will dominate,” she observes. Top motivators for this group are achievement, responsibility, active/high-pressure work environment, power, status, and contribution/legacy.

 

Gen-Yers: Members of Generation Y, who account for 11 per cent of the sample, tend to drive many managers crazy, because they seem unmotivated and appear to believe they should be allowed to rise through the ranks without having to pay their dues. But Ms. Jerabek says they’re misunderstood. “Gen-Yers want to do what they love and love what they do. Don’t be mistaken, however; once focused on a goal they love, Gen-Yers are not afraid of hard work, and are the masters of balancing heavy workloads and different life spheres,” she says. They thrive in a job environment that is team-oriented, encouraging participation, enthusiasm and an open mind. Give them projects that allow them to think (and act) outside the box. Top motivators are inspiration, social contact, financial reward, recognition and appreciation, creativity, power, status, mobility, contribution/legacy, and fun and enjoyment.

 

Explorers: The fifth most common group, at 9 per cent, hate routine, preferring change and variety. Don’t expect them to stay in a job for long, but instead arrange it so they can continually learn new things. Generally, they are quite creative. Top motivators are learning, change and variety, job-hopping, creativity, independence, power, mobility, and contribution/legacy.

 

Managers should know what cluster individuals they work with – or want to hire – fall into, and then within that cluster they need to know the key motivating factors for that person. If you understand the motivators, Ms. Jerabek advises, you can arrange any job so it will be fulfilling.

Special to The Globe and Mail

 

Harvey Schachter is a Battersea, Ont.-based writer specializing in management issues. He writes Monday Morning Manager and management book reviews for the print edition of Report on Business and an online work-life column Balance. E-mail Harvey Schachter

Role of Meaning-Makers in Employee Engagement (Shawn Murphy)

 

Engaging employees, motivating innovation, addressing occupational mental illness - all part and parcel of the same move forward, when you connect the dots.  With the right kind of leadership, who knows what we could achieve...

 

 

Role of Meaning-Makers in Employee Engagement

 

 

For the past month, Ted and I hosted some extraordinary thinkers who ruminated on the value, application and future of employee engagement. First we want to thank all who participated. We learn from you and are honored to share your voice on this important topic.

 

This brings me to a question I want to explore: why does employee engagement matter?

 

Engaged employees has eluded many organizations, often becoming another management fad or meaningless surveys of which the results become shelf-ware. If it’s so important why do organizations, managers and employees fail to see the ascribed benefits of engagement efforts?

Certainly the answers are varied. Yet perhaps the most likely culprit is engagement is treated as an event. Let me explain.

 

Engaged employees, hell human beings, will put forth their best effort when they see they are appreciated

 

Each year or every other year an employee engagement survey is delivered via email to all employees. It’s arrival is trumpeted by an email from the CEO explaining the survey’s importance. This is the event. It’s followed by survey results disseminated to managers and some messaging shared with employees. End of event. Now go about your work.

 

Engagement is treated as some check-the-box-exercise on management’s long list of to-dos. It’s squeezed in between budget meetings, project status reports, committee meetings, blah blah blah.

Truth is engagement is not something planned if its done intentionally. Engagement is a leadership act. Not a management task.

 

Engaged employees has eluded many organizations, often becoming another management fad or meaningless surveys of which the results become shelf-ware

 

Engagement exists in the interactions between managers and employees. It’s where managers take on the important role of meaning-makers: managers help employees uncover and exploit meaning in their work all the while knowing that they matter. That their work matters.

 

This isn’t some group-hug moment. It’s where management, business and humanity intersect. Engaged employees, hell human beings, will put forth their best effort when they see they are appreciated. When what employees believe that what they do has significance to those whom the organization serves.

 

The role of meaning-maker is one that is woven throughout a manager’s daily actions, both planned and spontaneous

 

This does not occur when engagement is treated as event. When it’s an event it becomes unauthentic. The event is awkward at first then becomes annoying. Hopes are raised and quickly dashed when the event passes. Such an approach is void of meaning.

