"next time you're imprisoned in a tower"

"people were faster and more creative when they tackled the problem on behalf of others rather than for themselves.
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Polman and Emich build upon existing psychological research showing that when we think of situations or individuals that are distant – in space, time, or social connection – we think of them in the abstract. But when those things are close – near us physically, about to happen, or standing beside us – we think about them concretely.
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Over the years, social scientists have found that abstract thinking leads to greater creativity. That means that if we care about innovation we need to be more abstract and therefore more distant. But in our businesses and our lives, we often do the opposite. We intensify our focus rather than widen our view. We draw closer rather than step back.
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Think about that next time you're imprisoned in a tower. Actually, don't. Instead, have someone else think about it for you."

Trechos retirados "Daniel H Pink: employees are faster and more creative when solving other people's problems"

Acerca de Mongo

"Now more and more of us are eschewing 9-to-5 jobs to plow our own paths, pursue our career passions, and wrest control of our daily grind. And that transformation is only accelerating. Soon, we’ll look back on the desk-jockey era as a distant memory.
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In this Gig Economy (i.e., the rising labor force of entrepreneurs) we’re increasingly independent by choice. Last year, nearly 80% of new entrepreneurs made the leap, even though they weren’t coming off unemployment. And we’re happy that we took the plunge, with eight of 10 solopreneurs saying that they’re satisfied with their work.
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Here are the trends that are fostering the independent work revolution.
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Generation Gig...
This tech-savvy, uber-connected generation thinks differently about earning a living. They care more about the content and impact of their toils than how much money they earn or status they acquire. They want to pursue the work they’re interested in while maintaining flexibility. Indeed, a recent study shows that 79% of them would consider quitting their traditional job to freelance.
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With this Generation Gig dominating the workforce, our rise into independent work is sure to reach meteoric heights.
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SaaP: Services as a Product...
The Sharing Economy Goes Mainstream...
Startup America...
The Rise of the Digital Nomads...
A Toast to the Future of Work...We’re increasingly living in a world where passion, collaboration, and technology all play an equally crucial role in the way make our livings."

Trechos retirados de "2015 Forecast: You'll Never Work the Same Way Again"
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Recordar "Portugal é terceiro país da UE com mais trabalhadores por conta própria"

"In many instances, addition can subtract"

"take a more recent study. This one asked participants to imagine they wanted to learn German. Then the researchers divided people into two groups. One group had to choose between a $575 online German-language course and a $449 German-language software package. The other group had to choose between that same $575 online course and the $449 software package plus a German dictionary. Forty-nine percent of people in the first group picked the software package over the online course. But only 36 percent of the second group made that selection—despite its being a better deal. “Adding an inexpensive item to a product offering can lead to a decline in consumers’ willingness to pay,” the researchers concluded. In many instances, addition can subtract. This is why curation is so important, especially in a world saturated with options and alternatives. Framing people’s options in a way that restricts their choices can help them see those choices more clearly instead of overwhelming them. What Mies van der Rohe said of designing buildings is equally true of moving those who inhabit them: Less is more."

"To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others" de Daniel Pink

Acerca dos advogados

Apesar de Cavaco, Guterres e Pinto de Sousa, não serem da área de Direito, é sabida a influência que este sector tem no poder deste país.
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Daniel Pink em "Drive" alerta para o lado negativo desta profissão:
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"Ever wonder why lawyers, as a group, are so miserable? Some social scientists have — and they’ve offered three explanations. One involves pessimism. Being pessimistic is almost always a recipe for low levels of what psychologists call “subjective well-being.” It’s also a detriment in most professions. But as Martin Seligman has written, “There is one glaring exception: pessimists do better at law.” In other words, an attitude that makes someone less happy as a human being actually makes her more effective as a lawyer. A second reason (Moi ici: Esta é a mais interessante e perigosa) Most other enterprises are positive-sum. If I sell you something you want and enjoy, we’re both better off. Law, by contrast, is often (though not always) a zero-sum game: Because somebody wins, somebody else must lose.
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But the third reason might offer the best explanation of all—and help us understand why so few attorneys exemplify Type I behavior. Lawyers often face intense demands but have relatively little “decision latitude.” Behavioral scientists use this term to describe the choices, and perceived choices, a person has. In a sense, it’s another way of describing autonomy—and lawyers are glum and cranky because they don’t have much of it. The deprivation starts early. A 2007 study of two American law schools found that over the three-year period in school, students’ overall well-being plummeted—in large part because their need for autonomy was thwarted. But students who had greater autonomy over their course selection, their assignments, and their relations with professors showed far less steep declines and actually posted better grades and bar exam scores."
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Be aware!

