Since my prior blog post was on making the most of the EDUCAUSE annual conference, I thought this post could highlight some of my takeaways from the conference. I’ll touch on the three keynotes, each of which was outstanding, and then discuss my takeaways.
The first keynote speaker was Daniel Pink. I have been a fan of his for years. His talk focused on material from his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. I had read the book quickly when it first came out in 2009, but after listening to his talk, I re-read it. The book lays out why traditional motivation models based on a carrots-and-sticks approach—what he calls “Motivation 2.0”—don’t work well with today’s knowledge-based work. For today’s workers, Pink identifies three core elements for keeping employees engaged in their work: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Autonomy focuses on giving people the freedom to make decisions about how they do their work—from things such as what type of computer they use to how they schedule their work. Pink discussed the trend toward a results-oriented work environment (ROWE) and how these kinds of environments are turning management on its head. These environments, usually supporting knowledge-based employees, encompass the four “T’s” of autonomy, giving employees control over the task, time, technique, and team. For task, Pink discussed the benefit of giving employees time to experiment. For time, he highlighted the importance of giving people the ability to control their schedule (time). For technique, he pointed to organizations that empower people to get their work done. Finally, for team, he highlighted the importance of allowing groups to self-select and not be assigned. These techniques require employees to be accountable and managers to function more as leaders and coaches. In many ways, Pink’s thoughts fit well with the academic culture of higher education, but rarely do we give that level of autonomy to staff. This is something I need to think more on.
The pursuit of mastery is what drives people to get better at what they do. Mastery is the overarching goal that is akin to an asymptote: you can approach mastery but you can never fully realize it. Mastery is never easy. Malcolm Gladwell, in his 2008 book Outliers, discusses mastery in the context of the 10,000-hour rule, where in many fields, the truly exceptional didn’t reach that level until they had put in at least 10,000 hours of effort. With mastery, even the very best feel there is something they could still do to improve and be better. This pursuit of mastery is important and provides tremendous self-worth to the individual.
Finally, purpose links our individual efforts to the broader efforts to serve others. Purpose provides the final piece that takes autonomy and mastery to a new level. Pink discussed research showing that knowing that what you do contributes to a greater good provides a higher level of satisfaction to the individual—which in turn contributes to the pursuit of mastery.
For those of us who manage others, Pink closed his talk by challenging us with the words why, not how! As managers, we should spend more time focusing on giving staff regular feedback and explaining why their work contributes to the organization’s purpose, instead of trying to tell them how they should do their work. The other point that Pink discussed is that the annual performance review doesn’t work in today’s knowledge economy. Employees want regular feedback on their work and insight on where they need to improve their mastery, not feedback that comes once a year. He recommended weekly feedback on work, with monthly feedback focused on improving their mastery and with quarterly discussions on career planning.
This talk aligned nicely with Robert Kelley’s and Marcus Buckingham’s books, which I discussed in an earlier post. I left Pink’s session repeating the message why, now how!
The second keynote speaker was Andrew McAfee, on his book The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. McAfee, an MIT professor, highlighted how machines, especially computing and software, are driving profound change. McAfee noted how he and a colleague, looking at future technologies in 2004, missed out on many that we see as imminent today, such as self-driving cars and computers that can do image processing as well as humans. In analyzing why he and so many others missed these predictions, he pointed to Ray Kurzweil’s discussion, in his book The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, of the exponential growth referred to as “the second half of the chessboard.” McAfee noted that in approximately 2006, computing power crossed over to the other side of the chessboard. He argued that every eighteen months, as Moore’s law doubles computing power, computing will move into the classification of general-purpose technologies and will provide that same level of transformation that steam power, electricity, and the internal combustion engine provided mankind.
McAfee believes that this next digital revolution will provide more good than harm to our society; much as electrification lessened the burden on humans and opened up the service economy, digital technology will have the same impact. He noted that success will depend on organizational innovation: co-inventing new organizational structures, processes, and business models that leverage ever advancing technology and human skills. Where this talk connected with the talk by Pink is that mastery is increasingly important in protecting your career.
The last speaker was Emily Pilloton, founder and executive director of Project H Design. Her talk was incredibly inspiring: she uses her background in architecture and design to work with young people, especially women and children, to incorporate design principles in their learning. Her clients are schools and not-for-profits. Tying this into Pink’s talk, she highlighted the importance of experiential learning for her students. She gives her students the autonomy to make mistakes, learn from them, and move forward with new designs. In addition, in all her work she gives her students the opportunity to select the project they will do (autonomy), so long as it contributes to the greater good (purpose). She described projects that built a food co-op, a library in a middle school, and a tiny-home that can support the homeless.
Her talk focused on three aspects of learning:
- Seeking > Knowing. Pushing beyond your comfort zone is the way to challenge yourself. As mentioned above, Pilloton believes in experiential learning, in challenging students with big projects where they will learn new skills as needed to complete the project.
- We > I. Teams and building trust in your teammates is critical. All of Pilloton’s projects are so big that no one person can complete them alone. By being forced to make decisions and learn to work as teams, group members realize that as a collective, they can achieve much more than they could individually.
- Curiosity > Passion. Encouraging curiosity is more important than helping people find their passion. Pilloton argued that it is hard for many young people to know their passion. If we encourage curiosity and give students the opportunity to push the boundaries of what they think is possible, we provide them the opportunity to both build confidence and find their passion.
Pilloton challenges stereotypes and preconceived limits. For Pilloton, teaching middle-schools girls to weld or use advanced power tools is part of the process of giving these students the confidence that they can do anything they put their mind too (mastery). I left this talk wishing that every child could have someone like Pilloton as a parent or teacher in his/her life.
For managers, how can we use these three talks to support our staff?
- Integrating Pink’s why, not how with Pilloton’s We > I. How can we as managers lay out the big picture to a team but then give the team autonomy to identify a solution and solve the problem?
- Integrating Pink’s mastery with Pilloton’s Seeking > Knowing. How can we as managers give our staff some time to work on their own ideas and projects, without needing to tie this to a specific institutional goal? Isn’t this how the Internet and web browser were created?
- Understanding McAfee’s digital revolution model. How do we as managers adapt our organizations to leverage this exponential power in ways that advance the mission of higher education?
What were your takeaways from EDUCAUSE 2015? I’m particularly interested in hearing ideas from people who are successfully giving employees autonomy in their work.
Jack Suess is Vice President of IT and CIO at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
© 2015 Jack Suess.