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Archives for April 2010

The Seven Deadly Flaws of Carrots and Sticks

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Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us is fantastic and I will be blogging on it if I get the chance. One of his points is that extrinsic motivators often back-fire and decrease commitment to a task. We shouldn’t dismiss extrinsic motivation altogether, but it needs to be very secondary and used right. The primary way to motivate is create the conditions that foster intrinsic motivation–that tap the inherent worth of the task. Which usually means simply making sure not to get in the way of how people are naturally motivated.

Extrinsic motivation is most relevant when a task is routine. But when it comes to creative tasks and the typical nonroutine tasks of the knowledge worker, extrinsic motivation can decrease not only commitment to the task, but also the original and creative thought that is necessary to finding your way.

Here are the seven deadly flaws of the “carrot and stick” approach (extrinsic motivation) that he discusses in chapter 2:

  1. They can extinguish intrinsic motivation
  2. They can diminish performance
  3. They can crush creativity
  4. They can crowd out good behavior
  5. They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior
  6. They can become addictive
  7. They can foster short-term thinking

Again, his point is not that extrinsic motivation is always bad, but that it can be.

Priority Matrix for the iPad

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I was just pointed to the iPad app Priority Matrix [opens in iTunes], which allows you to visually organize tasks into the four quadrants of urgent and important, urgent but not important, important but not urgent, and not important and not urgent.

I was pleasantly surprised by the program. I like being able to see tasks visually separated in this way, and the program is very easy to use. I see some potential here for possibly keeping my daily list, since the OmniFocus interface has not yet been adapted to the iPad.

Here’s a video showing how it works:

The Strictness Error

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There is a class I know of (elementary school) where the teacher gives out hardly any top grades (it’s a complex system–it’s not just a matter of As, Bs, etc., or even just 1, 2, 3). The thinking, it is said, is that no one is perfect, and there always needs to be room to improve.

I’m sure there is more to the rationale, but is this a good idea? No. This is called the strictness error and it is demotivating. Managers can hold to the same error when it comes to performance reviews. Hence, the problems of the strictness error for both contexts is well explained by these comments in the book Management Skills:

The strictness error is the flip side of leniency. You rate everyone very strictly. While it is acceptable to maintain high standards, performance appraisals should be an accurate reflection of performance. Appraisals that are too strict will de-motivate employees and frustrate them. They will begin to think that no matter what they do, it will never enable them to achieve the rewards that they value. [I would restate the last part of the sentence, because it sounds too extrinsically motivated, but you get the point.]

The strictness error, as mentioned, is the opposite of the leniency error. You don’t want to error on that side, either, whether in education or management. The lenience error

provides employees with high performance appraisal ratings for mediocre or marginal performance. This marginal performer is then ‘rewarded’ in organizational terms. This will increase the likelihood that his or her marginal performance will continue–because they have no incentive to improve.

Of course, the one other issue raised here for the arena of management is whether the traditional concept of a performance appraisal is a good idea at all. It is, and should, seem a bit odd that I am able to make a comparison between how we treat elementary students and how we treat adults on the job.

It is critical that people receive feedback on results and are held accountable for meeting the defined outcomes they are responsible to produce, and that this be done through a regular routine of meetings and conversations. But whether this should include or be wrapped in with a detailed performance appraisal that effectively ranks or grades people is an open question, in my view.

Mossberg: Laptop Killer? The iPad Comes Close

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Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has a really good review of the iPad. He argues that the iPad may be a true “game changer.” Here’s how the WSJ summarizes his article:

Apple’s new touch-screen device has the potential to change portable computing profoundly. It could challenge the primacy of the laptop and eventually propel the multitouch user interface ahead of the mouse-driven interface.

Here’s another interesting part:

The iPad is much more than an e-book or digital periodical reader, though it does those tasks brilliantly, better in my view than the Amazon Kindle. And it’s far more than just a big iPhone, even though it uses the same easy-to-master interface, and Apple says it runs nearly all of the 150,000 apps that work on the iPhone.

It’s qualitatively different, a whole new type of computer that, through a simple interface, can run more-sophisticated, PC-like software than a phone does, and whose large screen allows much more functionality when compared with a phone’s. But, because the iPad is a new type of computer, you have to feel it, to use it, to fully understand it and decide if it is for you, or whether, say, a netbook might do better.

Why Rick Warren is Coming to the Desiring God National Conference

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In this video, John Piper explains why he invited Rick Warren to our fall conference (as many of you know, I work at Desiring God):

And here’s a short transcript from Piper talking about why he invited Warren last month to a group of pastors:

[When I wrote Warren to invite him,] I said, “The conference is called ‘THINK: The life of the Mind and the Love of God.’ I want you to come. You are the most well known pragmatist pastor in the world. I don’t think you are a pragmatist at root. Come and tell us why thinking Biblically matters to you in your amazingly pragmatic approach to ministry.”

I want him to lay his cards on the table. I want him to tell us what makes him tick. Because he does come across in much of what he says and does as very results-oriented and pragmatic and not theologically driven, and yet, [Piper finishes up this thought a few minutes later] …. at root I think he is theological.

I have a lot that I have to get done today, but if I can I will try to write a post later today on 4 reasons why it is good and important that Rick Warren is coming to the Desiring God conference.