GALT Consulting LLC

I keep hearing people kicking themselves for not being good at doing some things.  I must admit, I do it myself from time to time.

Recently, I was meeting with a client who was struggling with their job.  No... I take that back.  It was more than that.  They were struggling with their position in life.  They had been dealt a "tricky" hand and now this person was put into a position that conflicted with her personality and her skills.  She was constantly kicking herself trying to make herself line up better with the job she was working very hard to do better.  My friend and business partner Randy Mayes made a brilliant comment in response.  "You do know who you can blame for this, don't you?  God."

The point here is so simple that his comment can be taken the wrong way.  Do you think God made some mistakes when he created you?  No way.  He created you exactly the way you should be created.  The "why" is an answer that we aren't really meant to fully understand, but let's go with this for minute.  Let's assume that God did not make a mistake when you were created.  This leads to a more interesting question... then what should you do with "you"?

We are equipped (very deliberately) with emotions that lead us to the answer.  When we feel fulfilled, happy, content, and satisfied, those are likely clues that we are doing something that aligns well with who we are.  When we feel frustrated and defeated and angry, something is not aligning with who we are.  No one feels fulfilled and happy all of the time, but there are things you can do to better utilize the gifts you were given.

Think about the things that you don't like about yourself.  If God didn't make a mistake, then what do you think he had in mind?
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A good friend of mine sent me this Valentines Day Article from Mashable with "10 Ways to Show Your Employees You Love Them" and I thought I would comment on their 10 picks...

1) Don't Block Social Networks - Great point right out of the gate.  As the article says, productivity is IMPROVED when you allow for some leisure activities like surfing the internet.  This is a small gesture of trust that leads to ownership.  Side note... don't overreact if one employee takes advantage of this... just deal with that employee.

2) Allow Browser Freedom - This seems silly and minor to me, but it is a big deal to some people.  I think the header on this one is "don't make choices for your employees that you don't need to make".  I once encountered a company who required the use of a specific brand of pen during work.  The employees hated it and talked about it frequently, making a big deal out of nothing.

3) Work in the Cloud - Remote access to company files is a great productivity boost, when balanced with required security.  Most companies probably worry about security too much or not at all.  You'll be surprised how many employees will donate time from home.

4) Don't Ban Personal Cellphones - Personal cellphone use can be managed with some great, open conversations with individuals.  If you aren't willing to engage in a difficult conversation with an employee who spends 2 hours per day on their cellphone, you will like need to hide behind a policy.... otherwise, let people manage themselves.

5) Friend / Follow Your Employees - Ooooo...  I don't know if I agree with this one.  I would say that it depends on the type of work you have and your relationship with your employees.  As a boss, you might find out more than you want to know about your employees.  As an employee, you might feel a little crowded.

6) Set up a Company Social Network - A social network is simply utilizing technology to create 3-way communications.  1-way communication is talking at someone.  2-way is a conversation.  3-way is an open conversation with others able to chime in.  This concept is WAY underutilized in business applications.  If one employee has a problem, do you think another employee may have already dealt with that problem?  POTENTIALLY POWERFUL... and I have never seen it done in person.

7) Set up Company Music Playlists - Neat.

8) Offer Rewards for Location-Based Service Achievements - Doh!  My first reaction is that I don't like this one.  External rewards motivate people who normally wouldn't do a task, but they de-motivate someone who would love to do it.  Be careful...

9) Feature All your Staff on the Company Website - This is good marketing.  People like to read about people.  I don't know how it would work for really big companies, but I like this one.  Be creative when writing about the person...  don't just put in a resume.  Check out this example.

10) Set up an Online Comments System - This is a good step... like a suggestion box, but it is only one piece of a larger system.  Don't collect comments unless you have a system for executing them.

Overall... great article!  It gives businesses some things to think about... especially in related

My good friend and business coach Randy Mayes and I were talking last week about motivation.  Science knows a lot about motivation that the business world has largely ignored.  In short, people feel very internally motivated to do something when they feel competent, autonomous, and related to that task at hand.  Randy asked a great question...  

...what about American Idol???

Randy pointed out that he had just watched several very motivated people on American Idol who were far from being "competent" singers.  How were they motivated?  After being stunned for a few minutes that Randy watches American Idol, I began to think about that one.

First of all, I want to point out that "competence" is a pretty weak word.  If I turned to my wife after dinner one night and said, "Honey, you are a competent cook!", she would likely not respond well.  The word "competent" is an unfortunate choice by Self-Determination Theorists.  Daniel Pink uses the word "Mastery".  Either way, language is powerful, but the meaning behind it is the same.  If you are really good at something, you probably love doing it (if you are also autonomous and related to the task).

