A new feature of our newsletter, that we will periodically include, is a small book review on a book that contains relevant information or forward thinking for small and medium sized businesses and the world of technology. Please contact us at anitam@waytek.com with your comments. This month’s book selection is Daniel Pink’s Drive – The Surprising Truth about what Motivates Us. Pink’s book contains some innovative and controversial stands on the future of business from looking at studies of what truly motivates people (not always money) to ideas of nurturing creativity.
Drive states that rewards tend to have the opposite effect on motivation, except when the task is mundane. Even with the most routine task, an employer should give some freedom as to how the task is accomplished. Too many rewards tend to lead to short term thinking, where fewer rewards help people to focus on long term thinking, long range goals, and more creativity. One of the most interesting notions of the book is the concept of giving employees a day to work on something on their own, outside of their everyday tasks.
Pink cites the Atlassian software company, which encourages its programmers to spend a day working on any problem they wish to work on, even if it is outside of their regular job requirements. Once a quarter, employees take such a free day and report to the company when they are finished. Google also encourages its engineers to spend one day a week working on a side project. Gmail was created from such a side project. This book inspired us at Waytek to initiate our own “Day On”. The results have been very positive, and our employees have used the time to research new marketing email methods, better uses of handling accounts receivable, new ways of communicating with our customers, and even re-decorating the lunchroom!
As one of our employees, Brynn Fiel expressed, “The ‘Day On’ experience gave me the opportunity to truly delve into a program that I use every day. I found that there were many features at my finger tips that I could utilize to become more efficient with the program and to enhance our marketing efforts.” As Pink writes toward the end of the book, “The science shows that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive – our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to live a life of purpose.” (145) We, at Waytek, look forward to sharing more stories of our “Day On” and more on our reviews of relevant books.
