Okay.
First off, I want to insist that Dan Pink has missed a very important truth about what motivates us, at least in terms of 'do we find our
jobs rewarding' -- and this is that we like them when they give us the opportunity to work closely with people we consider excellent.
This is a bit surprising ... given his sales experience one would think he had noticed this.
Second off, he is missing a second truth, in that beyond our salaries, we value the time we spend with our families. In a way differently than we value just our time 'not to be at work' which is sort of defined as 'leisure'. This definition sucks, by the way. The time we spend in demands to our family are not our 'leisure' times ... 'Leisure' should it mean anything (here.
beuns may tell us that in the original French the word meant something else) -- will mean time that you can control, than you can decide to waste, purposely or frivolously.
Back to the video of what motivates us.
Look at my software company -- or look at TB! (hi
Cory Trese fallen). We aren't making a lot of money. Dear god we would all love it if we happened to make pots and pots and pots of the stuff, but the things we are getting out of our chosen professional lives means more than
money.
Everybody who works for my company could get more money in an instant some place else. (Some do. Work here for 5 years, demand top salary
some place else for having worked here. This happens.) I pay industry standard (which in Sweden is a matter or public record) wage, but no extra. But still, people are desperate to work for me. It's not for a chance to get rich. We'd dearly
love it if that happened (and have a stock sharing program to make sure that if it does, we will all do well) but that is unlikely. But the chance to work with other cool people, and the absolute certainly that
if you are a man, and you have a child, we will totally support the Swedish ideal that men should stay home with young children (And I give talks about how respecting families increaeses our productivity, every year at the universities. So we get our share of new interns.. etc.)
Pappa-ledigt is something we pay taxes for, so fathers can spend time with their children. The state compensates you for the time your employees spend at home. Of course, everybody in Sweden, at least officially thinks this is a great idea, but after the initial period, there is a question of who takes care of the infant and isn't at work.
In Sweden, while there is enormous support for the idea that fathers should get involved with their children, the vast majority of
other paid time (after the initial pappa-days) to be with young children ends up being claimed by women. This is not because the
men do not want it. The problem is that they feel their careers are on risk if they spend too much time with their children, and so
do not claim those days they desperately want. They think that this will make them seem selfish, and not concerned enough with the
company, or not a team player. I care more about my family than for my company, but, well I am afraid to admit this. So do I really care more about my family? .... doesn't this just suck!
Around my company, it is clear that families come first. We actually have no women with small children here right now -- the last one
we had (have) has children only in the 7-10 year old range. But we have 3 men who have children in the 0-5 range. And they get to
stay home and work from home with their small children as much as possible. And, should they want it, they can work the half-time
and be the full time care-takers of their children too small for day care.
What happens? Men show up in droves to work for me, even though I pay badly. I will let them put their small children first,
and I won't disadvantage them because they cared to do so. Right now there is no damn disadvantage, as every man (but 1) who works here either is using or intends to be using the Father days to the max. (The one is a 19 year old student, who has no plans to make a family any time soon).
In compensation, I get to routinely break Swedish law with no censure. When the bastards with the forklift cut through our link to the rest of the world, for various technical reasons, we needed to build a new machine with all of our mail server and firewall rules and connect that up via a cable from the other end of the property. Just simply copying the old to the new would not do --- we needed the old connection to be there in its fully broken state while we had our new ones.
So I wrote in all I could, to the best of my ability, which got about 80% of the job done. And then I phoned my friend and employee iko, who under Swedish law was supposed to be free from being bothered by the boss on his guaranteed free time. And it took us 2 hours, but we did the rest of the 20% which more or less could not have been done without iko, an expert in the esoterica around this. And iko, in no way, took
this as a relaxation of our company belief that fathers should spend time with their children -- this was very much an instance of 'help! emergency!' You apologise for the interruption, and then so it goes.
Enough of me, which may be a bit hard to see here.
Fallen gets to pursue mastery as an artist. Even though he started with the first ST and CK art so damn far away from any sort of 'beyond minimal' competance that it was a bit embarassing. I get to learn, painfully, over 10 years of failing at it, what it takes to create
an effective sales plan. (This isn't something whose mastery I wanted, just necessary). Fallen and Cory learn about marketting. I try
to teach them every damn bit I can, because in their early days it is clear that I know more about it than they do.
My company is now planning a kickstarter. We are using fallen's guide as a start for what we need to do.
Karma, to use the term I know. 'Sharing' if you do not know this.
Ok, I must to lunch go. Yammer at some well-meaning fools. I hate these lunches, no matter how necessary they are.
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Back to the point.
I think that Dan Pink is correct -- we want Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose.
I think Dan Pink Missed some things -- we want the ability to work with excellent folk, and to raise our children well, and have time for our mate(s).
I think morality in this world must go beyond the commonality of 'we can all agree that this is evil' -- my mother's mission but that
we must provide opportunity for everybody to have chances to grow in Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose .... and still get to work with cool
people and have time to grow with our children and family members.
This is the message I am all about. I try to spread it quietly wherever I go.
I fell into this place to report a few bugs. But I stayed, and made a bit of a home here because
fallen and
Cory Trese embody the ideals I profess all the time. They get to work with each other (a stated, up-front goal of the whole enterprise). They have autonomy. They have a purpose 'to make the sort of games we like to play and wish were there). How much hell this plays with their family life, I do not know, as I think they do not have children to need attention -- but what the hell, Dad the stay home artist who closes the door and says you cannot play with me now is
still a heck of a lot more present than Dad at work I never see.
So this place is full of 'wants to make what I find important in the world' and even 'has forsaken what I am told to want for what I really do'
and all sorts of good stuff. Makes me happy just to know it is out there and fallen and Cory are making it happen ...
So what is morality to you?
Gräv