Second point, you don't have to actually be "competent" to feel "competent".  Competence is a relative term with different definitions for different people (people are complex, remember?).  A high school orchestra has a different definition of a "great performance" than Maestro Spigelman would have at the Springfield Symphony.  At Northwest High School in Omaha, Nebraska I was a great tennis player (#1 and MVP two years in a row, baby!!!).  However, I lost most of my matches as I was not nearly as good as the other #1 players in other high schools.  Competence is relative.

My last point is that sometimes we do a competence "fake out".  I would say that many of the contestants on American Idol know they are not the best singers.  Some of them go to what they are competent at... being goofy or something else (remember Bikini Girl?...  I don't... I don't watch the show...).  

When you take all of these points into consideration, you realize the complexity of people, but it is all simple.  The person must feel competent at what they are doing to feel really motivated to do it, not actually be competent... or even good. 

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Science has learned some interesting things about using rewards and punishments for people...  but I want to talk about the cold.

Man... it is cold.  Very cold.  Do you know what "cold" is?  Bare with me...

Temperature is technically a measurement of the average kinetic energy of molecules.  Everything is made up of molecules and those molecules are always in motion.  They bounce around and bump into each and various speeds.  When molecules are more active, the temperature is higher.  Less active and the temperature is lower.  (stick with me)

When you step outside and it is very cold outside, you "feel" cold.  What is actually happening is that the molecules in your warm skin are bumping into the slower molecules of the air around you.  Your molecules start to slow down get cold.  Your body, in order to maintain its core temperature, must then expend energy by burning food.  This excites the molecules again and works to counter the cold.  It works... at least for awhile.

It occurs to me that organizations are like matter and they have a temperature.  When an organization loses energy, it's people slow down.  When they become energized, they move more quickly and efficiently.  So the question is... how do you heat up your organization?

Back to the cold weather...  if you are cold, what is the best way to warm up?  First, I want to point out again that people are created with an "inner warmth" mechanism that keeps them warm for awhile.  In our older days, we would create a fire when we were cold.  The fire would warm us, until we walked away from the fire.  (hint: hmmm... replace fire with rewards or punishment and you'll see my analogy).

Eventually, we figured out that the fire is a temporary solution.  It doesn't really heat our environment, it only produces a localized and temporary source of energy.  Eventually, we figured out that we needed to control our environment itself and we built houses with heat.  Now instead of worrying about freezing to death, we can concentrate on more fulfilling things like writing blog articles about the cold that really relate to how people are motivated.

The analogy is pretty solid, although tricky to understand.  If your organization is "cold", you can compensate by lighting fires, but you need to know that his is temporary.  Instead, you need to spend time and effort to find ways to change your environment to one that better fits the strengths and passions of your people.  Once your house is warmer, you can move from surviving to thriving!

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I was in Omaha, Nebraska recently with my family and we visited the Children's Museum downtown. This is like a kid's heaven. There were hundreds of kids playing with hands-on exhibits of all kinds. One of the most popular rooms in the museum is known as the ball room. The ball room is an intricate series of pipes and blowers and mechanisms all designed to transport balls back to a central mechanism that periodically dumps the balls into the middle of the room onto the heads of delighted children. It takes a lot of work to pick up the balls, put them into the various mechanisms and then pull the cranks, push the buttons, and pump the handles that send the balls back to the middle... all to just repeat the process. Yet hundreds of kids collaborate to keep the machine running for hours and hours, and most of them don't seem to ever want to leave.

As I was watching the kids working hard, talking to each other to become more efficient and generally performing seemingly meaningless work, it struck me that this once again highlights how humans are really motivated.

Most of the kids in that room would whine and complain if asked to pick up the same balls a single time if they were located at home. Yet here, these kids not only picked up the balls, they did it repeatedly AND had a blast doing it. What is the difference? Why are the SAME kids completely unmotivated in one circumstance and totally motivated in the other?

I know at my house, my kids don't care much if their room is clean. They can put up with a lot. It isn't until the floor is completely covered and they can't find anything that they decide it is time to take action, and that is usually long after we decide to step in. The truth is that they don't feel related to the task. Why are we doing this? On top of that, they aren't particularly good at it. When they clean up by themselves, my wife and I usually have to follow up with additional cleaning. Lastly, when we tell them to clean up, we are making the decision to act, not them. They are not autonomous.

At the museum, the situation is different. The entire system is designed to show kids where the balls go when they put them in various places. They get to work on the system with other kids (they feel related). The system is designed so that even the smallest of children can use some of the equipment meaning they feel like they are good at what they are doing. Finally, they get to choose whether they watch the other kids work or work themselves (they always choose to work by the way) which means they have autonomy.

