0:00:11.990,0:00:16.887
OK, so I want to talk today[br]a little about human motivation.

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What gets us to care[br]and act, and be active.

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And the starting point,

0:00:23.856,0:00:26.464
especially being in Chicago,[br]close to the University of Chicago,

0:00:26.464,0:00:28.741
in the Economics Department of Chicago.

0:00:28.741,0:00:33.604
I think it is worthwhile to think that[br]our basic idea about human motivation

0:00:33.604,0:00:36.340
is that we think about people like rats.

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People don't like to work.

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If we were left to our own accord[br]what we would be doing,

0:00:40.898,0:00:43.552
we would be on a beach[br]somewhere sipping mojitos...

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And the ony reason we work[br]is because we need to get money,

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so that we can eventually sit[br]on the beach drinking mojitos.

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(Laughter)

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But the basic motivation[br]is to enjoy leisure and not work

0:00:57.129,0:01:02.400
and everything else is just a distraction[br]in order so we can do that.

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And it is a fine model,[br]but we should ask ourselves,

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is this a correct depiction[br]of human motivation

0:01:07.742,0:01:12.212
is this really what gets us[br]to act and to do things.

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And one challenge you can think[br]about is mountain climbing.

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If you look at people[br]who have climbed different mountains

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and their depictions,[br]and histories and stories

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you would think this is the most[br]miserable thing in the world.

0:01:25.856,0:01:27.758
People are cold, and have frostbite

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It's hard to breathe, it's difficult.

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I climbed a little peak[br]in the Himalayas many years ago

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and you would think that[br]you would get to the top,

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and sit there and enjoy the view.

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No! It's cold,[br]it's miserable, you're tired.

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Just go down as fast as possible[br]from that point on. (Laughter)

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And if you think about this behavior

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and say to yourself, here is something[br]that every moment seems like agony,

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it just seems like a punishment

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and people go down, and all[br]they want to do is go up again.

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They want to recover first,[br]but then they want to go up again.

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How does this view fit with our notion

0:02:02.974,0:02:05.463
of people sitting on the beach drinking mojitos?

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It looks like people are either[br]suckers for punishment.

0:02:08.098,0:02:10.167
Right? We want to punish ourselves.

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Or, that what really motivates us[br]is not relaxation,

0:02:14.452,0:02:15.974
it's not comfort,[br]it's other things.

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It's about achievement,[br]it's about conquering,

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it's about pursuing some goal,[br]it's about arriving at some peak.

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I actually became interested in this topic

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when one of my ex-students came to talk to me.

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His name was David,[br]he left university a few years earlier

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and he became a consultant,[br]or some banker on Wall Street.

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And he worked for a big bank

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and he told me that for a few weeks[br]he worked on a big presentation

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for a merger that was going to happen.

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He worked evenings, he worked overtime[br]to create this beautiful presentation

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with statistics and graph[br]and description.

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He was really proud of his work,[br]and he really enjoyed it.

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And then he sent it to his boss,[br]and his boss said,

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"David, great job,[br]the merger is cancelled."

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And he was just devastated!

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And the interesting thing about this

0:03:07.637,0:03:11.087
is that he said that from a functional[br]perspective everything was great.

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Here he was, he did a good job,[br]he enjoyed it while he was doing it,

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his boss appreciated it,[br]and he was certain

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that he would get[br]a raise when the time came

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but at the same time[br]he couldn't care now.

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And he was working on another document now,[br]and just couldn't care to the same degree.

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Now the question is,[br]what happened to him? What is it?

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Everything functional was OK,[br]but something was missing.

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So to look at this I decided to do[br]a couple of little experiments.

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And the experiments we started with[br]were about building Bionicles.

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So, Bionicles are little Lego robots,[br]with about forty pieces,

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and you're going to build them.

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And we got people to come[br]to the Student Center

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and we said, "Hey, why don't you[br]build Legos for money?"

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You want to build the first one?[br]You can get three dollars for it.

0:04:02.088,0:04:04.849
After they finished the first one we asked,[br]"Do you want to build another one?"

0:04:04.849,0:04:08.087
"This one you can get $2.70 for.

