The best way to manage a team?
I'm contemplating the best way of managing a team. Do you offer results based rewards? Do you offer a super-supportive environment? Are you to be strict? Lenient? Offer a 'creative' free-form environment in which your employees can undertake any task they want?
While looking up related content, I came across a researcher who's done some interesting studies on success vs failure.
Study of Failure
There are some people who just 'get it'. They're sociable, they're successful, they're smart.
And then there are the other people. People who are almost cursed to live a life of constant failure.
Carol Dweck is obsessed with these 'other people.' She wanted to know the behavioral difference between the people who 'get it' and the people who don't.
Children are the perfect case studies. Long before learned behaviors take over, we have the raw brain functionality of somebody just doing 'what comes natural to them.' Dweck used children as the testing ground.
I'm reading through a ton of her papers now. She's conducted six studies concluding that praise for skills had negative consequences on children.
The Studies
She splits these children into 2 groups. After completion of each test she praises the children for different things.
In group A, she praises the children based on their intelligence level. Praises such as "Wow, you must be really smart to have solved this!" are given.
In group B, she praises the children based on their efforts. Praises such as "You must have worked very hard on this" are given.
Students praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals. After failure, they also displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more low-ability attributions, and worse task performance.
Students in group A blamed their bad memory, chose easier problems (for easy, self confidence boosting wins), and acted silly to give the impression that they weren't really trying (minimizing expectations).
Students in group B believed intelligence to be subject to improvement, strives to do better on each puzzle, and had a higher success rate.
The Difference Between Us and Them
The way I think is results driven, as it is for most of us. We're entrepreneurs after all, and it doesn't matter how 'hard' we work, as long as we get the results we need. Otherwise we don't get paid.
While this works for us, perhaps it isn't the best way to treat non-entrepreneurs if we want optimum performance. Perhaps results based incentives put too much pressure on your team. Perhaps they'll make up excuses for why they're not striving, perhaps they'll 'act silly' (spend more time texting, chatting, facebooking) to give a credible reason (if only to themselves) for why they're not performing better.
Maybe when working with team members, it's better to credit them for more 'slowlane' and 'sidewalk' things. Even though we know it SHOULDN'T MATTER how hard they work, and what really matters results.. I'm thinking that giving credit, bonuses, and praise to those who TRY hard might lead to better results.
Any thoughts on this?
I'm contemplating the best way of managing a team. Do you offer results based rewards? Do you offer a super-supportive environment? Are you to be strict? Lenient? Offer a 'creative' free-form environment in which your employees can undertake any task they want?
While looking up related content, I came across a researcher who's done some interesting studies on success vs failure.
Study of Failure
There are some people who just 'get it'. They're sociable, they're successful, they're smart.
And then there are the other people. People who are almost cursed to live a life of constant failure.
Carol Dweck is obsessed with these 'other people.' She wanted to know the behavioral difference between the people who 'get it' and the people who don't.
Children are the perfect case studies. Long before learned behaviors take over, we have the raw brain functionality of somebody just doing 'what comes natural to them.' Dweck used children as the testing ground.
I'm reading through a ton of her papers now. She's conducted six studies concluding that praise for skills had negative consequences on children.
The Studies
She splits these children into 2 groups. After completion of each test she praises the children for different things.
In group A, she praises the children based on their intelligence level. Praises such as "Wow, you must be really smart to have solved this!" are given.
In group B, she praises the children based on their efforts. Praises such as "You must have worked very hard on this" are given.
Students praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals. After failure, they also displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more low-ability attributions, and worse task performance.
Students in group A blamed their bad memory, chose easier problems (for easy, self confidence boosting wins), and acted silly to give the impression that they weren't really trying (minimizing expectations).
Students in group B believed intelligence to be subject to improvement, strives to do better on each puzzle, and had a higher success rate.
The Difference Between Us and Them
The way I think is results driven, as it is for most of us. We're entrepreneurs after all, and it doesn't matter how 'hard' we work, as long as we get the results we need. Otherwise we don't get paid.
While this works for us, perhaps it isn't the best way to treat non-entrepreneurs if we want optimum performance. Perhaps results based incentives put too much pressure on your team. Perhaps they'll make up excuses for why they're not striving, perhaps they'll 'act silly' (spend more time texting, chatting, facebooking) to give a credible reason (if only to themselves) for why they're not performing better.
Maybe when working with team members, it's better to credit them for more 'slowlane' and 'sidewalk' things. Even though we know it SHOULDN'T MATTER how hard they work, and what really matters results.. I'm thinking that giving credit, bonuses, and praise to those who TRY hard might lead to better results.
Any thoughts on this?
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