As I wrote about previously, my post on motivation was translated into Chinese by Robin at lifebang.com. Even the diagram is in Chinese :o)

Robin then emailed me with the following question:

From my point of view, your thinking about the motivation is exactly what I am seeking in my job. I believe that most of the companies using the false ways for motivation is also true in China. To understand the need of their employee costs much more effort of managers. Managers are human so they tend to use the most simply ways even they only work in short term.

Someone left a comment on the post and mentioned that the positive and intrinsic way for motivation is more suitable for brain intensive work than labor intensive work. What do you think of it?

That is a great question. Is motivation only for creative types and less suitable for blue collar workers? Let me tell you a story.

Solange de Santis is a journalist who’d never held a blue collar job in her life. She wondered what it would be like, so she took a job as a factory worker at a GM van plant. For a year and a half! Now that’s commitment.

She wrote about her experience in the excellent book Life on the Line and the major lesson I take from that book, is that the stereotypical view of factory workers as wage slaves is dead wrong.

Many of the people she met at the plant were dedicated, hard working, highly skilled and creative. But the way they worked offered them no opportunity to use those sides of themselves. They were locked in a tight battle between management and unions that actually had them cheering whenever mistakes caused production to stop, giving them an unexpected break. This is not what they’re naturally like – it’s a reaction instilled in them by an inhuman system.

If the company had listened to these people, it would have discovered that they’re innovative, skilled individuals that have many ideas to offer to make production more efficient. But as things are, they end up using all their considerable creativity to cut corners and cheat the system instead.

American Airlines discovered this a while back:

Two mechanics didn’t like having to toss out $200 drill bits once they got dull. So they rigged up some old machine parts – a vacuum-cleaner belt and a motor from a science project – and built “Thumping Ralph.�? It’s essentially a drill-bit sharpener that allows them to get more use out of each bit. The savings, according to the company: as much as $300,000 a year.

Another organization that gets this right, is the Brazilian company Semco which has a large proportion of blue collar workers. They give their workers an unusually large degree of freedom and responsibility, including letting them plan production, set their own work hours and choose the sites and designs for the factories they work in. As a result they’re very profitable, workers regularly develop and implement ideas for new products or for improving existing processes and annual employee turnover hovers around 1%. You can read more about Semco in the excellent book The Seven-Day Weekend.

So just to make it perfectly clear, my point is that:

1. Blue collar workers shouldn’t be treated as mere wage slaves – they can be motivated and happy at work.
2. When they are, the company can expect higher productivity, more innovation, higher quality and better worker relations. In short, the company will make more money!

How does that sound? What is your experience? Do you agree that production workers can be motivated and happy and that this makes a difference to the bottom line?

On my post about liking vs. loving your job, Gabe asked an interesting question in the comments:

What do you do if you work at a place where, every time you try to “raise your game�?, i.e. creating coding standards, improving functionality of commonly used systems, etc, you are told that “We don’t have time for that.�? or “We should put that on the back burner until we have more staff.�? or anything else that ends up sounding like “No�?.

What advice do you have for those who want to improve things and are consistently met with opposition?

To me, there are few things that are more demotivating than coming up with what I believe is a good idea, only to see it shot down by the usual, boiler-plate objections.

And it doesn’t have to be this way. London-based innovation agency ?WhatIf! have implemented a practice they call greenhousing. In the book Sticky Wisdom, they write:

Plants are at their most fragile when they are small and just starting to grow. That’s why gardeners use greenhouses. It’s the same with ideas. They are easiest to destroy when they first appear. Unfortunately, most business cultures tend to stifle ideas before they can take root.

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Allengirl4 asked how you can spruce up an otherwise boring workplace and Mack came back with this question in the comments:

Sorry I just don’t get this!! Work is work play is play. I cannot stand it when people “decorate” their cube etc. this is not kindergarden it is a place of work treat it as such.

Grow up! This constant moaning from people really annoys me. If you are not happy at your Job leave. How about this for a motivation to do your job, your SALARY!!

Look at people in the third world and their plight and get some perspective! Be glad you have a Job!