Quando usar recompensas tangíveis ou não, como factor de motivação extrínseca

Conclusões de Daniel Pink no seu livro "Drive":
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"First, consider nontangible rewards. Praise and positive feedback are much less corrosive than cash and trophies. In fact, in Deci’s original experiments, and in his subsequent analysis of other studies, he found that “positive feedback can have an enhancing effect on intrinsic motivation.” So if the folks on the design team turn out a show-stopping poster, maybe just walk into their offices and say, “Wow. You really did an amazing job on that poster. It’s going to have a huge impact on getting people to come to this event. Thank you.” It sounds small and simple, but it can have an enormous effect.
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Second, provide useful information. Amabile has found that while controlling extrinsic motivators can clobber creativity, “informational or enabling motivators can be conducive” to it. In the workplace, people are thirsting to learn about how they’re doing, but only if the information isn’t a tacit effort to manipulate their behavior. So don’t tell the design team: “That poster was perfect. You did it exactly the way I asked.” Instead, give people meaningful information about their work. The more feedback focuses on specifics (“great use of color”) — and the more the praise is about effort and strategy rather than about achieving a particular outcome — the more effective it can be.
In brief, for creative, right-brain, heuristic tasks, you’re on shaky ground offering “if-then” rewards. You’re better off using “now that” rewards. And you’re best off if your “now that” rewards provide praise, feedback, and useful information."

Acerca da motivação

Este artigo de Daniel Pink no The Telegraph "Forget shareholders, maximise consumer value instead" está em sintonia com o relato que ando a ouvir há dias durante o meu jogging sobre o seu livro "Drive".
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O 2º capitulo "Seven Reasons Carrots and Sticks (Often) Don’t Work . . ." relata vários estudos que ilustram como a Motivação 2.0 não faz sentido, tem resultados contraproducentes no mundo do século XXI à medida que nos afastamos de trabalhos repetitivos e sem criatividade

Um corno de Amaltéia ...

"Someone born in 1960 has watched something like 50,000 hours of television already. Fifty thousand hours—more than five and a half solid years. (Moi ici: BTW, eu lembro-me de ver "A Família Partridge")
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Somehow, watching television became a part-time job for every citizen in the developed world. But once we stop thinking of all that time as individual minutes to be whiled away and start thinking of it as a social asset that can be harnessed, it all looks very different. The buildup of this free time among the world’s educated population—maybe a trillion hours per year—is a new resource. It’s what I refer to as the cognitive surplus.
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A surplus that post-TV media—blogs, wikis, and Twitter—can tap for other, often more valuable, uses.
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Any sense of how much of that giant block of free time is being redirected?
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Shirky: We’re still in the very early days. So far, it’s largely young people who are exploring the alternatives, but already they are having a huge impact. We can do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, for example, using Wikipedia, to see how far we still have to go. All the articles, edits, and arguments about articles and edits represent around 100 million hours of human labor. That’s a lot of time. But remember: Americans watch about 200 billion hours of TV every year."
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Uma perspectiva interessante sobre a ocupação do tempo livre, do tempo que podemos usar como muito bem entendemos. Uma galáxia de surpresas, de novidades, tudo sem o controlo do Estado ou de um patrão, sem horários, sem salário...
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Trechos retirados de "Cognitive Surplus: The Great Spare-Time Revolution"

Um mundo novo precisa de habitantes novos e práticas novas (parte II)

Parte I.
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"The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500"

Um mundo novo precisa de habitantes novos e práticas novas

Na sequência deste artigo "Down with fun" reconheço que há um certo exagero na infantilização do mundo em que vivemos, parece que tudo tem de ser "cool & fun".
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No entanto, há um lado que o autor não aborda.
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O mundo "adulto" que nos trouxe até ao final do século XX deixou-nos num mundo de abundância, num mundo massificado, num mundo globalizado, num mundo plano, num mundo dedicado às mega-empresas e à produção em série e à padronização.
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O mundo que está a despontar no início deste século XXI é um mundo novo, um mundo de "markets of one", um mundo não tão plano, um mundo semi-globalizado, um mundo de variedade, um mundo de diferenciação.
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Este mundo novo requer mais do que a aplicação da razão, solicita muito mais o lado direito do cérebro, apela a um uso mais balanceado dos dois lados do cérebro.
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Este mundo novo requer gente capaz de pôr as regras em causa muito mais rapidamente que a geração anterior. Ou seja, requer menos soldados, menos autómatos, menos operários e mais artesãos, mais empreendedores, mais gente apaixonada e envolvida.
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Julgo que o autor do artigo esquece esta vertente: a economia será diferente e vai precisar de pessoas e ambientes diferentes.

Acerca da motivação das pessoas

Seduzir, seduzir, seduzir, seduzir!!!

Gary Hamel no WSJ publicou no seu blog o postal "The Hole in the Soul of Business".

