Leaders Leave Meetings Last

I loved this reminder from Kyle at audacious.blog to hang around at the end of each meeting in case someone has a question for just you:

Today, even though I’m only a quick keyboard shortcut away from instantly exiting any Zoom call, I still try to be the last one to leave. Once we say our goodbyes, I hang on for ten more seconds as the group filters out. Most of the time I’m left looking at me. Sometimes though, someone else waits around too. Then, given this serendipitous opportunity to bring up that gnawing question, they ask if I have another minute, and I say sure.

Trigger phrase: "What would be nice to see…"

The scenario: You’re presenting or problem solving as a group and your information, or at least its framing, is not quite what they had in mind. Instead of diving into the details with curiosity and questions to get there, you hear:

“What would be nice to see…”

You now have a choice. Do you leave the meeting and try to guess the right framing again, or do you ask the probing questions yourself to identify their actual concerns? This way, you can understand what is driving their requests, which is typically a concern. Once you identify their concerns, then you can problem solve together in real-time without prep-work that may not be effective.

Leading with Intrinsic Motivators, a Ted Talk by Dan Pink

Dan Pink, from his Ted Talk:

Traditional management techniques are great for COMPLIANCE. If you want engagement, self-direction works better. Focus on autonomy, mastery, and purpose instead.

For those that lead others, Dan Pink provides a concise summary of how to enable better creative problem solving by enabling intrinsic motivation, as opposed to the traditional focus on extrinsic (external) rewards. Here's a summary of his Ted Talk key takeaways. I highly recommend the 18 minute watch linked at the end of the article.

Laws of Motivational Science

There's a mismatch of what Science knows and what business does. The laws:

1. Standard 20th century motivations work, but only in a narrow band of circumstances

2. "If then rewards" often destroy creativity

3. Secret to high performance isn't rewards and punishment, but that unseen intrinsic drive to do things for their own sake (autonomy, mastery) and because they matter (purpose)

The Candle Problem

In the talk, Dan explains the difference between simple and creative problem solving in the framing of psychologist Karl Duncker's Candle Problem experiment.

Candle Problem Images Source: Dan Pink Ted Talk Presentation Slides

The Scientific Proof

In case you need the scientific proof from multiple studies, Dan supplies some of that too. An excerpt from the Ariely study:

As long as the task involved only mechanical skill, bonuses worked they would be expected: the higher the pay, the better the performance. But once the task called for "even rudimentary cognitive skill," a larger reward "led to poorer performance.†

Continued Learning

A great resource to diver deeper into the full intrinsic motivational stack to achieve things you thought were impossible is Steven Kotler's The Art of Impossible.

† D. ARIELY, U. GNEEZY, G. LOWENSTEIN, & N. MAZAR, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Working Paper No. 05-11, July 2005, Ny Times, 20 Nov. 08