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erikars's review
5.0
There are books that make me wish that pamphlets were a viable publication medium. This book has excellent content which anyone involved in leading or motivating people should be aware of. However, even at ~170 pages of not-dense text, it felt longer than it needed to be. Since this is a common failing of the business book genre, I am rating the model more than the book. Thus, expect more like 2-3 star read but great ideas.
This book discusses motivation in the workplace. It covers the same territory as Daniel Pink's Drive, but in a framework that feels more actionable. The models are similar enough that it is worth comparing them directly (caveat: I haven't read Drive in a while, so I'm going off of memory here).
Drive models intrinsic motivation in terms of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Alive at Work focuses on self-expression, experimentation, and purpose. I'll go into how Cable defines those more in a moment. These two models are not dissimilar. You can even squint and look at these aspects as being really the same, although I think it's a stretch. Autonomy covers the freedom aspects of experimentation and self-expression. Mastery covers the depth that comes from learning through experimentation and utilizing your personal strengths.
However, I think it's more useful to look at autonomy, mastery, self-expression, experimentation, and purpose all as ways to activate what Cable calls the seeking system. Humans are intensely motivated to explore, learn, do important things, and be curious. We find this sort of behavior intrinsically rewarding. Both the Drive model and the Alive at Work model are about ways of activating people's seeking system. Activating the seeking system makes people happier and more creative. That's the real goal. Thus, my preference for the Alive at Work model is mainly because it feels more actionable in the workplace.
Why should leaders care about motivating employees? There's the ethical reason and the business reason. We'll start with the business reason. In a factory based job, motivation was less important than predictability. However, as more employees focus on problem-solving, businesses need solutions that are creative and exploratory. They need the exact sort of thinking that comes along with an activated seeking system.
More importantly is that people are happier and healthier when their seeking systems are activated. We spend a huge fraction of our lives at work, and as leaders, we should care about the human impact of the choices we make. People are not cogs in a machine. They are living breathing individuals much of whose happiness depends on the workplace. As leaders, we have an ethical duty to create environments that are beneficial to the wellbeing of those who spend time there. Helping people love what they do is a way to fulfill that ethical duty.
Yet, at the end of the day, businesses exist to accomplish some mission. Thus, we cannot give people free reign to go wherever their seeking system points them. (This is one of the challenges with autonomy as a top-level goal.) The job of a leader is to provide a frame within which people have freedom. The frame provides boundaries, and it points toward goals. It is an oft-repeated piece of advice that constraints can help prod creativity. The goal of leaders should be to provide the useful constraints that will allow people to work creatively toward a goal without getting too scattered by all of the possible directions we could go.
Three ways of activating the seeking system are to give people opportunities for authentic self-expression, provide room to experiment, and give people a clear sense of purpose.
Self-expression is how Cable describes the strengths-based perspective on self-development. For those unfamiliar, strength-based development is based on the idea that once you are above some minimum required for basic competency, improving your weaknesses is less valuable than learning how to better utilize your strengths. No one is strong at everything, so utilizing strengths allows you to find areas where you can really shine rather than being average on everything. From the perspective of work satisfaction, strengths have a separate advantage: we tend to find using our strengths to be energizing. To get people to utilize their strengths at work, they first have to spend time discovering their strengths through reflection and asking peers. Assessments (such as this one: https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter) can also help although they are not necessary.
The most fundamental way to encourage self-expression via strengths is to help people modify their role to let them utilize their strengths more. This doesn't mean allowing people to do a job that isn't their job (although sometimes it may be a role change they need). Rather, it means acknowledging the breadth that most roles and the way that people complement each other in a team to find ways for people to better utilize their strengths. Strengths become even more powerful when they are shared, not private. This can be accomplished through fun changes like encouraging self-reflective titles (mine is Solution Synthesizer). It can also be accomplished through discussion of people's roles and strengths.
One important note. Cable talks about the importance of self-expression when it comes to diversity. The research on diversity both claims that diverse teams do better and that they do worse. What this difference depends on is whether or not a team is able to utilize the different perspectives and life experiences of the group. If members of a team do not feel like they can express themselves on their team, then diversity causes worse performance because of an increase in friction and resorting to least-common-denominator norms (i.e., people become afraid of saying the wrong things). But if a team can openly share their perspectives and build an understanding of each other's strengths, then diversity can be a boon because the team will bring more to the table leading to more creativity and better outcomes.
