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The High Price of Money (a five-question happiness quiz)
Consider these five statements. True or False?
- Money cannot buy you happiness.
- Money may not buy happiness, but it will buy things that make you happy.
- The more money you have, the happier you are.
- Seeking wealth, status, or image undermines interpersonal relationships and connectedness to others.
- Pursuing money or other materialistic values results in feeling pressured and controlled.
Did you answer True to #1? Most of us have held a programmed value since childhood that money doesn’t buy us happiness. If it did, we reason, we wouldn’t see rich people with substance abuse issues, struggling with their weight, or defending themselves in court against character or behavior accusations.
Ironically, I find that people also answer True to statements #2 and #3. Despite believing that money cannot buy happiness, they believe that money can buy things that make us happy and that the more we have, the better off we are. But that isn’t logical. If money doesn’t buy you happiness, how can having more money buy you happiness?
Research supports the notion that money and happiness are related, but not in the way you might think. If it were true that money buys the things that make us happy and that the more we have the happier we are, then we would expect happiness scales to increase when per capita wealth increases. But that isn’t the case in the United States or any other country in the world. Pursuing and achieving material wealth may increase short-term mood, but it does not increase one’s sustainable happiness.* Both statements #2 and #3 are False.
Not only does money not buy happiness or the things that make you happy, but the more that materialistic values are at the center of your life, the more the quality of your life is diminished. This lower quality of life is reflected in a variety of measures including low energy, anxiety, substance abuse, negative emotion, depression, and likelihood to engage in high-risk behaviors.
The Problem with More
Interestingly, when individuals are asked what level of wealth they need to be happy, both the poor and the rich respond with relative amounts of “more.” No matter how much you have, you always want more—more money, belongings, toys, status, power, or image. But here’s the thing: No amount of riches will buy security, safety, trust, friendship, loyalty, a longer life, or peace of mind. Moreover, thinking you can buy these things destroys any real chance of experiencing them.
Therein lies the problem. We’ve been programmed to believe that our well-being depends on the quantity of what we have. There is a current TV commercial where a little girl tries to explain why more is always better—which is the message the advertiser is trying to convey because that’s what they are offering you—more. The irony is that the little girl simply cannot explain why more is better. It really is funny. But it disproves the very point the advertiser is hoping to make. More is not always better—it is simply a belief that most of us have yet to challenge.
Quality Over Quantity
What if we were to turn the table and focus on quality over quantity? Consider your answer to statement #4. Did you answer it True? One of our most basic and crucial human needs is for relatedness with others. This longing for connectedness is obvious in the explosion of social media and online dating services. The lack of relatedness is detrimental to everything including the quality of our physical and mental health. Research indicates that relatedness is thwarted by the pursuit of materialism.* Yet we rarely link materialistic values and goals to the undermining of interpersonal relationships that influence the quality of our life.
Statement #5 is also True. If you follow any of the popular culture regarding the effects of extrinsic motivation, or what we call suboptimal Motivational Outlooks, you understand the negative impact that feeling pressure or control has on creativity, discretionary effort, and sustained high productivity and performance. And yet, organizations are hesitant to generate alternatives to pay-for-performance schemes and incentivizing behavior, despite the proof that those systems based on materialistic values generate the pressure and control that undermine the quality of our work experience—and our results.
Our Values Shape Us
And here is a great sadness. When you operate from materialistic values, it not only undermines your well-being, it also negatively affects the health and well-being of others. When our focus is on material pursuits, we become less compassionate and empathetic. Our values shape the way we work, play, live, and make decisions. And those decisions impact the world around us.*
Each of us has an amazing opportunity with the understanding gained through recent research and the evolution of human spirit. We can shift our focus from the value of materialism to the more empowering values of acceptance, compassion, emotional intimacy, caring for the welfare of others, and contributing to the world around us. Not only will this shift in focus improve the quality of our own lives, it will also create a ripple effect that ultimately will improve the quality of life for others. For the reality is that the most important things in life cannot be bought. Indeed, they are priceless.
* For supporting research and more information on this topic, I highly recommend the following resources:
- The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser
- The Handbook of Self-Determination Theory Research by Deci and Ryan
- The Price of Inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz
- Website: www.selfdeterminationtheory.org
About the author:
Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop. Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.
Free Blanchard webinar today! The Leader’s Guide to the Executive Brain
Join master certified coach Madeleine Homan Blanchard for a complimentary webinar and online chat beginning today at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (12:00 noon Eastern).
In a special presentation on The Leader’s Guide to the Executive Brain Homan-Blanchard will be sharing the latest findings from neuroscience research and its impact on leader behavior.