Same mechanical task... same kids... different environments... different results. Competence, Autonomy, Relatedness....

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This is a reprint from an old blog article from a couple of years ago.  It is still one of my favorites!  Enjoy!

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Got another good comment from "Church" (the blog reader, not the place) yesterday. She wrote:

This is interesting...
http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/archives/2009/06/encouraging_pos.html

What does this say about motivation? What are the motivating factors in these types of statements? Social belonging? It's more than just doing the "right" thing or the statements at the beginning would hold more weight.

The link takes us to a study that was posted in the Wall Street Journal recently. The study showed the results to various approaches used by hotels to get guests to reuse their towels during longer stays. Here are the results of various signs posted in the bathrooms...

1. "Help the hotel save energy" results in 16% towel reuse.
2. "Partner with us to help the environment" results in 31% towel reuse.
3. "Almost 75% of guests reuse towels" results in 44% towel reuse.
4. "75% of the guests who stayed in this room reuse towels" results in 49% towel reuse.

As "Church" says, what does this mean about motivation?

Actually, this gives some great insight into how people are motivated. From past articles, motivation is generated from 3 conditions or needs that are met; competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

"Help the hotel save energy" is too vague and doesn't build on any of the 3 needs. What can I do to help the hotel save energy? Why do I care? This statement doesn't invoke a feeling that I have control. It is almost an instruction robbing me of making a choice to help out.

"Partner with us to help the environment" is considerably better and is almost twice as effective. It helps to explain why I would care about reusing a towel and it builds on my sense of autonomy with the use of the word "partner". I have a role in this one. However, this does nothing to build relatedness. I am only one person and I probably won't have that big of an impact on the environment.

"Almost 75% of guests reuse towels" is even more effective. It builds on my sense of relatedness. If other people are doing this, it must be important. Since it doesn't give an instruction (although it is implied), I still have my sense of autonomy. It still makes you ask yourself "why", but the truth is that most people probably understand why it is important.

"75% of the guests who stayed in this room reuse towels" was the most effective statement, beating out the last statement by a hair. This is similar to the last statement except that it further builds on my sense of relatedness because it refers to people in the same situation I am currently in (staying in this room using a towel).

So, this study makes sense when we apply competence, autonomy, and relatedness as key motivators. A couple of comments on this. First of all, the last 2 statements are lies and therefore should not have been used (sure its a small lie to save a lot of money, but how much is integrity worth?). Second, if you wanted to improve on the above statements (ignoring my first point), you might say, "75% of guests who stayed in this room partnered together to help the environment by reusing towels". (Again, I wouldn't use it unless it was true, but this type of statement really hits all 3 needs).

Motivation is a tricky thing. We often mistake "importance" as a key factor. The truth is that our sense of being a part of something bigger (relatedness) is a much larger component to motivation.

This past week, I had the opportunity to listen to a presentation by Russell Brunson, internet marketing expert and founder of DotComSecrets.  I also had the opportunity to have lunch with him after the event.  It was an amazing day!  Over 150 entrepreneurs and business leaders attended the event and few left without some great new ideas and perspectives.

One of the key success points Russell talked about is the concept of Opportunity Cost.  The question is simple...  what is your time worth?  I run into this a lot with business owners.  Is it worth $10/hour?  $20?  $50?  $100?  $1000?

What I often see with business owners is that they actually assume their time is free.  Yes... I said FREE.  They think and act like their time is worth nothing.  Sure, on an intellectual level, they know that their time is precious, but in practice, they don't value their time at all.  Let me explain.

Small businesses have a lot to do and are often limited on the resources they have to execute.  This means that when something needs to be done that falls outside of the normal job responsibilities of someone, the owner jumps in a does it themselves.  One business owner I've encountered spent 10-15 hours pricing tree removal for their building.  Another spent stopped their primary job of business development in order to replace an employee who had quit (and this was not a temporary thing).  I have made the mistake myself spending 50 hours developing various logo's for my business.  Russell talked about spending his time doing graphic design early in his career.  We all do it...

...and it is a HUGE mistake.

I am aware that resources are always tight, but don't fool yourself into believing that your time is free. You may be one of the most important people within your company.  You might be the one that develops new products or brings new clients into the door.  What is the value of that vs saving a few bucks on tree removal? 

So what do you do?  You collaborate, outsource, delegate, partner...  you let someone else do the tasks they were born to do.  My bookkeeper loves doing books.  My graphic designer loves designing brochures.  These are employees... they are outsource partners who work efficiently and effectively with me.  They SAVE me money because while they are working on a $100 design, I am writing blogs, speaking to a group of business owners, or spending time with a client...  all things that earn me more than $100. 

