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In Sheena Lyengar's lecture on Choosing, she discusses the American culture of choice.  While another favorite TED lecture – Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce – reinforces our desire (or is it a compulsion?) for choice. Lyengar's lecture contrasts America vs. other culture's perspective on choice, which is interesting.  But the question within the question is: if choice is so important to us, and having a choice even can significantly increase our efficiency and accomplishment, then how can we use this information to improve our workplace productivity? 

Lyengar discusses a study where a group of children were given a project to work on.  Some were told which activity to do, and some were given a choice in which activity to work on and how they could perform it.  The result?  Although they all performed the same activity, the American children performed 2 1/2 times better when empowered with choice.   But, to quote Ms. Lyengar, "If the task was dictated to them by another, their performance suffered." 

So,again, the question: what would happen to American productivity if people had more of a choice in what jobs they do and how they do them? 

Recently, when I was on a panel of "Innovation Experts" a member of the audience asked if the people who come up with the ideas for a project should be the ones who work on the project, or if it should be delegated to the people who normally fill the jobs.  While one of my fellow panelists said the latter, more traditional approach, I strongly disagreed.  The question I asked:

Where is the Ownership? 

If employees don't have a chance to choose the projects they work on – and, especially if they can't work on their own ideas, companies are significantly reducing their efficiency and effectiveness. 

Choice is a critical component of Ownership.

Ownership is crucial.

Ownership enhances employee engagement.

Ownership improves retention.

Ownership increases productivity.

How would you rate your company on choice, ownership and productivity?  What improvements could you make?  Please share your thoughts below.

DrawSuccess, when implemented effectively, is a key influencer or Ownership.  Now only do teams get an opportunity to generate their ideas and solutions, the process itself, being a "bottom-up" approach vs. the traditional, yet oppressive top-down management style, empowers employees to significantly higher levels of engagement. 

All this from a Game? 

You won't believe it until you try it.  To learn more about DrawSuccess, Contact Us. 

Makes you wonder – what would happen if companies measured "Gross Employee Happiness?" 

The Bhutan 72-page survey is interesting (download below), including the following questions:

1. What are the six or seven things that you consider to be most important in leading to a happy and contented life?
2. How much do you enjoy life?
3. How often is each of the following kinds of support available to you when you need it?                              – Someone to help you when you are sick                                                                                                              – Someone to help you when you have problems (decision making, financial, emotional, etc.)
4. What are your main sources of stress?
5. Do you consider Karma in the course of your daily life?
6. What types of songs do you usually listen to most?
7. How would you describe your sense of belonging to your local community?
8. How much do you trust Bhutanese people in general?
9. We would like to know how you spent your time yesterday. Beginning with when you woke up, can you please recount various activities you performed and how long they took?  How did you feel doing this activity?

1=impatient for it to end
2=happy
3=frustrated/annoyed
4=depressed
5=competent/capable
6=hassled/pushed around
7=warm/friendly
8=angry/hostile
9=worried/anxious
10=Enjoying myself
11=tired

At DrawSuccess, our mission is to "Change the world in a fun and profitable way."  We believe that all of these elements are necessary – change – the world – fun – profitable.

Change – positive change of course!
The World – indicates global reach and the desire to impact as many people as possible
Fun – certainly an important component of happines
Profitable – not only does profit indicate monetary reward but profit is also defined as "advantage; benefit; gain."  And it's vital to quantify! 

What do you think?  Any suggestions?  Please provide your comments below.

While I can certainly agree that the left-brain analytical approach to business can have a negative effect on the largely right-brain function of creativity, I do think it's helpful to explore the different kinds of innovation (which I identify in my article, provided on this website – see Articles & Resources) to see that they don't – necessarily – have to conflict.  In fact, some kinds of innovation are designed through the quest for efficiency. 

The Businessweek article brings up some interesting points:

1. 3M measures success by the percentage of business coming from products introduced within the past five years (which used to be 1/3 and now is down to 1/4).  I wonder: what other companies measure success the same way?  (If you know, please comment below.)
2. Does avoiding errors reduce innovation?  Or does it prohibit it?  Maybe it depends on your point of view.  Wasn't the Post-it an error?  (I embrace the views of Tom Peters, the management guru, who says that in today’s business world, companies must “Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.")  Maybe the answer is to "fail forward" as John Maxwell suggests, which is simply learning from mistakes.  (Which makes them no longer mistakes, doesn't it, if you learn from them?)
3. They quote  Art Fry, the inventor of the Post-it note, (which, by the way, took many years to recognize as an innovation!), "You have to go through 5,000 to 6,000 raw ideas to find one successful business."  Is this true?  I should say – and hope – not!  Certainly that process could be made more efficient! 

Read the Busienssweek Article

The following video demonstrates a fun way to stimulate change.  Enjoy! 

And provide your thoughts below…

What can we learn from this?  How can we make change more fun?

596485_CompanyLoyaltyGlobal_final_charts

Here are some of the key findings:

• 37% of employees choose "Training & Development "   as a reason they're more loyal to their current employer.
• And, of those siting "less loyal" to their employers, 29% cite "Training & Development"

While it's not as important as "management" or "morale" on the list of reasons, it's still pretty important!

The only thing I find disappointing in this study is how they relate "engagement" to "loyalty" when they're no the same things at all! 

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The following global study on contract work is interesting as well:

KGWI_Global_WorkforcePlanning_final_charts