The Power of Story

I’m reading Jim Loehr’s book, The Power of Story: Change Your Story, Change Your Destiny in Business and in Life (Amazon link). Loehr is a psychologist who runs the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, FL, and works with world class athletes, business executives and other high achievers to hone their stories so that they perform at optimal levels. His premise is that we tell ourselves stories that help us navigate through life because they provide structure and direction. The stories we tell ourselves give our lives meaning.

Because the stories we create and tell about ourselves form the “only reality we will ever know in this life…and since it’s our destiny to follow our stories, it’s imperative that we do everything in our power to get our stories right” (Loehr’s emphasis). Most of us, he asserts, get our stories wrong; or more accurately, tell a story that’s really someone else’s – our parents, our bosses, our spiritual advisors and others who have influenced us throughout our lives.

Loehr argues that the most important story we tell is the one we tell ourselves: “if you aren’t the author of your own story, you’re the victim of it” and at the heart of our story is purpose, one of the fundamentals of good storytelling. Purpose gives our life story meaning, it is never small, but grand, heroic and epic; it’s our ultimate mission in life, the thing that continually renews our spirit. Our ultimate mission spells out our most overarching goals that we want to achieve and how we must do it – our values and beliefs. Thus, our ultimate mission/purpose must be clearly defined; and until we can define it, we can’t come up with our own story, and remain trapped by our old story.

Loehr offers step by step exercises to determine our old story; discovering where it is out of alignment with our values and beliefs and then developing a new story based on our ultimate mission.

So the story we tell about ourselves is what gives our life meaning – in our relationships, our spirituality and our work. If we’re not telling the right story we’re not living the right life, but someone else’s sense of our life.

Have you examined your story? Does it align with your purpose, your ultimate mission? If not, can you determine the voice in your story (your parents, your boss, etc.)? Can you find and retain your voice?

Is the story you’re telling yourself precluding you from really doing what you want to do? Can you articulate what you really want to do?

Can you write a new story?

From Passion to Purpose – Doug: A Success Story

Awhile ago I wrote a post entitled From Passion to Purpose? where in lamenting the permanent loss of jobs during this Great Recession, I discussed Geoff Bellman’s book Your Signature Path: Gaining New Perspectives on Life and Work, where he noted that “We don’t always need new skills to be successful; we often just need a new perspective.” I also referred to Simon Sinek’s admonition to “start with why,” to begin with your motivation and purpose as the basis for what you do and how you do it; which drive us toward discovering our passion.

Shortly after the publication of that post, I had a call from Doug, who wanted to share his story. Last year, Doug found himself unexpectedly laid off from his job as Director of Quality Assurance for a New England manufacturing company. At 57, he found himself out of a job for the first time in 26 years (full disclosure: Doug is my cousin). While Doug knew his manufacturing company was in trouble, he expected that he would be the one, in his words, “to lock the door, turn out the lights.” He saw himself as a key contributor to the company’s on-going operations. As Director of QA, he had been instrumental in establishing operations at their Mexico plant. It came as a complete surprise when he was informed that his position was no longer required. However, as he mentioned in our conversation, “it took me about ten minutes to get over it.” On the way to his car, with his personal effects, he began taking stock of his situation.

For some time, Doug had been a fixture on the local music scene, playing in a bluegrass band at venues in his community. He had an extensive network of local musicians in the region, from Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. He loved playing with the band and jamming with others.

Doug and his wife, Melanie, were empty nesters – their kids “were off the books;” their house was paid for and they had health benefits through Melanie’s job. He figured he needed to bring in $2,000 a month to make ends meet. His six month severance package from his company would give them a cushion for awhile.

Doug started a business that incorporated his passion for music – as well as playing with his band, he books and advertises his friends and others in venues in the three state region. He also appears on a radio program that showcases the regional music scene. When he’s not playing with his band, he’s checking out other musicians’ at their gigs.

Doug realized he couldn’t make a living on his music alone, nor could he rely on just one source of income. He’s expanded his business to include event planning, providing all the needs of customers for their special events. Moreover, Doug didn’t burn any bridges with his old company. He does some consulting for them as well as for a handful of other clients. The retainer from one of his clients provides him more of a cushion for his needs.

Being laid off has enabled Doug to realize his inner entrepreneur. He’s a self described “semi-schemer,” networking all the time and thinking of new projects to take on.

Book Review: "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us," by Daniel Pink

In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Dan Pink has written a book about motivation and the problem that most businesses haven’t caught up to what really motivates us.

“Too many organizations – not just companies, but governments and nonprofits as well – still operate from assumptions about human potential and individual performance that are outdated, unexamined, and rooted more in folklore than in science.”

The pursuit of short-term incentive plans and pay for performance requires an upgrade to Motivation 3.0, which incorporates three essential elements: Autonomy – the desire to direct our own lives; Mastery – the urge to improve on something that matters; and Purpose – the desire to do something in the service of something larger than ourselves.

Pink’s Motivation 3.0 is the logical evolution from two previous societal “operating systems” – the laws, social customs and economic provisos that “sit atop a layer of instructions, protocols, and suppositions about how the world works.” Motivation 1.0 was a basic survival operating system of early humans – the hunter-gatherers – whose day-to-day survival governed their behavior.

As civilization progressed and became more complicated, economic rules spawned a new operating system of external rewards and punishments – Motivation 2.0, which was extremely effective for rule-based, routine tasks of the type that prevailed from the Industrial Revolution up through the mid 20^th century.

The carrot and stick approach of Motivation 2.0, however, has become unreliable for how we organize what we do; how we think about what we do; and how we do what we do. In fact, in our current operating system, Motivation 2.0 tends to “extinguish intrinsic motivation, diminish performance, crush creativity and crowd out good behavior.” It can encourage unethical behavior, create addictions to rewards that distort decision-making, and foster short-term thinking.

Thus, an upgrade is required – Motivation 3.0 – for the smooth functioning of 21^st century business, which depends on and fosters the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself; what Pink call “Type I” behavior. Type I behavior leads to “stronger performance, greater health and higher overall well-being.”

Pink shows how companies that are embracing the upgrade Motivation 3.0 and its basic elements are outperforming those that continue to employ the old Motivation 2.0 carrot and stick techniques.

The “default setting” of Motivation 3.0 is autonomy and self-direction. People need autonomy over task (what they do), time (when they do it), team (who they do it with) and technique (how they do it). Management’s role, then, isn’t about walking around and seeing if people are in their offices at certain times; it’s about creating conditions for them to do their best work.

While Motivation 2.0 required compliance, Motivation 3.0 demands engagement. Only engagement can produce mastery – becoming better at something that matters. Mastery abides by three basic rules. Mastery is a mindset – it requires the capacity to see your abilities as infinitely improvable. Mastery is a pain – it demands effort, grit and deliberate practice. And mastery is asymptote – it’s impossible to realize fully.

Autonomous people, working toward mastery perform at very high levels. But those who do so in the service of a greater objective – greater than themselves – achieve even more. Thus, in Motivation 3.0, purpose maximization, along with profit maximization, is an aspiration and guiding principle. Pink contends that the “move to accompany profit maximization with purpose maximization has the potential to rejuvenate our businesses and remake our world” (my emphasis).

So, if you’re running an organization, are you running on an outdated operating system or have you upgraded to Motivation 3.0, which will provide greater performance. As an individual, can you embrace the elements of Motivation 3.0 to enhance your performance within the organization?

Perhaps a greater question is, can organizations and individuals upgrade to Motivation 3.0 or are we doomed to run inefficiently on an old, obsolete operating system?