Last weekend was the Academy Awards and I don't normally watch them, but little else was on so I flipped around and found myself taking it in. The Oscars are probably the most popular awards on the planet. There are others like the Nobel prize that are also well known, but Hollywood's reach is stronger than nuclear physics.

The stage welcomed one show biz magician after another and each was humble and overjoyed. There is nothing like earnest gratitude. And that's the thing with awards, when they are genuine and sincere, they are highly motivating. Recognition by ones peers is rewarding a powerful reward. We are social beings after all.

Awards are often overlooked as a source of motivation. Dan Pink calls them out in his book Drive and I ran across a paper written by Bruno S. Frey and Susanne Neckermann called Awards: A Disregarded Source of Motivation which talks about different aspects of Awards. One note I jotted down was that people value status independently of any monetary consequence. Why this is important is because in a rational - yet fictional - world rewards can be viewed as amounting to future compensention, but the statement argues against that. The authors did a review of the International Who's Who to see how they stack up in terms of awards. They chose an international list because awards are not unique to any particular culture. Their findings are that awards are central to business, academia, and the military, and not solely the province of monarchies. Perhaps that goes without saying, but it moves the dial toward understanding the major task of more closely analyzing the incentive properties of awards and to compare them to monetary payments.

Side note: Calem R. Hoffman, a gentleman from my high school, was recognized for his dissertation describing the investigation of neutron-rich isotopes at the dripline, and, in particular, for the identification of a systematic reduction in the effective p-sd shell gap, indicating a weakening of the gap as neutrons are added.

Working Thoughts 3/13/09
A Review of The Fearless Fish Out of Water: How to Succeed When You're the Only One Like You

Working Thoughts 3/13/08
Interpersonal Skills and the Brain - a study

        

Manpower, Inc is an employment company that helps Human Resource departments prepare for personnel changes, whether it is hiring or anticipating lay offs. They produce surveys periodically that get the pulse of the work environment. My last post was the jobs report which is a look back in time. The Manpower, Inc survey is future looking. Here are the numbers with some commentary from me:

>18,000 employers surveyed:
73% expect to keep staff levels stable (Considering this number is tying an all time high, I'd say that it is very good news because very few people are going to predict hiring)
16% anticipate an increase in staff levels during the 2nd Quarter of 2010
8% expect a decrease in payrolls (a positive flow of 8% - seasonally adjusted to 5%)

12 of 13 industries are expected to expand hiring in the 2nd quarter of 2010. Those are:
Leisure & Hospitality (+17%) - Summer months
Professional & Business Services (+15%) - In line with the Jobs Report
Mining (+11%)
Nondurable Goods Manufacturing (+9%)
Financial Activities (+9%)
Durable Goods Manufacturing (+8%)
Information (+8%) - This was called out in the Jobs Report as well
Transportation & Utilities (+8%)
Wholesale & Retail Trade (+7%)
Construction (+4%) - This is surprising considering Construction has lagged all other positive news
Other Services (+4%)
Education & Health Services (+3%) - Health Care has been a consistent winner for two plus years
Government (-1%) - The federal level is hiring, but states and local governments are slashing workers because income is severally depressed and balanced budget laws prevent taking too much debt on at this level

Geographical Trends:
Northeast (+8%)
South (+6%)
West (+6%)
Midwest (+4%)
 

Working Thoughts 3/9/08
The Different Classes in the US
2006 median household earned $48,201
1999 median household earned $49,244

        

Here are the job market and compensation numbers for February 2010 (based on the job report):

        

The Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) conference was last month and I'm reaping the rewards of what appears to be a terrific line up of talks. There are several that grabbed my attention.

Daniel Kahneman is considered the father of behavior psychology - the field Dan Pink recently wrote about in Drive - and he did a great overview of experience versus memory. It's a subtle distinction, but makes perfect sense. Dr. Kahneman describes situations about music and colonoscopies, but the perfect example for me is the movie The Departed. I'm just like anyone else, when I watch a movie I want to be entertained. The Departed was well acted and had a good plot. I clenched my stomach the entire time. But I don't like the movie because of the way it ended. I barely remember 130 of the 151 minutes of it.

My memory of the movie and my experience of the movie are two distinct things. As a businessman, I need to take that to heart. My customers need to have positive memories of the service I provide. It's why so many people push to be 100% perfect in the delivery, because they know a flaw, any flaw, can be remembererd mightily over all the good parts.

A few weeks ago I wrote about understanding your customers in context - 3 minutes before and 3 minutes after they engage with you. It's a good idea to meld the 3 minutes after with a positive memory.

        

Today the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) published a revision to the 2009 4th Quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) reading. It was originally estimated to be 5.7% annualized growth, but now reads a surprising 5.9%. This number further cements the recession ended during the summer of 2009 (the third quarter GDP growth grew at a rate of 2.2%).

5.9% growth is a big number for the US, no matter what the year or the circumstances are. But I'm curious as to what is driving it. According to the BEA the major contributors to it are government expenditures, business spending, and exports. Private Consumption, which comprises about 70% of the calculation of GDP (GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)) accounted for none of the growth though. People are still sitting on the sidelines getting their wallets in order. Business investment shot up as inventories were depleted. This is a good sign.

What strikes me though is how little media attention this got today.