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When you've finished this one,[br]do you want another one, for $2.40?"

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$2.10

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$1.80

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And so on at a a diminishing pay rate.

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And people basically had[br]to decide when they want to stop.

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At what time, the money[br]they were getting

0:04:20.058,0:04:22.507
from building Legos[br]was not worth their time.

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And we did this in one of two conditions.

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The first one was just the way[br]I described to you now.

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People build one Lego after another,[br]after another, after another

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and when they finished[br]building all these Legos

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when they finished[br]building each of them,

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we took them,[br]we put them under the desk

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and we told them that when[br]they finished the whole experiment

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we would take them,[br]we would break them back,

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and we would put them back[br]in the boxes for the next participant.

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This is what we call[br]the 'meaningful' condition.

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Not a really big meaning, we are academics,[br]but little meaning. (Laughter)

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The second experiment,[br]we called the Sisyphic condition.

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And in this experiment people[br]started building one Lego

0:05:04.775,0:05:06.810
and when they finished it[br]we took it back from them

0:05:06.810,0:05:08.728
and said: "Do you want[br]to build another one?"

0:05:08.728,0:05:12.349
And if they wanted to build another one[br]we handed them the second one,

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but as they were working on the second one,

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we were taking apart the first one[br]in front of their eyes.

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And then if they wanted to build a third one,[br]we would give them that one back

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So it was a complete recycling.

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And we called this the Sisyphic[br]condition, after Sisyphus,

0:05:29.630,0:05:32.986
who pushed the same rock over[br]the same hill over and over.

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And we can ask ourselves[br]how much of the demotivating

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aspects of Sisyphus come from the fact

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that he pushed the same rock on the same hill

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versus if it was a different hill every time.

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So building something,[br]having it destroyed

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in front of your eyes[br]and building it again

0:05:48.185,0:05:52.088
seems kind of an essential element[br]for being unmotivated

0:05:52.088,0:05:54.087
and here is what we got.

0:05:54.087,0:05:57.062
In a meaningful condition people[br]build about eleven robots

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and in the Sisyphus condition[br]they build seven.

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We also asked other people[br]who did not participate

0:06:02.620,0:06:04.998
in the experiment to predict[br]what would people do.

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How much more would people build in a 'meaningful'[br]condition than in a 'Sisyphic' condition.

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And people predicted correctly[br]but dramatically underestimated the effect.

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People thought that the difference[br]would be about one robot

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but the difference[br]was much, much larger.

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So we all understand[br]that meaning is important

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we just dramatically underestimate[br]how important this is.

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And I will tell you that I recently went[br]to give a talk at a big software company.

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And this was a company[br]where a group of people

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worked for two years designing[br]a particular product,

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and they thought this was[br]the best product for this company.

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And after two years of working on it,

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the week before I came,[br]the CEO cancelled he project

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and I've never seen a group of more[br]demotivated people in my life.

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And they all told me they felt like[br]they were part of this Lego experiment.

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They worked for a long time and something[br]was just destroyed in front of them.

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And I think basically their boss had[br]the same mistake as our prediction experiment

0:07:01.993,0:07:04.717
where he understood that meaning[br]is probably a little bit important,

0:07:04.717,0:07:06.159
but just didn't understand how big it is

0:07:06.164,0:07:11.135
and now he had a group of people[br]who were completely demotivated, and so on.

0:07:13.042,0:07:17.685
Now, there was another interesting[br]part of this experiment

0:07:17.685,0:07:19.673
which is if you look[br]at the correlation between

0:07:19.708,0:07:22.574
how much people love Legos naturally[br]and how much they persisted,

0:07:22.579,0:07:25.577
you would expect that people[br]who love Lego would build a lot

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and people who don't love Lego[br]would build a little;

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there would be some individual difference.

0:07:29.787,0:07:32.428
And indeed there [were] individual differences

0:07:32.428,0:07:35.003
In a meaningful condition people[br]who loved Legos built more

0:07:35.038,0:07:37.471
and people who didn't love them[br]didn't build as many.

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In the Sisyphic condition[br]the correlation was zero,

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which tells me that we basically[br]choked every inch of enjoyment

0:07:44.680,0:07:48.011
people had naturally from Legos.