Don't get caught up in this common mistake.  What is your time really worth?  Answer the question... then act like it!

I need to thank my good friend and communications expert Matthew P. Block for bringing this story to my attention...

A school in St. Paul, MN, Avalon School, has no administrators.  It has no principals.  No directors.  No marketers.  No district supervisors.  Instead, the school is run by the teachers.

Instead you have a People-Centric School.  I often talk about the merits of People-Centric Management and here is a school practicing the concept.  CHAOS?!?  No.  Does it work?  You bet.

Avalon outperforms other schools in the area in both test scores and graduation rates.  In fact, Claremont Graduate University has studied the school and found that some surprising results.  Here are some highlights...

- Teachers at the school earn less than their counterparts at other schools and are not part of a teacher's union.  This means lower pay and less job security.  However, teachers are deeply committed to the school.  In fact, teachers have voted against pay raises for themselves in lieu of other programs designed to help the students.  (Did you hear that managers out there... employees choosing LESS pay to help the organization...  it can happen!)  As one teacher said, "I really feel like I don't have the right to be unhappy here.  If something is not going well, you have the power to change it.". 

- How do you handle a discipline issue if there is no "Principal's Office" to send a kid to?  Avalon once again utilizes a radical People-Centric method of bringing cases to the students themselves.  The school practices peer mediation and even allows the students to set the rules for the school.  (Did you hear that managers?  Employees setting their own rules?!?)

This school is not a utopia according to the study, but this shows once again the power of ownership.  People are internally motivated when they are put into a climate of competence, autonomy, and relatedness.  Increasing pay, benefits, and job security are all external motivators that simply don't work well.  People may want these things, but it doesn't get us fired up.

Huh...  it's looks like this whole People-Centric thing may have some teeth to it...

Read more about Avalon School.

I was recently asked to write an article for the Springfield Business Journal.  The subject was to be on how company owners can get their employees to think more like owners.  You can read the full article on SBJ.net, but I thought I'd highlight a few key points to you (some of which is NOT in the article).

1) Ownership is not a Character Trait - A misconception is that some people have the "ownership gene" which makes them automatically engage in anything they do.  This isn't true.  Some people enter into an organization and engage more than others, but this is because their personal mission happens to align with the company mission... or at least they think it does.  Ownership is an output of the environment where a person feels truly aligned, at a very personal level, with what they are doing. 

2) People are reasonable - When consulting, I commonly hear owners who are concerned about their employees getting "keys to the kingdom".  They want their people to feel like owners, but they don't really trust them to make good decisions.  The truth is that when people are given the opportunity to truly engage and find focus on something, they come up with reasonable decisions, especially if they are allowed to be responsible for the results.  An employee at a fast food place who doesn't care at all about what they are doing will do amazingly stupid things (we've all experienced this at some point).  However, if you can find a way to get that same employee truly engaged in their job (by building their competence, autonomy, and relatedness to the position), they will think before they act and start making good decisions.

3) Everyone is a Leader - Everyone has the capacity for leadership.  Leadership is simply helping others accomplish something they wouldn't have accomplished themselves.  Leadership, like ownership, is not a character trait.  It occurs when a person is empowered in a position that aligns with their strengths and personal mission.  Leadership and Ownership are very close cousins.

The concepts represented here and in the SBJ article are a paradigm shift to the way most people think.  As a mind test, think about the last time you felt really engaged and passionate about something you were doing.  Now think about something you hated doing.  What was the difference?  I'll bet it had to do with a combination of competence, autonomy, and relatedness...  I'd love to hear your input!

We've all heard one of our parents say... "God gave you a brain... use it!" when you did something wrong.  Really?  I'm the only one? OK, I'm going to have to work through that one...  but in the meantime, I'll make my point.

What about your people?  Even if you don't have "people", what about the people you interact with?  These people have brains (insert joke here).  My question is this... are you using them?

There are people all around you.  They have a variety of strengths... many of which you don't have.  Some of them have a similar mission to you.  Find those people and collaborate with them.  You will not only be more profitable, you will be happier.  Did you know that you are 30 times more likely to laugh with other people in the room than if you were by yourself?  We are hardwired to collaborate. 

Next month for Leadership Book of the Month, Randy Mayes and I are highlighting the book, Power of 2: How to Make the Most of Your Partnerships at Work and in Life.  It's a great reminder to expand on something our parents have always told us (or me) to do!

Go get out there and utilize at that potential around you!
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