You’ll learn:
- The Six Surprising Truths about Your Brain—find out what your brain needs for optimal functioning, what stresses it, and how to manage situations when you are overwhelmed or exhausted.
- Seven Laws of Extreme Brain Care—how you can arrange your workday to make better decisions and achieve new levels of self-control.
- Creating the Brain-Friendly Environment—the six critical dimensions that must be managed to help you—and your people—fire on all cylinders.
The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 800 people expected to participate.
Immediately after the webinar, Madeleine will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes. To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.
Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat
- Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
- Type in your question
- Push SUBMIT COMMENT
It’s as easy as that! Madeleine will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received. Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.
We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Click here for more information on participating.
Do Incentives Make You Fat?
You receive an invitation from your HR department to win a mini-iPad if you lose weight. You think: What do I have to lose except some weight? What do I have to gain except health and a mini-iPad?
You may need to think again.
It seems that using these enticing incentives to motivate yourself results in a suboptimal motivational outlook that ultimately leaves you without the energy to follow through on your weight loss plans—especially if you are a man.
We now have significant proof that financial motivation does not sustain changes in personal health behaviors—and, in fact, may undermine them over time. What’s more, financial motivation negatively affects men’s efforts over time more than women’s. Rewards may help you initiate new and healthy behaviors, but they fail miserably in helping you maintain your progress. Shortly after the incentive is gone, you revert back to your old ways.*
So why do over 70 percent of wellness programs in the U.S. use financial incentives to encourage healthy behavior changes? Here are three potential reasons:
- If you are not pressured into losing weight, but invited to participate in a weight-loss program that offers small financial incentives, there is a likelihood you will lose weight—at least initially. But studies reporting weight loss success were conducted only during the period of the contest. They didn’t track maintenance. But recent studies show that just twelve weeks after the program’s incentives end, most or all of the weight is regained.
- Financial incentives are easy (if expensive).
- We haven’t understood until recently the true nature of motivation or how to effectively use the latest science of motivation to help people shift to an optimal motivational outlook that sustains effort and results over time.
It turns out that rewards and incentives are the fast-food of motivation—they give you a kick and then send your energy plummeting. To initiate and maintain a healthy lifestyle, you need the equivalent of motivational health food. Satisfying your basic psychological needs for A-R-C (Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence) is more likely to help you achieve your goals and feel good enough about the results to maintain them.
Great! But how do you shift from a suboptimal motivational outlook—and the ease and enticement of motivational fast food—to an optimal motivational outlook where you flourish by satisfying your healthy psychological needs? Part of the answer lies in learning the skill of Optimal Motivation. Here are three ways to start:
- Notice when you use phrases with the words have to in them: I have to lose weight. I have to eat healthy. I have to have a salad instead of fries. I have to is a subtle but significant sign that you are feeling a loss of freedom. Your need for choice—your perception of Autonomy—is being undermined. When you have to do what the diet demands, the thing you crave is autonomy. Ironically, the way you exercise your autonomy is by eating the fast food you had restricted yourself from eating. The act of banning the bad stuff makes you want it even more!
- Realize that you love yourself and your health more than you love the fast food. This is the power of Relatedness. In this case, you can consider fast food either literally or symbolically (winning the mini-iPad).
- Recognize the sense of positive well-being that comes each time you make a choice to do the best thing for your health. This positive feeling comes from your mastery over the situation—experiencing your Competence.
So the next time you are invited to join a program, lose weight, and win a mini-iPad, go ahead and take up the offer—but don’t do it for the iPad. Instead, do it for deeper values and the sake of satisfying your Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence. The iPad is no longer the carrot, but simply a symbol of your flourishing.
What do you have to lose? Weight. What do you have to gain? Health and a positive sense of well-being. Oh, and that mini-iPad!
References
* Moller, McFadden, Hedeker, and Spring, “Financial Motivation Undermines Maintenance in an Intensive Diet and Activity Intervention,” Journal of Obesity, Volume 2012, Article ID 740519.
Deci and Ryan, “The ‘What’ and ‘Why’ of Goal Pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior,” Psychological Inquiry (2000) Vol. 11, No. 4, pp 227-268.
About the author:
Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop. Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.
Poor leadership behavior? It might be your brain’s fault—here’s why
“Every task we perform that requires executive functions like planning, analytical problem solving, short- term memory, and decision making is handled by the prefrontal cortex of our brain,” says Madeleine Homan-Blanchard, master certified coach and co-founder of Coaching Services at The Ken Blanchard Companies in a new article for Ignite!.