0:07:48.011,0:07:50.907
People come with a natural appreciation[br]for Legos, some people,

0:07:50.907,0:07:53.357
and we were basically able[br]to crush that...

0:07:53.392,0:07:57.951
(Laughter)

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So, the next experiment[br]we wanted to find out

0:08:02.397,0:08:05.668
what even smaller differences could make.

0:08:06.222,0:08:09.726
So we gave people a sheet of paper[br]with a lot of letters on it and we said,

0:08:09.726,0:08:12.336
"Look for two letters next[br]to each other that are the same,"

0:08:12.371,0:08:14.624
it was a random set[br]and we did the same thing.

0:08:14.624,0:08:17.272
We paid them more for the first sheet,[br]less for the next sheet, and so on.

0:08:18.236,0:08:20.939
And we had three conditions.

0:08:20.939,0:08:24.639
In the first condition, every time[br]you gave me a sheet, if I was the experimenter,

0:08:24.639,0:08:28.207
I would ask you to write your name[br]on the top, I would look at it like this.

0:08:28.207,0:08:31.525
I would say "Aha!" and[br]I would put it on the pile.

0:08:31.525,0:08:35.018
In the next condition you didn't have[br]to write your name.

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I would just take the sheet of paper and,[br]without looking at it,

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I would just put it[br]on the big pile of paper;

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no acknowledgement,[br]just putting it down.

0:08:43.179,0:08:45.782
In the third condition,[br]if you gave me a sheet of paper,[br]

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I immediately took it[br]and shredded it. (Laughter)

0:08:51.276,0:08:57.678
And now the question is how much[br]would people work in those three conditions.

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And what I'm going to show you here[br]is what is the minimum

0:09:00.163,0:09:02.382
amount of money people[br]are willing to work for, right?

0:09:02.417,0:09:06.684
How long did it go, so low amounts[br]of money mean that people enjoy it more.

0:09:06.684,0:09:09.187
So we got the replication[br]on the first result.

0:09:09.187,0:09:10.628
In the acknowledged condition[br]when you say,

0:09:10.628,0:09:14.546
"Aha!" people were willing[br]to work up to $0.15 per page

0:09:14.546,0:09:15.960
really low wages.

0:09:15.960,0:09:19.834
In the shredded condition[br]they wanted twice as much money

0:09:19.834,0:09:23.145
and the question is, what happens[br]in the ignored condition?

0:09:23.145,0:09:24.980
Is the ignored condition like the shredded?

0:09:24.980,0:09:27.331
Is it like the acknowledged?[br]Is it somewhere in the middle?

0:09:27.639,0:09:31.308
It turns out it was very similar[br]to the shredded condition.

0:09:31.308,0:09:34.491
So if you really want to demotivate[br]people shredding their work

0:09:34.496,0:09:37.025
is really good for that.[br](Laughter)

0:09:37.060,0:09:39.322
But it turns out that[br]simply ignoring them

0:09:39.323,0:09:44.522
gets you a big part of the way,[br]in fact, almost... (Laughter)

0:09:47.522,0:09:49.625
So this was one part of motivation,

0:09:49.631,0:09:54.192
it's about feeling meaning[br]for what you are doing

0:09:54.227,0:09:57.470
and acknowledged and so on,[br]and we mostly did this

0:09:57.470,0:09:59.442
by destroying people's motivation.

0:09:59.971,0:10:01.627
Let's think for a second[br]about the other part,

0:10:01.627,0:10:03.512
that is how we can get people[br]to be more motivated.

0:10:03.512,0:10:07.111
How we can get people to do more

0:10:07.111,0:10:12.051
and, the idea came to me[br]here after going to IKEA

0:10:12.051,0:10:16.095
so I don't know about you, but I like IKEA[br]but every time I get this furniture,

0:10:16.095,0:10:20.680
I find myself that it takes me much longer[br]than I expected to build this

0:10:20.680,0:10:23.795
and the instructions seem confusing.

0:10:23.795,0:10:27.133
I often do a step and then have to backtrack

0:10:27.133,0:10:31.844
and when I have to guess something I think[br]I guess wrong more than 50% of the time.

