By: Steven A. Shapiro, PMP
I recently was given a great opportunity to interview Daniel Pink, best-selling and award-winning author of books such as Drive: The Surprising Truth of What Motivates Us, A Whole New Mind, and his latest book To Sell is Human, among others. Pink’s books have had a lasting impact on the way I look at my career and where I am headed and they have caused me to pause, at times, and rethink my goals.
When given this opportunity, I thought long and hard about what I could ask Pink to really make the connection between each of his books and the profession of Project Management, but ultimately I settled on asking just that. What follows is the question I asked and Pink’s answer.
My Question
The practice of Project Management (PM) lends itself to many of the principles of Drive, A Whole New Mind and To Sell is Human. Connect your understanding of PM to the main concepts in each book - Drive (Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose), AWNM (Asia, Automation and Abundance, along with how the practice of PM is very conceptual) and then To Sell is Human (How we are all in Sales, but mainly that the practice of PM is a very non-sales selling job).
Pink’s Answer
In A Whole New Mind, I make the case that the world is moving from an economy and society built on the logical, linear, computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of a coming Conceptual Age. Project Management is in many senses a bridge between the two. In our highly interconnected world, Information Age abilities like computer programming can be – and have been – outsourced to knowledge workers in Asia. This puts a premium on the right-brain ability to keep it all together, integrated, and functioning smoothly. I call this aptitude Symphony, and Project Management is the very embodiment of it.
To be effective, project managers must move away from "if-then" motivators – if you perform this task, then you’ll get a reward. These kinds of motivators are effective when the task is boring and routine, but they squash creative, conceptual, break-through thinking. Instead, project managers will want to understand and use Motivation 3.0: the principles of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. As the research I describe in Drive shows, good leaders understand that motivation is not something one person does TO another, but as something that people do FOR themselves. That means replacing control with self-direction -- and looking for ways to increase the amount of autonomy people have over their task, time, team, and technique. Good managers also put people in positions where they can make progress, give them meaningful feedback, and help them get better at something that matters. And they help people see the purpose of what they're doing -- how what they do day-to-day makes a contribution and connects to a wider mission.
Project Management is the quintessential example of what I call “non-sales selling” in To Sell is Human. As you may know, one in nine American workers works in sales -- that is, their job is to try to convince someone else to make a purchase. But even more important, the other 8 in 9 – including project managers -- are also in sales. They're now spending a huge portion of their time persuading, influencing, and convincing others to make an exchange, to give up what they have (time, resources, “buy-in”) for what’s offered (an idea, a new way of doing things, commitment to a project).
In order to get better at this kind of selling, project managers should focus on three foundational qualities that social science tells us are most important in moving others: attunement, buoyancy, and clarity. Attunement is the ability to shed the anchor of your own position and instead understand another's perspective and interests. Buoyancy is how to stay afloat on what one salesman called "an ocean of rejection." And clarity is sorting through a welter of information to distill the essence and find meaningful patterns -- as well as moving from solving existing problems to identifying hidden ones.