One of many

There have been studies before, and there will be more in the future. And this one is yet another confirmation that companies get most of employees motivation wrong.

What people seek is a sense of autonomy (I can choose the work I do), relatedness (I belong with my colleagues), and competence (I master what I do). If you’re not working to ensure your people get to experience these, you are missing out, and your company is just one of many.

Good luck!

Cautionary tales

This one here from The New York Times is a cautionary tale.

It’s about never trusting the glamour and sparkles you see on social media. Even when they seem to be selfless and well-intended.

And it’s also a tale about not confusing the object with the subject. Just because the latter is rotten, doesn’t mean the former is as well. That is to say, it is still possible to pay a fair wage to your employees, build a good company, and not be a total asshole.

This other one from The Guardian is also a cautionary tale.

It’s about the inevitability of being caught at fault when you are a public figure. It’s about the fascination of newspapers of any kind and size for stories which are not stories. It’s about the need to accept that the better you are at what you do, the more others will try to take you down with frivolous items, leveraging both the inevitability and the fascination described above.

And it’s also a tale about letting all this wash over you and continue on your path.

When nothing is important

When everything is important, nothing really is.

Because people have a limited amount of resources to dedicate to you and your agenda. And so, if you aim at keeping their attention high at all times, with one request after the other, all in the same tone, with the same gravitas, delivered with the same sense of urgency, you will eventually exhaust them.

Choose what is important carefully and dedicate to it most of your (and others) efforts.

Not capable

When a platform welcomes hatred, harassment, violence, disrespect.

Why should you spend time on it?

Why should your kids spend time on it?

How can we possibly glorify it?

What makes people invest money on it?

The point, there’s a choice to make. And we seem to be consistently not capable of making the right one.

What to do with ideas

If you have an idea and you keep it to yourself, it is most likely going to die in a sea of distraction, busyness, and contrasting opportunities.

If you have an idea and you share it with someone, it might still die, but it might also grow stronger and find a sounding board.

If you have an idea and you make it public, it will stick around and eventually find its way to those who care.