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Ten or so days ago I ran across several citings of a report issued that revealed that those at the lower income levels are economically suffering at a disproportionate level than those at the higher income levels. I pulled up the report titled Labor Underutilization Problem of US Workers Across Household Income Groups at the End of the Great Recession: A Truly Great Depression Among the Nation's Low Income Workers Amidst Full Employment Among the Most Affluent and noticed that it is written by the same group of people that did the analysis I used for a couple of wealth distribution entries I wrote in April of 2009. I respect their research and many of the their findings.

However, this paper seems to be a little high on dramatics. << MORE >>

It has been too long since I've mentioned one of my favorite charity organizations - Donorschoose.org. I'm sure giving is down with the economic conditions - I know I'm guilty - but Donorschoose has such a great business model and their people are so creative. Below is an email from a friend of mine: Mike “EL GRANDE BIGOTE” Szarowicz. As you can tell he has a lot of fun with the drive and students benefit. I especially love the mustache logo.

Here's how I like to think about it though - $50 is not memorable, but I won't forget Mike's costume and I know that kids, who have a trailer as a classroom, just got four bean bag chairs to read in.

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To my loyal mustache aficionados:

Another tremendously successful Mustaches for Kids campaign is in the books!   Our Charlotte Chapter raised over $58,000 and impacted the lives of over 26,000 students.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your support.  Every year I’m amazed by the generosity of my friends and colleagues (and by the power of the MUSTACHE)!

All of your help also allowed me to retain my “Top Fundraiser” crown with $5,516 raised.  Here’s the series of pictures we all hoped to see:

Three-peat!!!

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It's Sunday morning and there is snow on the ground. These are the type of mornings when you relax with a cup of coffee and read the news and just kind of veg out. I have my browser open and plenty of good stories ahead of me. But there is one thing I forgot to mention, my plan for a low key morning is not going to happen. My youngest just excitedly decided to dump out her crayon container and put it on her head as a hat. With her messed up blonde hair and three bottom teeth, she deviously smiles at me. But I'm not amused.

In between these occurrences of Sunday morning distraction I take in a blog post by Peter Bregman on HBR.com called A Story About Motivation. It's about an elderly man who needed help into his "person's with disabilities" van. It was raining and the walk was difficult to maneuver. Five good samaritans helped load the man into his ride while the driver curiously sat idle in the driver seat. Bregman didn't get the sense that the driver was being malicious or even soulless. It just seemed like this was an everyday, every stop event. The driver wasn't motivated to continually help in these situations. From his point of view it doesn't change what he needs to do. One way or another, his riders are going to get into the van, he is going to driver them, and they are going to get out. He will do it again the next day and the day after that. So why get wet in the rain?

Bregman at this point hits on the theme of Drive by Dan Pink, a book about motivation. People put themselves into a story. Their role in the story is how they identify themselves. How that is defined is by how the question is framed. Here is an excerpt from the blog entry that helps clarify:

People tend to think of themselves as stories. When you interact with someone, you're playing a role in her story. And whatever you do, or whatever she does, or whatever you want her to do, needs to fit into that story in some satisfying way.

When you want something from someone, ask yourself what story that person is trying to tell about himself, and then make sure that your role and actions are enhancing that story in the right way.

We can stoke another person's internal motivation not with more money, but by understanding, and supporting, his story. "Hey," the driver's boss could say, "I know you don't have to get out of the van to help people, but the fact that you do — and in the rain — that's a great thing. And it tells me something about you. And I appreciate it and I know that man with the walker does too." Which reinforces the driver's self-concept — his story — that he's the kind of guy who gets out, in the rain, to help a passenger in need.

And this snaps me out of my frustrated mood. Remember, I wanted to read the news and drink my coffee. My daughter wanted to wear a hat. I asked myself a personal question about being a father.

        

It's practically cliche to say these day, but we live in an knowledge economy. Other parts of the economy are commoditized. This places a premium on smart ways to look at business problems and most often the toughest nut to crack is the human element of it. We all approach problems from different points of view and that makes it hard for us to accept the reality of others. To us, the answer is always obvious.The TED talk below, is about the last mile. We can have the system, the supply chain to the technology, completely figured out but that doesn't mean the consumer is going to understand it, see value in it, and buy it. There are people out there that overcome these situations. They seem to get the people side. They seem to know when and how to nudge.

        

There are signs out there that the US economy is healing. The Jobs Report looks relatively OK, GDP is going gang busters, and the PMI is showing a rebounding manufacturing sector. Plus home sales are coming off lows. There is certainly weakness too - foreclosures are still on the rise.

What if we are at the precipice of a turn around? What if the economy is about to change for the better? How does that change your view of 2010?

• Are you as mad at the government?
• Do you buy a new car?
• Will you take a up a new "you never know" hobby?
• Is there a trip to Disneyland instead of camping?
• Will you move to a different city?
  • 
    
• Are you financially scarred by this?
• Do you look back at 2007, before we went off the economic cliff, with a suspicious eye?
• Do you wish it was still 2007?

We've spent the last two years healing our wallets, paying debts, getting the house in order and biding our time. It feels like there is an enormous amount of pent up demand for the things like clean energy, demonstrating ethics, and new forms of education. So many people have sacrificed and tested their mental will power - they are changed, but it doesn't mean they don't enjoy a bucket of beer, a beach, and a sunset.

What if...

        

This is a list of job report statistic posts. It is updated at least monthly.

February 2010 Jobs Report and Wages
January 2010 Jobs Report and Wages
December 2009 Jobs Report and Wages
November 2009 Jobs Report and Wages
October 2009 Jobs Report and Wages

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