Primal Management
Review in the Journal of Personnel Psychology:
"The book is clearly written, strongly and convincingly argued, insightful, provocative, stimulating, and interesting to read."
THE HORSEPOWER SYSTEM™
Here is a screen shot of The Horsepower System's™ leadership dashboard. It gives every manager a quick diagnostic readout of the current survey scores for their department. They can tell, at a glance, if the motivational engine is functioning optimally, or malfunctioning.
Motivation is the master metric that drives everything else. It therefore deserves a prominent position front-and-center on an organization's management dashboard.
Paul's Blog
| Are decisions really 80% emotional? |
As some of you know, I'm a graduate of the University of Chicago, a very rational place where, according to legend, "Fun goes to die." I expect to be tarred and feathered at the next U of C management conference for this provocative and contrarian post.
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Advertisers, like Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, claim that the buying decision is 80% emotional and 20% rational. According to Roberts, "Reason leads to conclusions. Emotion leads to action." What about other decisions, like the decision on the part of our employees to work hard? Is this also 80% emotional? What is going on here? If emotions are so important in decision making, why was the word never uttered in any of my econ classes?
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| World Without Feelings = INERT |
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Dear Visitor, As a business author and management revolutionary, here is my "subversive" thought of the day. Contrary to what we have all been taught from childhood onward (especially us guys) feelings are not soft or irrational. On the contrary, nothing is MORE important than feelings because feelings drive behavior and behavior determines organizational outcomes. The most important factor determining ones success in business is therefore how customers and employees feel about the business. It’s impossible, I suggest, to be an effective leader, marketer, or whatever unless we understand and manage our own feelings and the feelings of those around us (this was essentially Dan Goleman's message in his 1994 blockbuster book "Emotional Intelligence"). I look at feelings as the propulsive forces that move us. As forces, they obey the laws of emotional "physics." My first law of emotional physics is, "A human being at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an emotional force--a feeling." Feelings get us up in the morning, move us from Point A to Point B during the course of our day, and put us to bed at night. It’s arrogant and ignorant to make fun of these vital and necessary propulsive forces because without them we’d all be dead, extinct! Feelings run the show because they are proxies for our vital survival needs. Without them we would be unmotivated to eat, drink, breathe and reproduce. Feelings tell us what we need to survive and the rational mind attempts to fulfill these vital needs. In other words, human beings are primarily emotional creatures and secondarily logical. Emotions rule despite the macho posturing we have all been exposed to. The booming field of neuroeconomics is helping to set things straight. Researchers are finding that all forms of reward, monetary or otherwise, are created by circuits in the basal striatum, the brain's master reward center. Neurons in the basal striatum fire if we are rewarded with money, rewarded with food, rewarded by a pat-on-the-back from the boss, or rewarded with psychoactive drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine. All rewards, is seems, are encoded as feelings of pleasure and pain emanating from the basal striatum. Even traditional economists are slowly recognizing that feelings lie at the core of economic decision making, the core of economic utility, the core of customer and employee satisfaction, and at the core of leadership and organizational excellence. If we could somehow turn off rewarding feelings by unplugging the basal striatum, all activity, including economic activity, would come to a screeching halt because the rational mind, without a feeling-based incentive-system to guide it, would have no idea what to do next (all paths into the future would feel the same--nothing). If you'd like to explore the laws of emotional physics, you can download some free chapters of my book, "Primal Management," at www.primalmanagement.com. If you are a budding management revolutionary, you are welcome to join my NaturalManagement twitter group (go to tweetworks.com and search for NaturalManagement). FYI: CIO Insight Magazine just voted "Primal Management" one of the “15 Essential Spring Books for IT Leaders.” Enjoy the wonderful spring weather (in Wisconsin anyway)! It FEELS great! Viva la Revolución, Paul Herr |
Comments
Is there a way to code a company's culture? For instance, perhaps a company, or even a job within a company, would be low on innovation. Maybe they would want to hire people who don't get as big a jolt from innovation as you do. What do you think?
JD
Many corporations are not true social groups--and hence they don't have a coherent culture. Rather, they are collections of individuals who happen to work in the same building. I estimate that 90% of companies fall into this category. These companies are leaderless and depend upon rules, regulations and impersonal systems of control employees to get things done. These pseudo-groups are money-and-fear- driven and don't have a culture, or a purpose, or a passion. They are just big, ponderous, machines cranking out mediocre products and services. Fortunately, these machine-like workplaces are heading toward extinction because they do not efficiently tap into the energy and passion of their employees. In a hyper-competiti ve global marketplace, we need human-friendly companies run by enlightened leaders. This, I suggest, is the best way to get everybody's head-in-the-gam e. Do you work for a company with an enlightened leader, or do you work for a machine? Once I know the answer, I can better answer your question.
Best,
Paul
I think you are on the right track, it should be possible to create a pleasure profile for each job in a company--perhap s based upon the ratings of the top 10 performers in each job category. A rating system like this would help employees avoid jobs that they are not suited for. Had such a system existed 20 years ago, I might have avoided getting involved in environmental consulting--whi ch I hated (lots of red tape and paperwork, and very little science). I would favor a job with a high innovation quotient.
Best,
Paul
The HR Director at the company I work for lent me your book as I apparently am a budding management revolutionary – I know there is a better way to live and work in this world and feel like I have found a kindred spirit in your work. I was interested to read about neuroeconomics in your book. It is an amazing time to be alive on this planet when these connections are studied and discussed. For my blog I coined the name recipronomics which is the reciprocity (or social effect) of economic transactions. My eventual goal is to lead meditation and strategy sessions with Executives to help them develop greater personal awareness to lead socially sustainable businesses. Thank you for the information and research which will contribute to shaping my work.
Yes, productivity is driven by rewarding feelings as you suggest. I've developed an intrinsic reward survey (pleasure/pain survey) to monitor these rewarding feelings in the workplace so managers can find out if their motivational engines are firing on all cylinders or misfiring. This tool is called The Horsepower SurveyTM. You can download a brochure that describes this cool, new management tool on my website.
Please take a look if you are interested.
Best Regards,
Paul Herr
Author of Primal Management and Inventor of The Horsepower SurveyTM