Would You Move Away From A Burning Car?

If you were next to a burning car, assuming there’s no one inside, would you move away? 99% of us would. But, just how far away would you move?

There are two general strands of thought in motivation methods: people move away from something (getting fired, losing the house, getting another heart attack, etc.) or people move toward something (a raise, a bigger house, a new car, etc.). The problem with the first one is that it tends to be short-term.

When that car starts to burn, people in the crowd move quite differently. Some will run away as fast and as far as they can, leaving the scene before the cops can get there to ask questions. Some will walk briskly away. Some will just saunter off a few steps. Most will move a safe distance away, turn around and stare at the car to discuss what happened. A small few will remain too close and get injured or even killed when the gas tank finally explodes.

When the boss comes in and announces that the unit is not producing where it should be and that some people will get fired if performance doesn’t improve, the employees will behave like the crowd and the burning car. Some will really start producing as fast and as much as they can. Some will start producing enough to keep their jobs, but not much more than that. A few will not produce enough and get reprimanded and even fired.

The other problem with this approach to motivation is that it is the easiest thing to do: threaten people with something terrible. It only moves people so far. You have to keep doing it over and over again, and then it becomes a very negative environment.

Moving people toward something is much harder. Which is why most managers don’t do it. You have to know your people and know how their own goals intersect with your organization’s goals. It’s more targeted and requires long-term thinking. That’s hard. Leadership is hard. It requires thinking.

On the other hand,there's the rare organization where people work together to pull everyone away from getting fired, like the crowd that rushed to save a man under the car. That would be a great organization to work for. Is your organization like that?