Mr Sreenivassan Ramaprasad, Director, CADD Centre Training Services in conversation with Mr Bhargav Sundaram, Chief Executive, Callidai Motor Works and Mr Madhu Raghunath, COO, Dealership Businesses, TVS Mobility Private Ltd., on Daniel H. Pink’s captivating book.
Mr Sreenivassan Ramaprasad:
In his book, ‘Drive,’ Daniel Pink fundamentally challenges the conventional wisdom of motivation. He starts off the book with the experiment done by a scientist named Harry F Harlow, who put a monkey into a cage and gave the monkey a problem to solve. The monkey had to remove a nail and open a clip.
Unlike the normal motivation theory of carrot and stick, he did not give anything to the monkey. He thought that the monkey would not do anything. But to his surprise, the monkey started solving the problem and repeated to solve the problem, which indicated that it actually enjoyed solving the problem, despite not being rewarded. He also talks about the most popular digital encyclopaedia- the Wikipedia whose contributors are not paid. They voluntarily contribute. It means that there is something other than reward to motivate people.
The author divides the book into two parts. The first part is about what motivates us. In the early years, all human beings had the only objective of survival. Then came the industrial revolution, where the industries started coming in and humans became part of the factories. People started doing the same thing again and again. For monotony, they devised the motivation strategy of carrot and stick, which is nothing but to give incentives if you produce more and punish if rules are not followed. But today, we are in a knowledge economy, where creativity is more important. People want their own time. They no longer read. They want to view YouTube and listen to audio. Things have changed and, in this scenario, the carrot and stick will not always work.
There are two types of behavior- one is the X behavior which is based on extrinsic factors. The other is the I behavior which is based on intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is like getting the reward for doing anything or getting a punishment like a salary cut. Intrinsic motivation comes from within, which is all about creativity. This, according to the author, comes from three key elements- autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Autonomy
Thirty years ago, I was working in JK Tyres. It is a well-paying company and I was paid well. But it was a completely hierarchical, control-oriented company at that time. Then I joined CADD centre, where I saw young people doing responsible work, like giving training on CAD. They had absolute freedom. I got attracted towards the freedom and sacrificed 50% of my salary to join CADD centre. Autonomy is a pure intrinsic motivation for me.
Mastery
What is mastery? When you achieve your peak potential in anything you do, that is mastery. When we talk of mastery, almost immediately, Sachin Tendulkar, the master in cricket, comes to our mind. He achieved mastery by continuous practice. Practice is painful. It comes with the growth mindset that you have to perform well. It is important that you develop mastery in whatever you do. It’s a continuous journey.
Purpose
In CADD Centre, we want to enable engineering students to get a livelihood and we want them to be employed in a very good company. That is our purpose. Recently, we started the program called Easy Hire, where we also made it easy for companies to come and hire, by training the students as per their requirements. That is a pure purpose driven motivation. Yes, there is profit. But profit driven companies will get tired after some time, while purpose driven companies with profit are likely to stay for long. So, autonomy, mastery, and purpose are the intrinsic drivers of motivation.
Mr Madhu Raghunath: I want to use an acronym-MAP. While the author puts autonomy first, I have taken the liberty to put mastery first. I also found another takeaway. Daniel Pink says that we should not worry about the results of our work. This is very familiar to what Bhagavad Gita says. The work itself becomes a reward. People who don’t worry about external rewards and recognition are the ones who actually get them. It’s very paradoxical. But it is very true. Many of your successful events in your life will be those moments where you worked with a lot of passion and love and not because somebody asked you to do so. That is what they refer to as intrinsic motivation. I am a big fan of school of positive psychology by Martin Seligman.
Mr Bhargav Sundaram: We are manufacturers of customized mobility equipment for people with extreme disabilities and senior citizens. We don’t have a huge turnover but still, we are 25 years old. I believe that entrepreneurs and businessmen, especially those who are pioneers in the field, will be highly intrinsically motivated to be in a business. They do not look out for a market; they don’t do surveys to calculate how much they can sell. They just come there with a gut feeling and some dream. Everybody has varying degrees of creativity and imagination in them. The employer or the boss must make the best use of it.