“It’s where we choose our behaviors and then act according to how we choose. But in order to keep our brain operating effectively for ourselves, we have to keep our prefrontal cortex nourished and well-rested,” explains Homan-Blanchard.
“Our prefrontal cortex is a resource hog in terms of glucose and rest. Its performance is also impacted by hydration, exercise, and sleep. In some ways it’s like a gas tank. Every decision we make—from the mundane to the most critical—uses up a little bit of gas.”
“That’s why it is so important to know yourself and know how to schedule certain kinds of activities when your brain is going to be at its best. You want to schedule planning, brainstorming, and other creative activities while your brain is fresh. What you don’t want to do is schedule a meeting or a challenging conversation where you’re going to have to use a lot of self-control at the end of a brutal day.”
The one time when no answer is the best answer
Roy Baumeister, professor of psychology at Florida State University and co-author of the best-selling book, Willpower, says that the people who are known for making the best decisions are usually considered the most well-balanced and the smartest people. But, he notes, what may be really be true about those people is that they just know when not to make to make a big decision.
Homan-Blanchard echoes that opinion and also has some advice for couples.
“You know the old adage that in marriage, you shouldn’t go to bed angry? Well, that’s wrong—especially for couples who work a lot, have kids, and have bills piling up. Having a serious discussion, and trying to reach resolution to an argument, late at night, is really a bad idea.”
So is forging ahead when someone comes running into your office demanding a big decision at 6:30 in the evening when you’re packing up and walking out the door, explains Homan-Blanchard. “The only decision for a leader to make in that position is to wait until the morning, because, chances are, you are not capable of making a good decision in that moment. Unless you’ve previously thought about it, made the decision, and just haven’t reported it back, that’s different. But if you actually haven’t made the decision yet, it is unwise because it simply won’t be the best decision.”
Three strategies for better decision-making
For leaders looking to improve the quality of their thinking and decision making, Homan-Blanchard recommends a couple of strategies.
- Set limits. Identify your best times for creative, innovative, and challenging work situations. Create, protect, and utilize those times for your most difficult tasks.
- Create processes and routines. The more routine that you can create for yourself, the more “gas” you can save for other decisions.
- Practice extreme self care. Don’t underestimate the importance of proper rest and good nutrition.
Clear, calm, well-reasoned thinking is a hallmark of all good leaders. Don’t forget the physical dimension of mental processes. Take care of your brain so it can take care of you.
To read more of Homan-Blanchard’s thinking and advice check out her complete interview here. Also take a look at a webinar that she is conducting on April 3, The Leader’s Guide to the Executive Brain. It’s free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.
7 Ways to Influence Employee Well-Being in the New Year
During a party to celebrate bringing Optimal Motivation™ to market this year, the conversation turned to the games we play in our personal time, and stories about our pets.
Victoria has a very special and very feisty cat that likes to be petted, but only on its head. Miss the mark and you are likely to receive a hiss and a toothy kiss.
Gary recently rescued an equally special and feisty dog from the middle of a road near his home. Now he is wondering how big it will get and how high the new fence needs to be.
I told about a gecko that lived under my refrigerator.
We also talked about research—and personal experience—of the effects of patient interaction with animals such as petting a dog or cat (or ferret, I suppose) on blood pressure (reduction) and mood (improvement).
Beyond the obvious suggestion to allow employees to bring their dog or cat to work once in a while (which may be impractical), I couldn’t help but wonder, what creative new programs could we create in 2013 that would bring similar health and well-being benefits?
This is where the games come in. Jay enjoys playing Mexican Train with family and friends. Jim and Drea enjoy bridge and pinochle. Susan enjoys Words with Friends. As we talked about the games we love, we talked about our heightened sense of well-being while playing them. The benefits include intense concentration, connectedness with the people we play with, exercising our strategic skills, and feeling proud when we improve our competence.
Don’t we want these same benefits for our employees in their everyday work, too?
Influencing well-being
So, let’s get specific. What creative new programs could you start in 2013 to help employees experience:
- A sense of passion
- Ever expanding competence
- Continual growth and learning
- Strong positive relationships, and
- A sense of pride for performing well?
Here are some things to consider as you think outside the box. The Optimal Motivation dimensions are in parentheses:
- Focus the program on enriching employees’ sense of well-being and enjoyment at work. (Well-being)
- Allow employees to opt-in, and publically celebrate all participants. (Autonomy and Relatedness)
- Encourage senior executives to participate alongside everyone else. (Relatedness and Competence)
- While establishing teams or groups, minimize competition. Make sure all teams are cross-functional only, with no teams by single roles, ranks, divisions, or departments. (Relatedness and Competence)
- Emphasize camaraderie rather than competition. (Relatedness)
- If you allow a monthly Pet at Work day, structure some fun activities like Stupid Pet Tricks, or Silly Pet Uniform contest. Keep it light and fun. (Relatedness and Well-being)
- Make sure to allow time in the workday for all activities. (Autonomy and Relatedness)
Let us know what you decide and how it goes. And as ever, we wish you energy, vitality, and well-being in all you do.