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Destaco os seguintes trechos:

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“Every organization is “values-driven.” The only question is, what values are in the driver’s seat?
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Sadly, though, this kind of dedication to big-hearted goals and high-minded ideals is all too rare in business. Nevertheless, I believe that long-lasting success, both personal and corporate, stems from an allegiance to the sublime and the majestic.
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Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist, held a similar view, which he expressed forcefully in “Man’s Search for Meaning:” “For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended consequence of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself . . ..” (Moi ici: É por isto mesmo que numa empresa não se pode perseguir o objectivo de ter lucro e ser rentável como o ponto de partida. Ter lucro e ser rentável, ser feliz, ter sucesso, ... são resultados, são consequências naturais de opções e acções tomadas a montante)

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Which brings me back to my worry. Given all this, why is the language of business so sterile, so uninspiring and so relentlessly banal? Is it because business is the province of engineers and economists rather than artists and theologians? Is it because the emphasis on rationality and pragmatism squashes idealism? I’m not sure. But I know this—customers, investors, taxpayers and policymakers believe there’s a hole in the soul of business. The only way for managers to change this fact, and regain the moral high ground, is to embrace what Socrates called the good, the just and the beautiful.”

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Cada vez mais este tema é uma constante... recordo o livro de Daniel Pink "A Whole New Mind"; o livro dos irmãos Heath "Made to Stick", o livro de Roger Martin "Design of Business".

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Subir na escala de valor, apostar na eficácia em detrimento da eficiência, ter relações amorosas com produtos ou clientes ou fornecedores, ter gente capaz de desenvolver projectos Uauuuuuuuu!

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Está tudo relacionado com uma nova etapa da nossa sociedade económica: a era da abundância!

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Na era da abundância não basta produzir. É preciso produzir aquilo que faz seduzir quem compra.

O lado direito do cérebro!

Por que é que a Skynet colocou Marcus Wright nas ruas? Para que um ciborgue com mente humana, pudesse fazer aquilo que nenhum máquina tinha conseguido até então.
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Como é que McGyver saía sempre das embrulhadas onde caía? Usando o lado direito do cérebro!!!
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Ainda ontem recordei as ideias de Pink.
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Pois bem cá vai algo que recebi num e-mail "The Pink Prescription: Facing Tomorrow's Challenges Calls for Right-brain Thinking"
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"Routine is a death sentence for the economy today," said Pink. "Any work that is routine is disappearing from not only this country but from any advanced economy."
Pink classified as routine any "work that can be reduced to a script, to a spreadsheet, to a formula, to a series of steps that has a right answer. If you can write down the steps and it has a right answer, that kind of work isn't valuable. That kind of work just races to wherever it can get done the cheapest."
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If routine work is not off-shored, much of it can be automated. Many Americans turned to cheap accountants in India to process last year's tax return, Pink pointed out. But a far greater number turned to software such as Turbo Tax.
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Finally, the increasing abundance of material goods has created another set of challenges that require big-picture, right-brain thinking.
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"In a world of abundance, in a world saturated with stuff... the economic premium is on giving people something new," Pink said. It is no longer enough to improve an existing product -- the real economic value lies in invention.
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"How many of you have an iPod?" Pink asked the audience, a majority of whom raised their hands. He continued: "How many of you knew eight years ago that you were missing an iPod?"
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His point: In a country where 98% of homes already have a color TV set, for example, coming up with a better color television is not an economic advance. "The real thing is to come up with hulu.com -- to deliver television in a way that nobody knew they were missing. These are big, bold, conceptual sorts of breakthroughs."
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The flip side of abundance is the collateral damage it creates -- such as the environmental impact of the 460,000 mobile phones thrown away in the U.S. every year, Pink added. Coping with such challenges will also require right-brained thinkers. "We need big, bold, inventive thinkers to address those problems, whether it's climate change, dependence on oil or wealth imbalance."
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Pink noted that many right-brain abilities -- such as design, storytelling, synthesis, empathy and pattern recognition -- are difficult to outsource, so people who are strong in these abilities could find their skills in demand.
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Even traditionally left-brain oriented professions are now demanding right-brain skills, Pink said. Companies seeking engineers say they want people with engineering skills who can innovate, communicate, thrive in a multicultural environment and work with a sense of passion, to name a few. "These are not the cognitive skills that you develop through multiple-choice tests. These are not routine things.
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"Doctors have to be able to ask the right questions," said Pink. "That calls for extraordinary observation skills -- the observation skills of a painter, of a sculptor. So, medical schools are taking students to art museums to make them better diagnosticians. And, lo and behold, doctors who receive this type of diagnostic training are better diagnosticians than those who haven't."
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Pink calls the results of these experiments "a great irony" for the educational system as a whole. "We want to prepare kids for science-oriented careers, so we cut out the arts. Meanwhile, people who are preparing for science-oriented careers are bringing in the arts.""
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Continua, com alguns truques que aprendi para aumentar a criatividade.

O mundo da abundância - Viva o lado lado direito do cérebro

Ontem, ao passar por esta loja, no piso zero do centro comercial Vasco da Gama.

Uma loja dedicada à venda de sabonetes: cores, cheiros, formas,... lembrei-me logo deste livro e desta passagem:

"Electric lighting was rare a century ago, but today it's commonplace. Lightbulbs are cheap. Electricity is ubiquitous. Candles? Who needs them? Apparently, lots of people. In the United States, candles are a $2.4-billion-a-year business"

Repararam bem??!!

"candles are a $2.4-billion-a-year business"