 

The role of meaning-maker is one that is woven throughout a manager’s daily actions, both planned and spontaneous. It’s planned when managers make time to know their employees’ hopes, dreams, plans for the future. It’s spontaneous when managers see an important teaching moment presents itself when an employee fails.

 

Employee engagement matters because it reveres the innate human desire to do work that matters, to do work that is meaningful. Without employee engagement the spawns of hierarchy, bureaucracy, command-and-control, for example, dominate and suck the humanity out of our workplaces.

Employee engagement will not thrive when its handled like an event. But when it is vigilantly cultivated and purposefully spread through the interactions between managers and employees, it becomes a way of working. It becomes part of a company’s culture.

 

Graphic by Shawn Murphy

Shawn Murphy (100 Posts)

Change Leader | Speaker | Writer Owner and principal consultant at Achieved Strategies. Co-founder of Switch and Shift. Passionately explores the space where business & humanity intersect. Promoter of workplace optimism. Believes work can be a source of joy. Top ranked on Huffington Post and HR Examiner.

Jobs and the Economy: What Jason Kenney Can Learn From Teachers

 

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney recently attacked Liberal leadership front-runner Justin Trudeau, questioning his leadership ability because before entering politics all he did was work as a teacher. In the eyes of some apparently, teaching is a lowly profession. And the idea that teachers are leaders is one that is open to ridicule. Had Trudeau been a lawyer or doctor, this would have not been an issue. But an ordinary teacher wanting to lead our country raises concerns.

 

Stephen Harper never had a real job prior to politics - he never put his fabled economics degree to the test prior to entering politics.  Jason Kenney served as a lobbyist - a role he has essentially carried over to the Immigration file, as he pretty much spends all his time lobbying ethnic communities to vote Conservative.

 

Meanwhile, the Harper Team, focused on jobs and economic growth, are increasingly frustrated by their - sorry, the bureaucrats - ability to develop the labour skills they feel our economy needs.  They're not having any luck getting the Private Sector to loosen their purse strings, either, and innovation in Canada is nowhere near where it needs to be.

 

BUT - the Tories have done a pretty good job of stifling opposition, scaring bureaucrats into silence and demonizing those who disagree with their narrow ideology, haven't they?  Power is theirs and they aren't prepared to share it.  Alas, by choking the Census, clamping down on inconvenient evidence and knee-capping conversation, Team Harper is forcing everyone to rely on gut instinct rather than fact.  Instinct in the absence of fact, particularly in tough economic times, will always, always encourage a bunker mentality - the exact opposite of what we need to get out of our worsening economic slump.  It's a limbic thing.

 

I won't hold my breath on the Harpers and Kennedys of the world connecting the dots between their emphasis on control and their mounting frustrations with everyone else not playing along.

 

What I will do is suggest the CPC folk look at some different models to find out how motivation really works and how to foster the independence, critical thinking and comfort with risk they seek.  Of course, first they must unlearn what they have learned.  What's required for them to do that?

 

Hint - they should go back to the classroom and learn from the masters.

 

It's not about controlling the flow of fish, folks - it's about teaching people to fish. 

 

Why Hugging Thugs Works

Every wonder why successful politicians do the two-handed handshake or give you a pat on the shoulder?  Because through doing so, they're winning you over.

You can do it too.

High five a team member.  Give a client a hug.  They'll feel better - so will you.  You might just feel inclined to work together that little bit extra.

Leaders Begin with Why

 

"People don't buy what you do - they buy why you do it."

 

  - Simon Sinek

 

 

 

It's totally true. 

 

Money is about status - if people think you'll work hard because you want to strengthen your brand, they might invest in you, but they'll know you have built-in limitations.  What doesn't help your brand won't interest you.

 

Security is about comfort - if people think you'll work diligently so that you don't lose your job, they might invest in you as they'll find some comfort in that, too.  It'll be apparent to everyone, though, that comfort is a glass ceiling.

 

Legacy - that's something different.  When people see that you have an inspired vision of how the world can be and what their life would be like in it, then the goal doesn't become a benchmark, but a destination.

 

When you inspire people, that's when they'll follow you.

Is the Future of Talent in Clusters?