0:10:31.844,0:10:34.205
Lots of these things,[br]and the thought is:

0:10:34.205,0:10:41.013
Is it that a result of this?[br]Do I love my furniture more?

0:10:41.013,0:10:43.262
The fact that I have to build them,[br]that I create them,

0:10:43.262,0:10:48.787
does that create a particular attachment[br]between me and my furniture?

0:10:48.787,0:10:51.429
I call this the IKEA effect

0:10:51.429,0:10:55.960
And some evidence for this[br]exists from cake mixes.

0:10:55.960,0:10:58.264
So when cake mixes came up in the fifties

0:10:58.264,0:11:01.099
to the surprise of the people[br]who made up the cake mixes

0:11:01.099,0:11:03.066
they were not very popular

0:11:03.066,0:11:04.435
and the question is, why?

0:11:04.435,0:11:07.639
Pie crusts were popular,[br]cookies were popular

0:11:07.639,0:11:12.210
all kinds of other ready mixes[br]were popular, but not cakes.

0:11:12.210,0:11:17.448
And one of the theories was maybe people[br]didn't have to do much for these cakes

0:11:17.448,0:11:22.820
maybe if you take a mix and add some water

0:11:22.820,0:11:25.094
put it in the oven and then make it

0:11:25.094,0:11:28.794
and someone says, "What a great cake!,"[br]you just can't feel good about it.

0:11:28.794,0:11:31.202
Maybe it was the fact[br]that it didn't require

0:11:31.237,0:11:34.228
as much work that made[br]cake mixes not as appealing.

0:11:34.232,0:11:36.572
This was known as the 'egg theory.'

0:11:36.572,0:11:39.607
And what they did to test it was,[br]they took the eggs out of the cake mix.

0:11:39.607,0:11:42.644
All of a sudden the cake mix was the same,

0:11:42.644,0:11:45.286
you just had to add eggs[br]and some milk to it.

0:11:46.043,0:11:50.512
What happened now? Cake mixes[br]became much more popular.

0:11:50.512,0:11:55.929
Somehow having to put work into[br]something makes it more appealing.

0:11:55.929,0:11:57.623
We decided to try this out,

0:11:57.623,0:12:00.429
so we gave people instructions to do origami

0:12:00.429,0:12:03.907
on the top you have the --

0:12:03.942,0:12:06.584
(Laughter)

0:12:06.619,0:12:09.207
-- on the top you have a list[br]of what all the signs mean

0:12:09.242,0:12:12.304
and then you have a list of instruction[br]of how to do origami

0:12:12.304,0:12:13.771
that is not that easy to do

0:12:13.771,0:12:16.441
and we asked people to do it.

0:12:16.441,0:12:18.678
And what happened?[br]People created stuff

0:12:18.678,0:12:20.914
that didn't really look like[br]what it was supposed to,

0:12:20.914,0:12:24.716
these were not origami experts.

0:12:24.716,0:12:28.954
But if you looked at how much[br]people valued the origami

0:12:28.954,0:12:31.263
there were some auctions and people[br]could bid for it, and so on.

0:12:31.263,0:12:35.659
It turns out that people[br]who did not build the origami

0:12:35.659,0:12:37.529
thought it wasn't that exciting,

0:12:37.529,0:12:40.929
and people who built the origami[br]thought it was just fantastic.

0:12:40.929,0:12:43.762
People who built the origami[br]thought it was great.

0:12:43.762,0:12:46.385
But, moreover,[br]people who built the origami

0:12:46.420,0:12:51.028
when we asked them to predict how much[br]the other people valued this origami

0:12:51.344,0:12:54.812
they thought they would value them[br]as much as they did.

0:12:54.812,0:12:57.429
So what happened is that[br]the people who build the origami

0:12:57.429,0:12:59.818
not only thought it was wonderful,

0:12:59.818,0:13:04.389
they also thought that other people[br]would view it their way.

