By Liza | Categories: Career advice, Consulting, Recruitment, Recruitment advice | No Comments
Here at Enigma HR we love TED talks.
They’re inspirational, thought provoking and delivered by some of the most fascinating thought leaders in the world. Like this talk, from Dan Pink – a career analyst and former speechwriter to Al Gore.
For a long time we’ve all asserted that there’s pretty much a direct relationship between reward and performance.
That’s wrong says Dan.
He says science proves that people can actually perform worse (not better) when they’re offered financial rewards. While incentives are not disincentives, they can act as a distraction in roles that require right brain and creative thinking.
Rewards, he says, work really well for simple linear type tasks where there is a simple set of rules and a clear destination. However, rewards by their very nature, narrow our focus and concentrate the mind. For real life problems in the working world of the 21st century, you don’t want to be looking straight at the task when the solution may actually lie in the periphery.
Dan says we’re rewarded and engaged when we do things that matter to us, when we like what we’re doing, when we find the task interesting and when we feel we are doing part of something that is important. Put simply there are three things are critical to true motivation – “autonomy”, “mastery” and “purpose.”
These are the foundation for a new way of looking at our businesses and working lives:
- Autonomy is the urge for us to direct our own lives
- Mastery is the desire to get better and better at something that matters
- Purpose is the urge to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves
What’s our take out of all of this?
Well, we hope to surprise you too, given what we do.
We say – before you throw more money at a performance problem with your staff; before you decide to offer the big dollars to attract new staff and before you personally decide to go after the big dollars, watch Dan talk and think about what really matters to you.
Then when you’ve done that come and talk to us.
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
Website - More Posts
By Karalyn | Categories: Career advice | No Comments
1) Do nothing. Turn off the iPhone, bury the iPad, give Facebook the flick. Catch up on sleep.
We call Christmas the cranky season, as it is one of the most stressful times of the year. If you’re worried about your career direction, put it on hold during this period. Take a break and give up worrying for a while. – or find something bigger than yourself to worry about. Try volunteering. You’d be surprised at how much perspective the size of other people’s problems can give you about your own.
2) Develop some self-awareness. Do you actually know your strengths, weaknesses, motivations and values?
Most people spend more money on their holidays than they do in evaluating and marketing themselves for their career. Yet your career is where you’ll spend most of your time. You do know the saying, don’t you? “Do something you love and you’ll always feel like you’re on holiday.”
3) Develop some clarity about what you can offer your employer. This comes from the self-awareness we describe in point 1), plus understanding where you sit in your market.
4) Write down a few goals. Make them measurable. Put a time frame to them. This sounds so basic, but you’d be amazed at how well it works. It must be the process of articulating your goals that keeps you accountable.
5) Break down your goals into smaller steps. One huge goal can seem insurmountable. You may find yourself giving up if you feel overwhelmed if you ask yourself to climb the career mountain all at the one time.
6) This next bit is going to sound like dating advice.
Put yourself out there. Make sure people can find you. Put your profile up online. Linkedin is a treasure trove for headhunters. A passive way of being active in your job hunt is to have a very good profile.
7) Look for help. One thing that works for people is an accountability coach. Ask a person to ask you once a week how your job search is progressing. Think of them like your professional nag. They’ll soon irritate you if you have done nothing.
Speaking of professional nagging, if you do find yourself thinking about your next career move, give us a call (02) 8221 0553. We don’t mind doing it. That’s what we’re here for!