Happy Holidays.
About the author:
The Motivation Guy (also known as Dr. David Facer) is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop. Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.
Free Blanchard webinar today! Building Trust: 3 Keys to Becoming a More Trustworthy Leader
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Join trust expert Randy Conley for a complimentary webinar and online chat beginning today at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (12:00 noon Eastern).
In a special presentation on Building Trust: 3 Keys to Becoming a More Trustworthy Leader, Conley will be exploring how leaders can improve the levels of trust in their organization by identifying potential gaps that trip up even the best of leaders.
Participants will learn:
- How to get it right on the inside first
- The 4 leadership behaviors that build or destroy trust
- The 3 keys to creating trusting relationships
The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 500 people expected to participate.
Immediately after the webinar, Randy will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes. To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.
Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat
- Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
- Type in your question
- Push SUBMIT COMMENT
It’s as easy as that! Randy will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received. Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.
We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Click here for more information on participating.
The Not So Shocking Truth: 3 things to stop doing that undermine Optimal Motivation
“Shocking! This is shocking.” The manager was responding to a slide on the screen that declared: As a manager you cannot motivate anyone.
“Shocking,” he exclaimed again before I could put up the second part of the slide. I asked the obvious question, “Why is this so shocking?” His reply: “My whole career I have been told my job was to motivate my people, now you tell me I can’t. No wonder I’ve been so frustrated.”
I revealed the second part of the slide: What managers can do is create an environment where people are more likely to experience optimal motivation at work.
Now this may not seem so shocking if you accept that motivation is truly an inside-out job–only an individual can determine how they are motivated. And it may be obvious that a manager’s role is to create a workplace where people can experience positive motivation. But the manager’s initial shock led to an exploration of the latest science of motivation that you might also find useful.
Over the years it has become evident that most managers do not understand how to create that motivating environment. Throwing their arms up in despair, they assumed motivating people depended on things mostly outside their managerial control such as good wages, promotions, and job security. Managers defaulted to HR to come up with better compensation schemes, more creative reward and recognition systems, and elite high potential programs.
But now we know better. If you hope to motivate–or create that motivational environment–for your staff through raises, bonuses, annual awards, or promotions, you are pinning your hopes on false promises. I can hear HR managers breathing a collective sigh of relief at the same time as they are thinking: But what do managers do differently?
Here are three things to stop doing that undermine optimal motivation and how to use the new science of motivation to make a positive difference:
- Stop depending on your authority and hierarchical power and find ways to give your people a greater sense of autonomy. Start giving people a sense of choice by helping them generate alternative actions and solutions, discussing implications for various approaches to problems, and providing freedom within boundaries whenever possible.
- Stop thinking business isn’t personal. Turn the old axiom around: If it is business, it must be personal. Learn how to have effective challenging conversations, take note of personal issues that may be influencing a person’s performance on any given day, and be willing to share personal stories that are relevant to work and goals.
- Stop focusing on what was achieved today and ask instead: What did people learn today? One of the greatest joys of being a manager is also being a great teacher. If your people go home each day having learned one new thing, they will not be the only ones feeling rewarded that day–you will also find a greater sense of accomplishment and purpose in your work.
The good news is that through the latest science of motivation, we have a good, solid, research-based understanding of what motivates people in the workplace. The other good news is that managers can use that understanding to help their people enjoy a higher quality motivational work experience. And that’s the maybe not-so-shocking truth about motivation.
About the author:
Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop. Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.
Join us for today’s webinar! Motivation As A Skill–Strategies for managers and employees
Join motivation expert David Facer for a complimentary webinar and online chat beginning today at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (12:00 noon Eastern).
In a special presentation on Motivation as a skill: Strategies for managers and employees, Facer will be sharing some of the research underlying Blanchard’s new Optimal Motivation program and workshops. Participants will explore real-world examples and learn pragmatic strategies that can help managers and individual employees make progress in important areas such as engagement, innovation, and employee well-being. The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 1,000 people expected to participate.
Immediately after the webinar, David will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes. To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.
Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat
- Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
- Type in your question
- Push SUBMIT COMMENT
It’s as easy as that! David will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received. Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.
We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Click here for more information on participating.
Is this common employee question killing performance in your organization?
