Two brothers of about the same age and
with many similar interests – one of which is motorcycling. The older brother is
recently retired and the other is slightly short of that time.
During the process of installing a new
rear tire, brakes and wheel bearings, the older brother emails the younger
saying how nice it is to have the time to be able to repair his own motorcycle
to which the younger brother replies, “I can’t wait until I have the funds to
pay someone else to do it!”
What a great example of the difference
in the value of time and money. As
Daniel Pink points out in “Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” we will often do work for ourselves that we will not accept pay for to
do for someone else. The value of time
is to do what we want to do. The
interesting thing is we might use it working physically harder than we do at
our place of paid employment.
The challenge for the leader is to
connect these dots. Help your people
align their passion with the work that needs to be done.
How do you help align these priorities
for your team? Can you share an example?
Posts
3 comments:
Great Post John. I've contemplated this very thing many times in my life. Using your very analogy I enjoy working on my own motorcycle, car, or even my home, but I would not enjoy working on somebody else's, even for profit. Interestingly enough, the converse is true also because there are things that I do for profit that I would not do for myself.
Right on. I remember digging out and building this retaining wall while living in CT. My neighbor loved it and would pay me anything to do it. Somehow I enjoyed doing mine, but would not attempt hers at any price - but interestingly - I would help her as a friend!
Dear John,
Thank you for the recent post on “What’s more Valuable- Time or Money”
As an emerging leader, it helps me connect well to focus on understanding people’s esteem needs. Everyone’s different and has a different kick factor and I think as a leader if I am able to support that Kick or the Esteem need, people would be motivated and start converging towards the organizational goal.
Thank you again
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