The second way to activate the seeking system is through encouraging experimentation. People learn better when they can experiment -- when they can try new things without worrying that failure will cause serious consequences (such as losing a job). Experimentation here does not mean a framework for trying N different things. What experimentation means in this context is allowing people to play, to have fun, to do things without knowing how they will turn out. This is not fun as a glossy coating on top of an otherwise fear-inducing situation. Rather, what helps activate the seeking system is to deeply integrate play into the process of change. Contrast this with the fairly common way of introducing change through rules and processes. Such rigid systems are not very fun and they create their own fears over compliance failures.
One way to allow experimentation is to give people opportunities to work on passion projects that are aligned with the broader goals of the business. However, companies need to take caution here. Forced participation or too much overhead can suck the fun out of these sorts of experiments quickly. Another risk is that events like these will seem fake unless there is some chance of the outputs of the process becoming real. Not everything needs to become real, but there needs to be a path to doing so with understandable, transparent criteria for what will make the cut.
Although it is only somewhat related, the section on experimentation ends with a good discussion of what it means to be a humble leader. The connection to self-expression is that a humble leader gives people space to have ideas and experiment. But it goes beyond that. Humble leaders see their role as acting in service to their employees. This has repercussions across the dimensions of self-expression, experimentation, and purpose.
The third area for helping people feel alive at work is to inspire a sense of purpose. What I like about Cable's perspective is that meaning is a narrative we each tell ourselves. This has several consequences. First is that meaning is personal. A leader can set up situations to help people discover meaning (e.g., meeting with customers) but individuals themselves have to discover the meaning that is motivating for them.
Second, purpose does not need to be some grand pursuit. A grand pursuit can be meaningless if you cannot connect it to what you do. Just as importantly, a pursuit that seems minor in the big scheme of things can be meaningful if you understand how what you do has a positive influence on others. One example of this is that some people find meaning in helping their teammates even if they work in a "boring" industry.
Finally, purpose is a narrative we can craft intentionally. It requires thinking about your own values and how those values connect to what you do. We can choose a higher level, positive purpose and choose to structure our work around that. Doing this doesn't just help motivation on the job. It can help make your whole life better.
This book discusses motivation in the workplace. It covers the same territory as Daniel Pink's Drive, but in a framework that feels more actionable. The models are similar enough that it is worth comparing them directly (caveat: I haven't read Drive in a while, so I'm going off of memory here).
Drive models intrinsic motivation in terms of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Alive at Work focuses on self-expression, experimentation, and purpose. I'll go into how Cable defines those more in a moment. These two models are not dissimilar. You can even squint and look at these aspects as being really the same, although I think it's a stretch. Autonomy covers the freedom aspects of experimentation and self-expression. Mastery covers the depth that comes from learning through experimentation and utilizing your personal strengths.
However, I think it's more useful to look at autonomy, mastery, self-expression, experimentation, and purpose all as ways to activate what Cable calls the seeking system. Humans are intensely motivated to explore, learn, do important things, and be curious. We find this sort of behavior intrinsically rewarding. Both the Drive model and the Alive at Work model are about ways of activating people's seeking system. Activating the seeking system makes people happier and more creative. That's the real goal. Thus, my preference for the Alive at Work model is mainly because it feels more actionable in the workplace.
Why should leaders care about motivating employees? There's the ethical reason and the business reason. We'll start with the business reason. In a factory based job, motivation was less important than predictability. However, as more employees focus on problem-solving, businesses need solutions that are creative and exploratory. They need the exact sort of thinking that comes along with an activated seeking system.
More importantly is that people are happier and healthier when their seeking systems are activated. We spend a huge fraction of our lives at work, and as leaders, we should care about the human impact of the choices we make. People are not cogs in a machine. They are living breathing individuals much of whose happiness depends on the workplace. As leaders, we have an ethical duty to create environments that are beneficial to the wellbeing of those who spend time there. Helping people love what they do is a way to fulfill that ethical duty.
Yet, at the end of the day, businesses exist to accomplish some mission. Thus, we cannot give people free reign to go wherever their seeking system points them. (This is one of the challenges with autonomy as a top-level goal.) The job of a leader is to provide a frame within which people have freedom. The frame provides boundaries, and it points toward goals. It is an oft-repeated piece of advice that constraints can help prod creativity. The goal of leaders should be to provide the useful constraints that will allow people to work creatively toward a goal without getting too scattered by all of the possible directions we could go.
Three ways of activating the seeking system are to give people opportunities for authentic self-expression, provide room to experiment, and give people a clear sense of purpose.
