Dan Pink is Shaking Things Up!

Have you seen Dan Pink’s new book Drive?  He questioned all of our assumptions about what motivates us.  He found that money is an excellent incentive for rote and mechanical tasks, but for work that requires creativity, insight, discretionary energy (solving problems in your car on the way home) the research is very clear.  We are motivated by a combination of three things:

1. Autonomy – a feeling of being self directed.

2. Connectedness – a sense of being in the know, understnading what the work is all for, a clear idea of how my contribution is making a difference to greater good.

3. Mastery – an opportunity to get really good at things and new things. 

For more info you can get the book or watch this incrdibly fun and cool RSA Animate very short version of the key points of the research.  My husband just showed this to a group of Club Managers and it rocked their world.  To those of us who really are motivated by the above three things, it seems like a bit of a no brainer, but I thought that about Emotional Intelligence too. You will LOVE this.

New Book by Stan Slap

I met Stan Slap ten years ago when his company and our company partnered on a big leadership development project.  He said things to the client that raised all kinds of eyebrows, he was truthful and hilarious.  I loved his material then, I love it now.  I have been waiting for this book for 4 years, and here it finally is.

Bury My Heart at Conference Room B: The Unbeatable Impact of Truly Committed Managers - by Stan Slap

Explaining the Inexplicable

I read- (ish) the Black Swan by Nassim Taleb and it was hard to get past the arrogance of the author – I know from my working with my brilliant clients that it is powerfully tedious to be a genius in a sea of buffoons, but still – when writing a book for the lay folk you have to try to communicate at their level. BUT – thank god for Malcolm Gladwell.  I love him so, because he explains really complicated stuff to the mere mortals in his new book What the Dog Saw.

Yet another brilliant set of essays that explains why things are the way they are. Why there are 49 choices of mustard on the shelf but only 3 real Ketchups.

It is almost like he is champion of the regular curious people. Check it out.