If there was one question I’d like to hurl into deep space, “What’s in it for me?” would be it. The main reason is that the “What’s in it for me?” question breaks down our hope that we might accomplish something special together, and all be better for it.
When individuals prioritize their own needs and gains at the expense of others, our sense of relatedness decreases—and both intra-team competition and interpersonal suspicion increase.
This amounts to a special form of self-protective behavior—hoarding and hiding information. It’s akin to sealing off a wing of the company library and saying that the information will not be shared with others to help solve the issues and challenges of the day. This behavior hinders the organization’s ability to learn quickly, which reduces its capacity to compete and serve its clients.
It’s especially troublesome when a manager asks the question.
Recent Blanchard research published in the Journal of Modern Economy and Management revealed that people who perceive their managers as primarily self-oriented experience more negative emotion and are less likely to speak positively about the organization to industry colleagues, friends, and family. They also have higher turnover intentions.
Conversely, people who see their managers as highly interested in the needs and well-being of employees at least as much or more than their own personal needs are statistically much more likely to:
- perform at high levels;
- use more discretionary effort;
- positively endorse the company to industry colleagues, friends, and family;
- be highly ethical in their jobs;
- have the intention of staying with the company longer.
In other words, a manager who is others-oriented fosters the kind of behavior and intentions that help organizations thrive.
So, what can you do to build more employee goodwill—and help fling “What’s in it for me?” into deep space?
- Stop using the phrase yourself.
- When you hear others using the phrase, share the business and personal benefits of being more others-oriented than self-oriented.
- Cite the latest research as often as you can—because people will want to know you have strong evidence for your new point of view.
Working together effectively is a key competency in today’s work environment. Here’s hoping that you and all your colleagues will together enjoy much shared happiness and success.
About the author:
The Motivation Guy (also known as Dr. David Facer) is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop. Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.
Research shows managers and direct reports misidentify what motivates each other
Do you know what motivates others at work? Probably not explains Dr. David Facer in a recent article for Training magazine. Facer, a motivation expert and senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies, points to research from Duke University where subjects were asked to rate what motivates them individually, and what motivates peers and superiors at different levels in an organization. In most cases, the subjects rated their peers and superiors as more interested in external incentives than they said was true for themselves.
Funny thing is, senior executives make the same mistake when trying to identify what motivates their direct reports. In separate research, Facer points to studies at George Mason University where executives emphasize external factors such as compensation, job security, and promotions while employees point to inherent factors such as interesting work, being appreciated for making meaningful contributions, and a feeling of being involved in decisions.
The assumed focus on purely external motivators keeps executives and employees looking in the wrong places when trying to identify cures to the lingering lack of engagement in today’s workplaces. While disengagement continues to hover near 70% according to recent Gallup studies (a number relatively unchanged over the past 10 years) managers and employees continue to assume that there is little that can be done to improve motivation at work. It seems that it is completely dependent on the economy. In other words, when times are tough and money is scarce there is very little you can do to motivate people.
This is a false assumption explains Facer and the reality is that many people remain highly motivated—even during lean times, and even in organizations struggling to make ends meet. It is all dependent on your motivational outlook and your perceptions of the environment you are working in.
What motivates you?
Here’s an interesting exercise to try for yourself that will allow you to replicate some of the findings cited in the research.
- Identify some of the key tasks you are working on as you finish up the year. Be sure to write down tasks that you are looking forward to getting done as well as the ones that you’ve been procrastinating on. Don’t make the list too long. About 5-7 items will help you see the pattern.
- What’s your motivation for finishing each task by the end of the year? While there are actually six motivational outlooks, let’s look at two broad categories—Sub-optimal motivators (tasks you have to do because of negative consequences or promised rewards) and Optimal motivators (tasks you want to do because they are meaningful and part of a bigger picture you see for yourself and your organization).
- How many of your tasks fall into each category? What’s your engagement level with each task as a result?
If you are like most people, you’ll find that your engagement level (and subsequent performance and well-being levels) are highest on the tasks where you see the work aligned with personal and organizational goals. You’ll find that the tasks being done merely to avoid punishment or gain rewards are at a lesser level.
As leaders, it’s important to connect our individual work—and the work of others—to something bigger and more meaningful than just avoiding punishment and gaining rewards. Don’t let misconceptions about what motivates you—and others—keep you and your team from performing at their best.
To learn more about Facer’s approach to motivation, be sure to read, Motivation Misunderstanding and Rethinking Motivation: It’s time for a change. Also check out Facer’s complimentary November 28 webinar, Motivation as a skill: Strategies for managers and employees. The event is free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.