0:13:04.389,0:13:07.058
Now we had another condition[br]that was again going back to IKEA

0:13:07.058,0:13:09.894
we had people who got easy instructions

0:13:09.894,0:13:12.897
and for some people we hid the top part

0:13:12.897,0:13:17.568
so they didn't really have[br]the rules for how this works out

0:13:17.568,0:13:20.504
and unsurprisingly they[br]built even worse origamis

0:13:20.504,0:13:23.345
they were much uglier.[br](Laughter)

0:13:23.345,0:13:25.679
What happened to the evaluations?

0:13:25.679,0:13:29.781
People who built it thought it was better[br]than people who just evaluated it,

0:13:29.781,0:13:35.019
but people who got the hard[br]instructions liked them even more

0:13:35.019,0:13:38.289
all of a sudden they put more into it,[br]it was more difficult, more challenging

0:13:38.289,0:13:40.095
they loved it more.

0:13:40.095,0:13:42.527
And what about the people[br]who evaluated it?

0:13:42.527,0:13:48.188
They loved it even less because it was[br]objectively uglier. (Laughter)

0:13:50.512,0:13:53.372
I think we can think about[br]a good metaphor for this as kids.

0:13:53.372,0:13:57.930
These are my kids by the way.

0:13:57.930,0:14:03.114
And imagine that I asked you,[br]"How much would you sell me your kids for?"

0:14:03.114,0:14:04.858
Imagine I could erase your memories

0:14:04.863,0:14:06.978
and your thoughts and your[br]emotions about your kids,

0:14:06.978,0:14:10.354
how much money would I need[br]to give you to compensate you for that?

0:14:10.354,0:14:15.027
Most people on good days would say[br]lots and lots of money.

0:14:15.027,0:14:20.136
Or imagine that you didn't have kids[br]and you came to some playground

0:14:20.136,0:14:22.179
and you met some kids and you played[br]with them for a few hours

0:14:22.179,0:14:24.872
and after a few hours[br]you knew a lot about them

0:14:24.907,0:14:27.496
and as you said goodbye[br]the parents of the kids said,

0:14:27.531,0:14:32.840
"By the way, they're for sale[br]if you're interested." (Laughter)

0:14:32.875,0:14:35.880
How much would you pay?

0:14:35.880,0:14:39.016
And most of us would realize[br]that not that much

0:14:39.016,0:14:43.329
because the fact is -- (Laughter)

0:14:47.206,0:14:51.429
-- the fact is we value our kids[br]largely because they're ours.

0:14:51.429,0:14:53.475
And a little bit like the[br]IKEA furniture it's because

0:14:53.475,0:14:55.873
they're ours and we put[br]so much effort into them

0:14:55.873,0:14:58.203
and because it's hard[br]and complex and difficult,

0:14:58.203,0:15:04.041
instructions are not clear,[br]and so on. (Laughter)

0:15:04.041,0:15:06.445
So, what I want to propose is that

0:15:06.445,0:15:09.596
you know we have this incredibly[br]simple model of labor --

0:15:09.596,0:15:12.848
motivation is payment,[br]that's basically it

0:15:12.848,0:15:15.261
and if you think about what[br]we do in the workplace

0:15:15.261,0:15:17.722
it's basically the model we use.

0:15:17.722,0:15:20.180
But this is not the right model

0:15:20.180,0:15:22.960
in fact if you think about anything[br]that you see in the world,

0:15:22.960,0:15:26.998
it's very hard to think that this model[br]is a good description of human behavior.

0:15:26.998,0:15:30.626
It doesn't describe zero,[br]but it definitely

0:15:30.626,0:15:32.415
is not a really good[br]description of what happens.

0:15:32.415,0:15:34.605
In reality we have lots of other things

0:15:34.605,0:15:40.377
we have meaning, the feeling of creation,[br]challenges, and so on and so forth.

0:15:40.377,0:15:43.247
And unless we understand[br]those different elements

0:15:43.247,0:15:46.553
I don't think we could[br]create the right environment.

0:15:46.553,0:15:50.956
Now just this one side comment,[br]we can take money

0:15:50.956,0:15:54.323
and we can make it[br]fulfill other motivations.

0:15:54.323,0:15:57.058
For example, we can get pride,[br]and get people

0:15:57.063,0:15:59.339
to be proud of how much money they get.

