Is it all about the cake?
Why do you go to work? Hint – The thinking is that it has more to do with cake than it does with doe.
Here is a better question. Would you like to get more productivity out of yourself and your employees?
Ask any 10 people and you may get 10 different answers or 10 exactly the same, however the question, “why do you go to work?” is important because you will find that understanding your motivations will be a key consideration in increasing your own performance. Whether you are an employee, self-employed, an owner operator or a business operator with your own employees, you will do well to ask the question.
There is a commonly held belief that money and other remunerative compensation is the most effective form of motivation to an employee. Every time I ask the question directly, the answer is nearly always “money” however we know through extensive research and proven productivity improvements that this is not necessarily true.
A psychologist called Herzberg postulated in the 60s that high levels of what he labelled ‘hygiene factors’ such as pay, job security, status, working conditions, fringe benefits, job policies, and relations with co-workers would have a calculable effect on productivity, but then came some cake from Ikea. The Ikea Effect basically says “labour enhances affection for its results.”
Research indicated that housewives resisted instant cake mixes because they were too easy. Ikea took the powdered eggs out of the cake mix so that housewives had to put an egg back in. Just that little bit of extra labour made the difference and increased the value of the cake.
Another study in the Harvard Business Review found that people undervalue products that they don’t contribute to, and tend to overvalue those on which they have contributed to.
Professor Dan Ariely built on this research and found that people are willing to perform even menial of tasks, for very little pay, as long as they considered the work meaningful or are recognized for their contributions.
He asked volunteer subjects to circle some words on a sheet and paid them a trivial amount per sheet and less for successive sheets. He had 3 scenarios. In one, the supervisor checked the work briefly and gave a brief positive acknowledgment. In the second scenario, he had the results put onto a pile without checking and with no comment and the third scenario, the completed work was immediately shredded without comment nor even a glance at the work. He said that the third group could have easily cheated and made more money by just submitting incomplete or incorrectly done work.
It is not hard to work out that the shred scenario was going to give the poorest performance. Subjects quit sooner and netted less income than the other two groups. The first scenario netted the best results by far but the concerning result was the second scenario. It was virtually the same as the shred scenario.
Ariely devised some more research with origami. In one group he gave instructions and the other none but the subjects were allowed to purchase the finished product. The subjects without instructions origami finished products were not as good quality as the ones built with instructions and other subjects with no connection to the build, put a higher value on the instruction built origami. Out of the two groups of origami builders, guess which group paid a higher price for their own works? It seems that the less instructions given, the higher value is placed upon the finished article (by the builder, not the disconnected buyer).
Maybe the secret ingredient is pride or even love. Can we conclude from this that giving workers work that demands more effort and thought to it, that they will value the work more? A thing made with love is always more special to the maker and the receiver.
Is this why the results of the business owners efforts are always more likely to get better outcomes than those of their staff?
So, back to the original question. Why do you go to work? If you are a small business owner and you don’t love what you do, we need to talk.
Do you acknowledge the work of your staff? Or do you shred it because it does not come up to your incredibly high “love” standard? The biggy! Do you acknowledge your own work?
Professor Dan Ariely says that we need to look at a revised model of labour. Payment is a component of worker motivation whether it is you or your staff. He asserts however, that meaning, creation, challenge, ownership, identity and pride all play a bigger than expected and key part of the solution.
Cake anyone?