The Future of Talent Is in Clusters

by Dave Aron | 8:00 AM February 1, 2013

 

An effective team is a powerful thing. Many of us have participated on teams where the members complement each other, trust each other and find ways of working that are not only effective, but also enjoyable. For teams like this, performance is typically much higher than might be expected of the sum of individuals.

 

And yet while teams often are where the real work gets done, most businesses don't value or manage them well. Many businesses aren't skilled in talent management or team nurturing. Team management, in particular, is often a scarcely recognized activity.

 

What's more, most employees don't work in high-performing teams for long periods — team members move on, projects finish, and other pressing needs come to the fore. While it's part of the normal course for organizations, disbanding well-functioning teams is actually a value-destroying activity, eradicating the "team capital" built and stored in the team. Because businesses don't fundamentally recognize such teams as entities beyond the activity they are performing, this value destruction seems inevitable.

 

But what if there was another way? One in which organizations capitalize on the inherent value of a well-functioning team? One where the organization evolves its management style to let teams self-manage to preserve their culture and value?

 

A New Kind of Team: Clusters

 

Clusters are a radical alternative to our traditional notion of teams. They are formed outside a company context, but are hired and paid by companies as a unit, as a permanent part of the company. They manage, govern and develop themselves; define their own working practices and tools; and share out remuneration. Technology trends and tools like the cloud, and collaboration suites, are evolving to make this more and more workable.

 

The business or agency treats the cluster as an atomic unit of resource and it hires, fires and positions the cluster as a unit. Likewise, each cluster appears as such a unit in the business's organization chart. Clusters plug together like Lego bricks to achieve the business's goals.

 

A cluster is not the same as a consulting model. The main difference is that clusters will typically be hired permanently by a business with a mutual intention to commit for the long term. As such, a cluster can be considered a real asset of the business, just as high-performing staff members are today. Also, the cluster model puts extreme emphasis on teams that learn how to work well together and determine their own tools and work practices. This is not always true of consultancies. An individual can be in different clusters over time, and possibly in multiple clusters at once, similar to a conventional part-time work model. Similar approaches can and should be applied to consultancy models.

 

Clusters Manage Themselves

 

A cluster typically consists of five to eight people, is hired by a business with a clear scope of work, and remunerated based on outcomes. Clusters have already established shared values, work practices, tools, and roles, such as who is good at what. Balancing team roles can be particularly important to avoid the Apollo effect, where every team member needs his or her idea to dominate and the team is unable to come to a consensus. Clusters actively seek the variety of skills, talents, and personalities necessary to create a high performing team (see the Belbin model for a good example of nine discrete team roles.)

 

While there are close equivalents of clusters in a few corners of the working world (elite military teams, medical units, and TV and film crews), this model could and should pervade much further into the working world, possibly and ultimately for all operational and project work, and sometimes even for leadership teams. I would project that by 2020, 30% of work will be performed by permanently employed, self-managed clusters.

 

The cluster manages itself by finding, hiring and firing members; governing itself and resolving conflicts; creating and sustaining work practices and tools; and managing its engagement with other clusters, teams, people and organizations in order to fulfill its direct business goals and to nurture itself.

 

In short, a cluster is an extreme version of a self-managed team. It is extreme because the enterprise only has a formal legal and financial relationship with the cluster, not its members. Note that while a cluster is self-managed, it is not typically a self-directed team. Self-directed teams define their own goals, whereas clusters agree on outcomes with the businesses for which they work.

 

Clusters Create More Value

 

Clusters offer four main benefits:

 

Higher levels of business performance through higher motivation. The cluster model, when executed well, addresses known performance drivers such as purpose, autonomy, and mastery (see Daniel Pink's book Drive for more on these).

 

Higher levels of business performance through a custom work environment. Clusters can create and sustain leading-edge electronic work environments since they are less burdened by bureaucratic decision-making and the need to serve the diverse needs of many types of teams and individuals.

Talent management in the right place. The cluster model removes the burden of team and individual performance management from the business — where it typically sits uncomfortably and ineffectually today — to the cluster. The cluster knows its own members, contributions and development needs much better.

