TED: About Motivation

In my opinion, Ted.com (www.ted.com ) is one of the best sites on the Web. The best speakers/thinkers in the country lecture for about 20 minutes on “ideas worth sharing.” This week, we will follow several speakers who have messages/ideas worth hearing and sharing on issues relating to leadership. This is the FIRST of the series from Ted.com.

Dan Pink on Motivation

Below find the link to Dan Pink—former speechwriter for Al Gore—speaking about motivation. I think you’ll find it amazing in that in business we use extrinsic incentives (carrots and sticks), not intrinsic incentives (autonomy, mastery and purpose), and the results are generally a failure. So, if you have a sales incentive program based on payouts, you will want to listen to this presentation on motivation. I think this is worth passing along to companies who might benefit from it.

Click here to see Dan Pink's lecture on motivation at TED.

Harvard Business Review September 2009--Final Comments

This the FINAL of several postings this week regarding the September 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review, which I highly recommend you purchase for your executives.

Articles worth reading in this issue:

Inside Cisco’s Search for the Next Big Idea: Read about the I-Prize and how getting innovation by merely offering a reward on a Web site, doesn’t always work. It takes much more than “crowd-sourcing” to be effective.

Death by Information Overload: With the flood of e-mails companies and people need to take some actions. I like the sidebar list “10 Ways to Reduce E-mail Overload.” Helped me.

And a focus of articles on sustainability:
--Why Sustainability is Now the Key Driver of Innovation
--On the Horizon: Six Sources of Limitless Energy
--Using Gifts and Trees to Make Recyclers of Indian Consumers
--Creating Value in an Economic Crisis

HBR September 2009: The Female Economy

This the fifth of several postings this week regarding the September 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review, which I highly recommend you purchase for your executives.

The Female Economy
By Michael Silverstein and Kate Sayre

As an economic force worldwide, women control more money than China and India combined! Off hand, I’d say that’s a significant target market! The authors surveyed a sample of 12,000 women from a wide geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds about a myriad of issues like education, jobs, hopes fears, relationship, etc. Obviously, the authors would direct companies to pay increasing attention to this behemoth market. They also point out six industries in particular: food, fitness, beauty, apparel, health care, and financial services. Very interesting and eye-opening article.