.
In Search of Excellence
In Search of Excellence
(Tom Peters & Robert H Waterman Jr)
Chapter 3 – Man waiting for Motivation
In chapter 3 the authors take the topic of motivation – motivating the entire organization. There are some contradictions built into human nature like:
All of us are self-centered and consider ourselves as winners. But the fact is that our talents are distributed normally – none of us is really as good as (s)he thinks;
Our imaginative, symbolic right brain is at least as important as our rational, deductive left.
As information processors, we are simultaneously flawed and wonderful.
We are creatures of our environment, very sensitive and responsive to external rewards & punishment. We are also strongly driven from within, self-motivated;
We act as if express beliefs are important and yest actions speak louder than words.
We desperately need meaning in our lives and will sacrifice a great deal to institutions that will provide meaning for us. We at the same time need independence, to feel as though we are in charge of our destinies and have the ability to stick out.
The question raised is how do companies – especially the excellent ones – deal with these conflicts? The authors reveal that the excellent companies design systems that continually reinforce the notion that most of their people are winners. With a normal distribution of people the reinforcement is of winning rather than that of losing. Further, the systems in excellent companies are not only designed to produce lots of winners; they are constructed to celebrate the winning once it occurs.
A way to keep the levels of motivation high is by keeping things simple. One of the key attributes of excellent companies is that they have realized the importance of keeping things simple despite overwhelming genuine pressures to complicate things. This is done in many ways a small staff, shorter memos – as in P&G any memo longer than one page is returned.
Another way of keeping the motivation high is by positive reinforcement. B F Skinner says that punishment doesn’t suppress the desire to “do bad”. The person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best he learns how to avoid punishment. In excellent companies a good try that results in some learning is celebrated even when it fails.
Second, a reinforcement should have immediacy. Thomas Watson Sr. made it a practice to write a check on the spot doe achievements.
Third, the system of feedback mechanisms should take account of achievability. Major gold banana events are not common, so the system should reward small wins.
The fourth characteristic is that a fair amount of feedback comes in form of intangible but ever-so-meaningful attention from top management.
Above all, regular reinforcement looses impact as it comes to be expected. Thus unpredictability and intermittent work better.
Action, Meaning and Self control – Only if you get people acting, even in small ways, the way you want them to, will they come to believe in what they’re doing. Authors emphasize the fact that in excellent companies there is a dominant use of story, slogan, and legend as people try to explain the characteristics of their own great institutions.
Talking about cultures, poor performing companies too have strong cultures but dysfunctional ones. They are focused on internal politics rather than on the customer. Or, they focus on numbers and not product and the people who make them and sell them. In contrast, the top companies always seem to recognize what the companies that set only financial targets don’t know or don’t deem important. Excellent companies seem to understand that every man seeks meaning (not just top fifty who are in bonus pool).
Nietzsche believed, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”.
Handling criticism of their research, the authors say to the critic’s observation that the conventions are so strong that companies might be blindsided by dramatic environmental change by arguing that in general excellent companies value and stress on being close to the customer or are otherwise externally focused.
Talking about Transforming Leadership, authors argue that excellent companies are the way they are because they are organized to obtain extraordinary effort from ordinary human beings. Leadership is many things. It is patient, usually a boring coalition building. It is the purposeful seeding of cabals that one hope will result in the appropriate ferment in the bowels of the organization. It is meticulously shifting the attention of the institution of the institution through the mundane language of management system. It is altering agendas so that new priorities get attention. It is being visible when things are going awry and invisible when things are working fine.
(Tom Peters & Robert H Waterman Jr)
Chapter 3 – Man waiting for Motivation
In chapter 3 the authors take the topic of motivation – motivating the entire organization. There are some contradictions built into human nature like:
All of us are self-centered and consider ourselves as winners. But the fact is that our talents are distributed normally – none of us is really as good as (s)he thinks;
Our imaginative, symbolic right brain is at least as important as our rational, deductive left.
As information processors, we are simultaneously flawed and wonderful.
We are creatures of our environment, very sensitive and responsive to external rewards & punishment. We are also strongly driven from within, self-motivated;
We act as if express beliefs are important and yest actions speak louder than words.
We desperately need meaning in our lives and will sacrifice a great deal to institutions that will provide meaning for us. We at the same time need independence, to feel as though we are in charge of our destinies and have the ability to stick out.
The question raised is how do companies – especially the excellent ones – deal with these conflicts? The authors reveal that the excellent companies design systems that continually reinforce the notion that most of their people are winners. With a normal distribution of people the reinforcement is of winning rather than that of losing. Further, the systems in excellent companies are not only designed to produce lots of winners; they are constructed to celebrate the winning once it occurs.
A way to keep the levels of motivation high is by keeping things simple. One of the key attributes of excellent companies is that they have realized the importance of keeping things simple despite overwhelming genuine pressures to complicate things. This is done in many ways a small staff, shorter memos – as in P&G any memo longer than one page is returned.
Another way of keeping the motivation high is by positive reinforcement. B F Skinner says that punishment doesn’t suppress the desire to “do bad”. The person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best he learns how to avoid punishment. In excellent companies a good try that results in some learning is celebrated even when it fails.
Second, a reinforcement should have immediacy. Thomas Watson Sr. made it a practice to write a check on the spot doe achievements.
Third, the system of feedback mechanisms should take account of achievability. Major gold banana events are not common, so the system should reward small wins.
The fourth characteristic is that a fair amount of feedback comes in form of intangible but ever-so-meaningful attention from top management.
Above all, regular reinforcement looses impact as it comes to be expected. Thus unpredictability and intermittent work better.
Action, Meaning and Self control – Only if you get people acting, even in small ways, the way you want them to, will they come to believe in what they’re doing. Authors emphasize the fact that in excellent companies there is a dominant use of story, slogan, and legend as people try to explain the characteristics of their own great institutions.
Talking about cultures, poor performing companies too have strong cultures but dysfunctional ones. They are focused on internal politics rather than on the customer. Or, they focus on numbers and not product and the people who make them and sell them. In contrast, the top companies always seem to recognize what the companies that set only financial targets don’t know or don’t deem important. Excellent companies seem to understand that every man seeks meaning (not just top fifty who are in bonus pool).
Nietzsche believed, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”.
Handling criticism of their research, the authors say to the critic’s observation that the conventions are so strong that companies might be blindsided by dramatic environmental change by arguing that in general excellent companies value and stress on being close to the customer or are otherwise externally focused.
Talking about Transforming Leadership, authors argue that excellent companies are the way they are because they are organized to obtain extraordinary effort from ordinary human beings. Leadership is many things. It is patient, usually a boring coalition building. It is the purposeful seeding of cabals that one hope will result in the appropriate ferment in the bowels of the organization. It is meticulously shifting the attention of the institution of the institution through the mundane language of management system. It is altering agendas so that new priorities get attention. It is being visible when things are going awry and invisible when things are working fine.
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