1 00:00:00,931 --> 00:00:10,871 Sometime after I finished this first set of experiments on Legos and Bionicles, I 2 00:00:10,871 --> 00:00:18,723 went to talk to a big software company in the northwest of the US. 3 00:00:18,723 --> 00:00:22,663 And there were about 200 engineers in this room and we arranged it like six months in 4 00:00:22,663 --> 00:00:26,348 advance. And what happened was that a week before I 5 00:00:26,348 --> 00:00:30,884 came to present to these guys, they met with their CEO and this was not a happy 6 00:00:30,884 --> 00:00:34,030 meeting. This group worked on what they thought was 7 00:00:34,030 --> 00:00:37,460 the next visionary project for this big software company. 8 00:00:37,460 --> 00:00:41,706 They worked on it for two years. They had an office that was outside the 9 00:00:41,706 --> 00:00:45,150 rest of the campus of this company. They were in downtown. 10 00:00:45,150 --> 00:00:48,900 They were working hard in creating the new vision for that company. 11 00:00:48,901 --> 00:00:54,127 And the week before I came, the CEO sat with them and cancelled the project. 12 00:00:54,128 --> 00:00:58,170 And this was the most demotivated group of people I've ever seen. 13 00:00:58,170 --> 00:01:01,806 It was really amazing. And they all said they felt like they were 14 00:01:01,806 --> 00:01:05,429 in the Lego experiment. They felt they were working for a long 15 00:01:05,429 --> 00:01:09,212 time on something for two years. They thought it was incredibly meaningful, 16 00:01:09,212 --> 00:01:13,700 incredibly important for the company and all of a sudden somebody just destroyed 17 00:01:13,700 --> 00:01:16,124 that. And I asked them, I said how many of you 18 00:01:16,124 --> 00:01:18,327 show up to work now later than you used to? 19 00:01:18,328 --> 00:01:22,050 And everybody raised their hand. I said how many of you go home now earlier 20 00:01:22,050 --> 00:01:24,989 than you used to? And they all raised their hands. 21 00:01:24,989 --> 00:01:28,479 I said how many of you play more at work and work less seriously? 22 00:01:28,479 --> 00:01:31,884 And they all raised their hands. And I said how many of you now play with 23 00:01:31,884 --> 00:01:34,947 your expense reports these days? And no body raised their hand. 24 00:01:34,947 --> 00:01:39,771 They laughed a little but, but then they took me for dinner and showed me what they 25 00:01:39,771 --> 00:01:43,724 could do with expense reports. But the reality was that their CEO, I 26 00:01:43,724 --> 00:01:48,070 think much like the consultant experiment, did not appreciate the meaning. 27 00:01:48,070 --> 00:01:52,150 Imagine you are a CEO and imagine that you think about your employees like rats in a 28 00:01:52,150 --> 00:01:54,490 maze. All you need to worry about is how you are 29 00:01:54,490 --> 00:01:58,030 organizing the incentives because the rats would just figure it out. 30 00:01:58,030 --> 00:02:02,320 There's no meaning, there's no purpose. Rats just work. 31 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:05,456 And from this CEO's perspective, I think he did not think about the meaning of 32 00:02:05,456 --> 00:02:08,640 these people's labors. He just said OK, I made them run in this 33 00:02:08,640 --> 00:02:12,054 direction for two years. I don't think it's a good direction 34 00:02:12,054 --> 00:02:14,600 anymore. Let me just get them to run in a different 35 00:02:14,600 --> 00:02:17,690 direction but not appreciating the importance of all those. 36 00:02:17,690 --> 00:02:22,810 And by the way, these were some of the most creative, valuable people for that 37 00:02:22,810 --> 00:02:28,357 company and many of them left afterward. Now, I did ask them another question. 38 00:02:28,358 --> 00:02:31,497 I said, imagine that your boss had to cancel this project. 39 00:02:31,498 --> 00:02:34,230 Let's say, for whatever reason, that was the right decision. 40 00:02:34,230 --> 00:02:39,350 Could he have canceled it in a way that wouldn't have demotivated you to such a 41 00:02:39,350 --> 00:02:41,962 degree? And they all came with interesting stories 42 00:02:41,962 --> 00:02:46,860 or interesting ideas for that. They said, what if he allowed them to 43 00:02:46,860 --> 00:02:50,787 present their project in front of the whole company? 44 00:02:50,788 --> 00:02:53,677 What if he allowed them to create a few prototypes? 45 00:02:53,678 --> 00:02:58,682 What if he allowed them to think about what aspects from this technology that 46 00:02:58,682 --> 00:03:03,106 they were creating could be useful for other parts of the business? 47 00:03:03,106 --> 00:03:08,162 Now if you think about all of those suggestions, they would all take some time 48 00:03:08,162 --> 00:03:10,835 and money. Doing a presentation in front of the whole 49 00:03:10,835 --> 00:03:12,946 company would take time from all the company. 50 00:03:12,946 --> 00:03:16,657 Building prototypes and getting them to run around the company and seeing in a 51 00:03:16,657 --> 00:03:19,540 year or so, how people use them, would take even more money. 52 00:03:19,540 --> 00:03:23,680 Getting them to think about how parts of this technology could fit in other aspects 53 00:03:23,680 --> 00:03:26,480 of the business would, again, take time and effort. 54 00:03:26,480 --> 00:03:32,759 And if the CEO doesn't think that meaning is important, then why waste this time and 55 00:03:32,759 --> 00:03:35,641 effort. But if you understand how important 56 00:03:35,641 --> 00:03:39,186 meaning, is then it must mean that you should invest some in it. 57 00:03:39,186 --> 00:03:42,310 Now how much? It's hard to tell because it's important 58 00:03:42,310 --> 00:03:46,510 to understand how big meaning is but I think in general we haven't a way to 59 00:03:46,510 --> 00:03:51,134 underestimate the importance of meaning. And by the way, other companies are doing 60 00:03:51,134 --> 00:03:53,685 it as well. Companies like Google, for example, take 61 00:03:53,685 --> 00:03:57,613 their employees, and give them 20 percent of their time to work on other projects. 62 00:03:57,613 --> 00:04:03,404 Now, one of those things is to get these 20% of this time to make useful project. 63 00:04:03,405 --> 00:04:07,448 But another part of it is to make people feel valuable and useful and make sure 64 00:04:07,448 --> 00:04:10,458 that they have something meaningful that they're pursuing. 65 00:04:10,458 --> 00:04:13,593 So, that's incredibly important.