Next comes the autonomy. If you are left on the road, without much money with you and you have to reach a particular destination, you will follow a process of your own. Your creative thinking will come to the fore. You can hitch a ride, or walk or call a friend and ask him to take you to your destination. When the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr MG Ramachandran died, there was a complete lockdown. We were studying and staying in the college hostel in Coimbatore. One of our friends wanted to go to his residence in Trichy. He didn’t have money with him. He walked some distance, then went by bullock cart and travelled in a lorry but he managed to reach his destination. He was on his own. When everything was stacked against him, he had a plan. Autonomy gives us a lot of freedom to take our own decisions. Management and employers should not micro-manage their teams.
Mr Ramaprasad: How relevant is the carrot and stick principle in your business?
Mr Madhu Raghunath: Daniel Pink states that there are two forms of work – algorithmic and heuristic. In algorithmic work, there are a set of rules and the outcome is clearly known to the people. So, they can easily chase the target. But in the long run, they might tend to lose interest and we see that happening in the real world. Sometimes, you wonder why, even though you create some fancy incentive programs, people are not interested in pursuing those incentives. Rewards can sometimes lead to unethical behavior.
In heuristic work, there are no strict hierarchies. It’s like using your creative intelligence to accomplish a task. The ‘how’ part of accomplishing a task is left more to the individual, rather than a set of rules. For such type of work, incentive-based reward system will not work. People must be inspired. Leaders and HR professionals who design the reward systems must appeal to the larger purpose of why a company exists. We need to work on the interplay between the larger purpose and the reward. Only then, the rewards will become effective. A simple carrot and stick approach will not work.
Mr Ramaprasad: What is working well in your organization?
Mr Madhu Raghunath: On the sales front, we have incentives. I am not saying that it doesn’t work. Almost all companies have structured a portion of the salary as incentives. But beyond a point, it’s only the intrinsic motivation that works.
Mr Bhargav Sundaram: The author refers to carrot and stick policy as Motivation 2. Ninety percentage of the organizations offer Motivation 2 to their employees. Very few have Motivation 3, which is the intrinsic motivation. In my organization, 80% of those who work are blue collared. They work in the shop floor. They already have a lot of personal issues and problems. If they get their salary, they are happy and if you give them a reward, they will be happier. But these are people who cannot take the stick, so you cannot punish them. The white coloured like the marketing and sales guys are at a level where intrinsic motivation can work. The blue collared workers can improve their efficiency by muscle memory. When they do the same things over and over again in the factory, their performance will improve and they could get an incentive.
Mr Ramaprasad: Among mastery, autonomy and purpose, what resonates with you the most?
Mr Madhu Raghunath: For me, purpose is very important. When I moved from Unilever to TVS, a lot of people questioned my decision. I was just 37 years old then. I had a very clear purpose in my mind, though it was not so well articulated or framed in my mind then. I have learned a lot in Unilever. I wanted to use my experience and give it back to an Indian company and make an impact on the lives of the underprivileged. In TVS, our main audience set is an entire set of people who are less fortunate than people in richer environments. The switch to TVS has given me a wonderful opportunity to go and impact the lives of people. That was the overriding purpose.
Now I have reached a stage where I will be able to not just learn the business or develop it, but I can actually get to a level where I can contribute in a very significant way. That propels me even further. For me, the entire world is about work and home. My significant impact would be at the workspace, through my own policies and decisions- on hiring people, bringing in diversity, developing people and so on.
Achieving mastery is like saying tomorrow never comes. It is a journey. Mastery comes with pain. You may get autonomy or not in your place but you have to create your own space and autonomy. I feel that once you have purpose, then autonomy and mastery will fall in place.
Mr Bhargav Sundaram: Autonomy is the space that is given to you for planning and implementing your own work. You can give autonomy to your employees or teams in your institution, if as a leader or boss, you know only the business model but do not know the process or the technology. For example, in 1998, when I started my business, I thought wheel chairs would have a good market. I’m a commerce graduate and I didn’t know anything about the technology and how the material can be fabricated. Later on, when it came to motorized wheelchairs, I had no idea about electronics. I had no option but to give some of my employees the autonomy to work on it, progress and then deliver the product. Eventually, they did that. The challenge was in identifying people who can work in an autonomous atmosphere.
Purpose is why your business exists in the first place. The purpose or the overall objective of our organization is to provide mobility solutions for people with extreme problems and to put a smile on their face. Talented employees joined us, but did not understand the purpose and they quit. So, it is important that the purpose of the organization is very well communicated and understood by the people who are with you and that they must be able to work autonomously and acquire mastery.