0:15:59.339,0:16:01.199
We can get accomplishment,[br]we can get competition

0:16:01.199,0:16:04.429
money can be a substitute[br]for all of those other motivations

0:16:04.429,0:16:08.573
but it doesn't mean it's inherently[br]about all of those motivations.

0:16:08.573,0:16:12.430
Human beings are complex,[br]and have lots of things that we strive for

0:16:12.430,0:16:13.912
like in mountain climbings,

0:16:13.912,0:16:16.398
and reducing all of it[br]to just what salary we're getting

0:16:16.398,0:16:18.887
is just not the right model.

0:16:18.887,0:16:21.450
And finally, I wanted[br]to tell you something

0:16:21.470,0:16:24.470
about Adam Smith versus Karl Marx.

0:16:24.470,0:16:29.060
Adam Smith has this notion[br]about efficiency in the workplace.

0:16:29.060,0:16:33.262
The notion was, if you take[br]for example the creation of a pin

0:16:33.262,0:16:37.635
in the old days, and you say:[br]What's the efficient way to create a pin?

0:16:37.635,0:16:42.472
He says if one person creates all the steps[br]to make a pin, it's incredibly inefficient

0:16:42.472,0:16:47.180
but if you get twelve people, and each[br]of them makes one step of creating a pin,

0:16:47.180,0:16:50.512
all of a sudden, together,[br]there's a huge efficiency in production

0:16:50.512,0:16:54.012
and the output from the factory[br]can be dramatically higher.

0:16:54.012,0:16:58.556
And that was the notion[br]of efficiency and productivity.

0:16:58.556,0:17:02.326
Karl Marx, on the other hand,[br]had this notion about the alienation of labor;

0:17:02.326,0:17:04.563
how connected do you feel from it.

0:17:04.563,0:17:06.741
And if you take the creation[br]of a pin, and you make it

0:17:06.741,0:17:08.895
into twelve steps,[br]and each person does one step

0:17:08.900,0:17:12.870
how connected do people feel,[br]if they're doing the same thing all the time

0:17:12.870,0:17:14.675
all day, they never see the progression

0:17:14.710,0:17:18.269
or creation of the final product[br]of what they are doing.

0:17:18.900,0:17:25.179
And I think that in the preindustrial age[br]Adam Smith was right;

0:17:25.179,0:17:28.057
you could get more value[br]out of increased efficiency

0:17:28.092,0:17:30.181
than you can get from[br]the alienation of work.

0:17:30.216,0:17:35.359
But we are not in that age, we are now[br]in some kind of knowledge economy

0:17:35.359,0:17:37.296
for lots of things that we care about.

0:17:37.296,0:17:40.762
And I think that in the knowledge economy[br]things actually have reversed.

0:17:40.762,0:17:44.435
If you say, "Let's take a task, programming,[br]creating a computer, whatever it is...

0:17:44.435,0:17:48.739
and break it into lots of little tasks[br]to make everything much more efficient."

0:17:48.739,0:17:53.010
Maybe we'd get more efficiency[br]in the Adam Smith kind of world

0:17:53.010,0:17:58.679
but would we get the same kind of improving,[br]caring, motivation and meaning?

0:17:58.679,0:18:01.928
And perhaps what we are doing[br]is just doing the wrong approach

0:18:01.928,0:18:04.017
and we take big tasks[br]and try to divide them

0:18:04.037,0:18:07.216
into lots of things,[br]we are actually hurting ourselves.

0:18:07.251,0:18:11.262
So, I think that now things[br]are actually reversed.

0:18:11.262,0:18:13.321
And just as a final comment,

0:18:13.321,0:18:16.581
I think we can do lots of things[br]to get people to motivate.

0:18:16.600,0:18:20.472
I think we can do things to get people[br]to motivate and to do much more

0:18:20.472,0:18:22.848
but at least, I think,[br]we should try to not replicate

0:18:22.883,0:18:24.779
the Lego experiment in day to day life.

0:18:24.814,0:18:27.878
At least, we should try[br]to not decrease people's motivation

0:18:27.878,0:18:30.702
which is something I feel[br]we are doing way too often.

0:18:30.708,0:18:32.037
Thank you very much!

0:18:32.037,0:18:34.201
(Applause)