Self-expression is how Cable describes the strengths-based perspective on self-development. For those unfamiliar, strength-based development is based on the idea that once you are above some minimum required for basic competency, improving your weaknesses is less valuable than learning how to better utilize your strengths. No one is strong at everything, so utilizing strengths allows you to find areas where you can really shine rather than being average on everything. From the perspective of work satisfaction, strengths have a separate advantage: we tend to find using our strengths to be energizing. To get people to utilize their strengths at work, they first have to spend time discovering their strengths through reflection and asking peers. Assessments (such as this one: https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter) can also help although they are not necessary.
The most fundamental way to encourage self-expression via strengths is to help people modify their role to let them utilize their strengths more. This doesn't mean allowing people to do a job that isn't their job (although sometimes it may be a role change they need). Rather, it means acknowledging the breadth that most roles and the way that people complement each other in a team to find ways for people to better utilize their strengths. Strengths become even more powerful when they are shared, not private. This can be accomplished through fun changes like encouraging self-reflective titles (mine is Solution Synthesizer). It can also be accomplished through discussion of people's roles and strengths.
One important note. Cable talks about the importance of self-expression when it comes to diversity. The research on diversity both claims that diverse teams do better and that they do worse. What this difference depends on is whether or not a team is able to utilize the different perspectives and life experiences of the group. If members of a team do not feel like they can express themselves on their team, then diversity causes worse performance because of an increase in friction and resorting to least-common-denominator norms (i.e., people become afraid of saying the wrong things). But if a team can openly share their perspectives and build an understanding of each other's strengths, then diversity can be a boon because the team will bring more to the table leading to more creativity and better outcomes.
The second way to activate the seeking system is through encouraging experimentation. People learn better when they can experiment -- when they can try new things without worrying that failure will cause serious consequences (such as losing a job). Experimentation here does not mean a framework for trying N different things. What experimentation means in this context is allowing people to play, to have fun, to do things without knowing how they will turn out. This is not fun as a glossy coating on top of an otherwise fear-inducing situation. Rather, what helps activate the seeking system is to deeply integrate play into the process of change. Contrast this with the fairly common way of introducing change through rules and processes. Such rigid systems are not very fun and they create their own fears over compliance failures.
One way to allow experimentation is to give people opportunities to work on passion projects that are aligned with the broader goals of the business. However, companies need to take caution here. Forced participation or too much overhead can suck the fun out of these sorts of experiments quickly. Another risk is that events like these will seem fake unless there is some chance of the outputs of the process becoming real. Not everything needs to become real, but there needs to be a path to doing so with understandable, transparent criteria for what will make the cut.
Although it is only somewhat related, the section on experimentation ends with a good discussion of what it means to be a humble leader. The connection to self-expression is that a humble leader gives people space to have ideas and experiment. But it goes beyond that. Humble leaders see their role as acting in service to their employees. This has repercussions across the dimensions of self-expression, experimentation, and purpose.
The third area for helping people feel alive at work is to inspire a sense of purpose. What I like about Cable's perspective is that meaning is a narrative we each tell ourselves. This has several consequences. First is that meaning is personal. A leader can set up situations to help people discover meaning (e.g., meeting with customers) but individuals themselves have to discover the meaning that is motivating for them.
Second, purpose does not need to be some grand pursuit. A grand pursuit can be meaningless if you cannot connect it to what you do. Just as importantly, a pursuit that seems minor in the big scheme of things can be meaningful if you understand how what you do has a positive influence on others. One example of this is that some people find meaning in helping their teammates even if they work in a "boring" industry.
Finally, purpose is a narrative we can craft intentionally. It requires thinking about your own values and how those values connect to what you do. We can choose a higher level, positive purpose and choose to structure our work around that. Doing this doesn't just help motivation on the job. It can help make your whole life better.
matissaflono's review
5.0
Insightful and easy to follow. I loved the quote ‘Because managers are an overhead cost, managers do not create value unless they are serving the employees who create the value.’
feeona's review against another edition
3.0
I read this book for our company bookclub. I am quite skeptical regarding books giving advises, because I read a lot of bad ones, where you just get impressions but don't learn anything you can apply. This was different here because it shows why people think and act like they do and how we can use these biological imprint to make people happy and productive at work (and also usable for private life). I learned some new things, reflected a lot and had a very interesting discussion with my colleagues about how we feel at work and what we can change with our new knowledge.
dianelaw's review
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
Positive and practical with lots of examples and ideas
lisajh5858's review
3.0
A very interesting overview of the seeking system and how to activate it at work, but I found that it seemed to get a bit repetitive near the end.
mel829's review against another edition
5.0
I highlighted about 30% of the book. And it took me 5x longer to get through because in each section, I‘d pause and think about how it relates to my own situation, which it always did. I want everyone I work with to read this.
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