2017 ispa conference & expo
keynote speaker October 17, 2017
Dedicated Contributor Award to a very
deserving candidate. Dr. Mary Wisnom
gave a moving acceptance speech about
watching the growth of the spa industry
as an educator and implored everyone in
the audience to volunteer for ISPA initia-
tives. Wisnom is proof that a little
volunteering goes a long way for the
sustainability of our industry.
Finally, Daniel Pink, the main event,
took the stage. His presentation was
witty, yet intriguing. The audience loved
that he wasn’t afraid to laugh at himself
and his off-the-cuff humor kept everyone
engaged. It wasn’t just his humor that
ISPA loved; his points on work and
human behavior really hit home. Here are
some of his points that really struck a
chord with the audience:
“If-then rewards are great
for the simple and short
term, not so great for the
complex and long term.” Pink’s “if-
then” rewards are simple: if you do this,
then you get this. He explained that our
society has been running its workforce on
these types of rewards for centuries. And
it worked when jobs were simple. But
now, not so much. He said the challenge
is figuring out what falls in each category.
He then cited studies where people
were given meaningless tasks to perform
and monetary rewards to complete them.
Not surprising, the more money people
received, the faster they completed the
tasks. But, when the researchers switched
it up and asked the individuals to solve
more complex problems that required
cognitive skills, the results were different.
As the monetary reward got higher,
people did worse on the tasks.
Pink made it clear though, money is a
1.
motivator, just not in the way we think it
is. Money is surely a motivator when we
aren’t making enough of it. It’s also a
motivator when someone else is making
more for doing the same job. Pink
explained (through a hysterical monkey
video) that it’s human nature to get angry
or shut down when we realize someone
else is getting more for the same amount
of work, which is why he urges everyone
from small businesses to Fortune 500
companies to keep employee pay trans-
parent and honest. Not doing so is the
quickest way to demotivate your staff.
“Have less conversations
about how and more about
why.” According to Pink, the single
biggest day-to-day motivator is making
progress in meaningful work. Purpose.
By giving people a purpose, they become
motivated and impassioned about their
jobs. Purpose, however, is more than
tacking a poster with your company’s
mission statement to the wall. It’s about
creating a culture where people feel the
work they do matters. When people feel
like waking up and going to work every
day makes a difference, they’re more
motivated to get it done, even on the bad
days.
Make your employees feel like their
work contributes to the bottom line of the
company, to the growth of the organi-
zation and the future of everyone
involved, and they’ll be motivated to work
their tails off. You do this by creating a
high feedback culture.
Pink’s idea for instilling this culture in
your employees are his “weekly one-on-
ones with a twist.” He said to get rid of
your annual review process and replace it
with a system that works. The twist is
2.
that each meeting should be different—
what do they love and loathe, how to
remove barriers, discuss their career long-
term, what should you
start-stop-continue, etc.
“Management is a
technology with a singular
purpose, to create compliance.”
Pink also urged us to stop managing our
teams. You don’t want the people who
work for you to be compliant, you want
them to be engaged. Pink noted that
seven out of 10 people in the U.S.
economy are not engaged at work.
What?!? No wonder we can’t seem to
get anything done!
How do you get your employees to be
more engaged? Autonomy. Pink said that
people aren’t engaged by management,
they are engaged by autonomy. Giving
people sovereignty over their time,
technique, team and tasks leads to more
innovation and engagement.
Pink gave the example of Nobel prize
winning physicists who created a Genius
Hour. This meant for an hour every Friday
evening, they would work on whatever
they wanted. The only rules were: it
couldn’t involve their current grant
research and it had to be fun. And you
know what, that Nobel prize they won for
a huge scientific breakthrough wasn’t
from the research they normally work on.
It came out of their Genius Hour.
3.
“What’s your sentence?”
After captivating the audience with
his humor and scientific research, Pink left
us with a challenge: find your sentence.
When it is all said and done, what do you
want people to say about what you did?
What do you want to be proud of? n
4.
December 2017
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