We Perform Best When No One Tells Us What To Do

How can companies get the best possible performance out of their employees? Let them do whatever they want! And furthermore, don’t offer incentives. Sound counter-intuitive? Not if you look at what research has shown regarding the economics of motivation.

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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  11/28  at  09:02 PM

Thanks for the post. Interesting observations all. Be sure to look for the book version next month: http://bit.ly/drivebook

Cheers,
Dan Pink

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  11/29  at  02:09 AM

Three cheers for the million dollar thoughts. Going through the article, I could easily reflect on my working experience here and how this concepts play a major role in our performances. This is more like wording my thoughts for the past two months.

If I am to add another couple of lines here, I would talk about the freedom that the employees can really take when it is given. Some of them may still want every small step to be discussed with the superiors and confirm every action before execution. May be this is also a result of giving too much attention to the work details rather than focusing on the output they produce.

The need for supervisor attention grows, equally grows the feeling of the supervisor that the employees can not handle their work alone. This is simply a start of an endless vicious cycle that hits the performance in the long run. Most of all, imagine how hard it would get to manage such a team.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  11/29  at  01:20 PM

Did the study say to can the incentives, or to start off /with/ incentives, but to phase them out?

Posted by zyxo  on  11/29  at  02:03 PM

I love the idea.
For some reason I am in the lucky position where i) I'm not a manager and ii) I can mostly decide what to do and how to do it. They just see the results of my work and are happy with it.
Me, I am happy with the way they let me do my 'thing'.
The reason is I'm the only person in the company with this particular experience, so no one really understands my tools & what I am capable of with these tools, but they realize that they need my output & input to help solve their problems.
I love it.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  11/30  at  12:40 AM

I've seen a version of this in action; not that employees had "free time"...but that some of our company's most valuable tools were created by people working outside of the system. Small groups of people meet outside of work, and during their discussions they come up with great ideas, and during work they'd eke out time to execute their ideas. I think the lack of limitations freed them to create solutions that expanded the business as opposed to just improving it.

I also agree that incentives can hurt performance. The company cherry-picks employees on big projects for recognition, and those who perform well on day-to-day tasks are mostly ignored. My biggest fear of incentives for the output of free time would make people work only as hard as it takes to get a reward, and that true creativity would be stifled.

I'd like to hear more about these studies, and how personality type plays a role in the success of "free time." Everyone has something to contribute. But some people are geared to do great things within a structure; they need guidance to help them perform. Some people are geared to excel when working with a group, and some need to work alone.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/02  at  12:25 AM

Well well... I'm not sure bout it... I mean this is a really nice idea and I really would like to live in a place where everyone could to do anything just for do it. It would be wonder but im really not sure if it works in every situations... My point is what if people can be more creative when there is not a reward maybe it could occours in a lower frequency than when the reward is guiding and focusing, stimulating them to do their best... whatever could this situation be analized by another points of view!?

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/03  at  03:00 AM

I completely love the idea of self-direction and self-pacing. In this connection I would like to connect with Steve Pavlina's article that talks about a job as an 'indentured servitude'. ("10 reasons why you should never get a job"). Because having a job means being told what to do and get paid for it. http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-should-never-get-a-job/

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  12/03  at  01:51 PM

I noticed that the article made no distinction between beginner workers and more seasoned workers. I find it hard to believe that there'd be no differences between them as far as incentives are concerned.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/01  at  01:13 AM

I use this as a method to get the best performance on any project or job I am in charge of. Simply said. I don't order people to do things. I let them know what the goal is then observe. Sometimes they are not aware of their strengths. I then point them out along with creative constructive criticism to steer them away from their weaknesses. I have successful outcomes on time and within or under budget each time. It's teamwork at its best with a good leader and the followers ranged from novices to decades of experience.

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