I believe there is relevance to Mack’s question. Why do we want to be happy at work? Why is it not enough to go to work and get paid for it? Why do we want work to be more engaging, playful and fun?

What’s your take?

Allengirl4 saw my post on 10 seeeeeriously cool workplaces, and wrote this in a comment:

What a beautiful, and inspiring environment to work in! However, some of us are not so fortunate – so I pose the question, If you live in a fairly regimented pod-based cubicle world, how do you make your own space creative?

I guess you could always hang up some Dilbert cartoons, though that is probably more an expression of desperation than an actual attempt to create a better looking, more inspiring workplace.

So I’ll pass the question on to you, dear reader: What would you do to a perfectly ordinary office or cubicle to make it more creative?

Office Lady asks this question:

I have a question, can anyone help? On our contracts, we are supposed to work 39 hours a week (excluding lunch hours).

So we all come in at 9 am and leave at 6 pm. But since we are supposed to work 39 hours only, we supposedly can leave at 5 pm one day of the week.

But of course nobody does and everyone works until at least 6 pm five days a week.

According to instructions, “of course�? we can leave at 5 pm one day of the week….we just need to inform our supervisors first.

I of course also work until at least 6pm everyday, but sometimes, there are things that I wanna do that I want to leave early for.

Should I really not ask even though I am entitled to it? :(

I’m fairly sure that this kind of situation is quite common. The rules say “work X hours a day”. Practically everyone works more or way more.

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Stan has some questions about the cult of overwork:

1) When/where did the cult of overwork start? Or has business/marketing/office work always been a race towards more & more hours?

2) Upper management at our company work 6+ days a week, have sacrificed their family lives for the past 15 years to build the company, and in general are not a fun bunch. Is it worth trying to change the corporate culture one step at a time, or should we just give up?

Thanks for the great questions, Stan. Here’s what I think.

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A reader sent me this question:

The company I work at “went global”. That means horrible things like many people fired and so. Thus, people are afraid to lose their job, even when I directly asked a manager I trust and he said that “no one from your department will lost his job”. People don’t trust management. Some are cynical, some are afraid, but I think, at different levels, all are unhappy with the situation. I like these people very much, and I would like to do something to confort them, but so far, listening was the only thing I was able to do.

Additionally, the people from another site are also unhappy, because even when most of them are very capable professionals, they are being threated like… uhm.. incapable kids (not to mention the fact that they know that they were hired because they are “cheaper”).

Any suggestions to improve the situation?

First of all thanks for a great question which describes a situation that is found in many workplaces today: A workplace goes through large-scale changes and people wonder “what will it mean for me?” Management may or may not try to create some certainty, but may fail because of a lack of trust.

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I’m taking questions about happiness at work, and Chris asked me a good one:

Why do you never talk about the happiness you can derive from work itself, but always about the ancillary parts, i.e. the relations you have with your colleagues? Surely the job itself should be the greatest contributor to your happiness at work. I am thinking of Csikszentmihalyi’s work on Flow.

That’s a great observation Chris – thank you for calling me on it. I’d kinda noticed this myself, but I never really though about it untill I read your question.

I think I do need to focus more on the enjoyment people get from the work itself, because for many people it is a huge part of happiness at work. Off the top of my head, there are three kinds of enjoyment you get from work itself:

1. The tasks themselves can be fun. Like talking to customers, when you like your customers or painting houses if that’s your thing.
2. Getting results feels good. Achieving your milestones, making the numbers, reaching your goals is a huge source of satisfaction
3. Getting better makes you proud. Learning, improving, being able to do more today than yesterday is great.

Is there more to the happiness derived from the work itself? What do you think?

I’m not sure the job itself always needs to be the main source of happiness at work. Many people have jobs where the tasks themselves bring them little enjoyment (say, flipping burgers at McDonald’s) but are still perfectly happy at work. In this case people need to focus more on the ancillary parts, as you call them.

As for flow, most jobs bring with them opportunities for flow – even highly repetitive jobs. This does not necessarily mean that people are happy at work… I’m a little skeptical of the link between flow and happiness at work, and while flow is fun and pleasurable, I’m not convinced that it’s an indication of happiness, nor vice versa.