 

Higher levels of personal happiness. Clusters are sufficiently small for members to genuinely know and care about each other, and they are stable and autonomous enough for members to support each other's long-term personal development.

 

Clusters Have Risks, But They Are Manageable

 

For the cluster model to work well, with businesses hiring, firing, positioning and remunerating clusters as atomic units, considerable changes are needed in the macro work environment, to HR and payroll, recruitment agencies, legal, financial, and real estate. Even if these macro changes are made, there are two main real and perceived risks with the cluster model: the formation of mini silos, and the inability to retain clusters or their loyalty. The key to success is to ensure that the cluster's agreed-on scope of work includes appropriate levels of commitment to, and multiple interfaces with, broader corporate goals and initiatives.

 

Eventually, wherever the cluster model is adopted, businesses will need to work hard at managing and leading them well, just as they have always done for their emerging talent assets — ensuring that the best are motivated to stay, the worst are inclined to go, and those in the middle are motivated to improve.

 

More blog posts by Dave Aron

More on: Hiring, Human resources, Talent management

Dave Aron

Dave Aron is a vice president and Gartner Fellow in the Gartner CIO Research group, focusing on IT leadership issues. His work on clusters is part of a Gartner Maverick research project, which examines high-impact future scenarios as they emerge.

Accomplishment as Motivation - Why Dan Pink loves IKEA

 

In a series of experiments, they have demonstrated that people attach greater value to things they built than if the very same product was built by someone else. And in new experiments published recently, they've discovered why it happens: Building your own stuff boosts your feelings of pride and competence, and also signals to others that you are competent.

 

If you're a manager, an employer or even a teacher, this is huge. 

 

Gold star rewards place the recognition above accomplishment, meaning the product - a test, a project, etc - will be done in a manner that secures the reward.  Cash incentives work the same way - you're going to produce the work you think will encourage your employer/boss/manager to give you an external reward.  That means trying to produce a copy of the mental model communicated, however effectively, by the boss.  Here's where the problem begins - few bosses are Steve Jobs.

 

Seriously, though, Mochon's experiments actually have serious big-picture implications. The world over, companies and managers fall in love with their own ideas — and reject better ideas from the outside because they were not designed in-house.

 

When managers start to assume a "we're smart, they're dumb" attitude, they are effectively closing themselves off from external, potentially innovative ideas.  This process worsens under pressures like those facing our economy today.  Ironically, it's when the old approaches are demonstrably not working (creating social stresses like we're facing on multiple fronts now) that we defer to confidence and simplicity, rejecting the bold solutions that can shift us into a new direction.  When the people at the top assume they're the only ones not the problem, they reject ideas they don't get and reward those they do, they are essentially discouraging innovative solutions - because their people recognize there's no reward to be had for thinking outside the box.  Sound familiar?

 

It's all well and good for the 1% to say they admire those with the tenacity to push their ideas forward no matter the obstacles, but that's assuming great ideas and pig-headed resolve are linked at the hip, which they aren't.  In fact, some of the brightest thinkers tend to be those riddled with self-doubt.  Some of the most promising ideas of today are being developed right now by people who have put accomplishment ahead of wealth, but as such aren't always connecting with the capital holders at the top.

 

As Dan Pink has pointed out, we're motivating our cognitive labour in the wrong way to achieve the results we seek.  It's counter-intuitive, perhaps, but we'd be delusional not to see this.  If we want to grow our social potential in the Knowledge Economy, we need to change the way we think about incentives.  If you want your employees to build widgets, by all means, offer more money.  If you're hoping your employees will add value, however, you need to free them from basic concerns so that they can focus on the work, create a community of belonging so they feel inspired to participate and then reward them with accomplishment and ownership.  Provide basic accommodations and then teach them how to fish and they'll not only love you for it, but they'll take pride in their products and constantly push to make them better.

 

None of this is possible, however, if you as a leader aren't willing to let go of a consumer-based understanding of your HR and empower your employees to own the fruits of their labour.  You want to tell your employees that you didn't build that - if they own it, they'll make it even better.

 

Which brings the question full circle - as a leader, what matters most to you - what you can consume, or what you leave behind?

 

 

The Master doesn't talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, "Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!”