Jeg vil i dag tale lidt om slid og arbejde. Når vi tænker på hvordan mennesker arbejder, har vi den naive intuition at mennesker er ligesom rotter i en labyrint -- at mennesker kun tænker på penge, og øjeblikket vi giver mennesker penge, kan vi dirigere dem på arbejde på den ene måde, vi kan dirigere dem på arbejde på en anden måde. Dette er grunden til at vi giver bonuser til bankier og betaler på alle mulige måder. Og vi har i virkeligheden dette utrolig simple syn på hvorfor mennesker arbejder og hvordan arbejdsmarkedet ser ud.
I want to talk a little bit today about labor and work. When we think about how people work, the naive intuition we have is that people are like rats in a maze -- that all people care about is money, and the moment we give them money, we can direct them to work one way, we can direct them to work another way. This is why we give bonuses to bankers and pay in all kinds of ways. And we really have this incredibly simplistic view of why people work, and what the labor market looks like.
Samtidig, hvis man tænker over det, er der mange mærkelige adfærd i verden omkring os. Tænk på noget som bjergbestigning og bjergklatring. Hvis man læser om mennesker der bestiger bjerge, svære bjerge, tror I så at de bøger er fulde af øjeblikke med lykke og glæde? Nej, de er fyldte med elendighed. Faktisk handler det om forfrysninger og gangbesvær og besvær med at trække vejret -- koldt, udfordrende omstændigheder. Og hvis folk bare prøvede at være lykkelige, det øjeblik de nåede toppen, ville de sige, "Dette var en forfærdelig fejltagelse. Det gør jeg aldrig igen." (Latter) "Lad mig i stedet sidde på en strand et eller andet sted og drikke mojitos." Men i stedet går folk ned, og efter de kommer sig, går de op igen. Og hvis man tager bjergbestigning som eksempel, tyder det på alle mulige ting. Det tyder på at vi bekymrer os om at nå destinationen, en top. Det tyder på at vi bemkymrer os om kampen, om udfordringen. Det tyder på at der er alle mulige andre ting der motiverer os til at arbejde eller opføre os på alle mulige måder.
At the same time, if you think about it, there's all kinds of strange behaviors in the world around us. Think about something like mountaineering and mountain climbing. If you read books of people who climb mountains, difficult mountains, do you think that those books are full of moments of joy and happiness? No, they are full of misery. In fact, it's all about frostbite and having difficulty walking, and difficulty breathing -- cold, challenging circumstances. And if people were just trying to be happy, the moment they would get to the top, they would say, "This was a terrible mistake. I'll never do it again." (Laughter) "Instead, let me sit on a beach somewhere drinking mojitos." But instead, people go down, and after they recover, they go up again. And if you think about mountain climbing as an example, it suggests all kinds of things. It suggests that we care about reaching the end, a peak. It suggests that we care about the fight, about the challenge. It suggests that there's all kinds of other things that motivate us to work or behave in all kinds of ways.
Og for mig personligt, begyndte jeg at tænke på dette efter en studerende kom for at besøge mig. Dette var en studerende der havde været en af mine studerende et par år forinden. Og en dag kom han tilbage på campus. Og han fortalte mig den følgende historie: Han sagde at han i mere end to uger havde arbejdet på en PowerPoint præsentation. Han arbejdede i en stor bank. Dette var som forberedelse for en fusionering og en overtagelse. Og han arbejdede meget hårdt på denne præsentation -- diagrammer, tabeller, information. Han arbejdede over hver aften. Og dagen inden det skulle være færdigt, sendte han sin PowerPoint præsentation til sin chef, og hans chef skrev tilbage til ham og sagde, "Fin præsentation, men fusionen er annuleret." Og fyren blev utrolig deprimeret. På det tidspunkt da han arbejdede, var han faktisk temmelig lykkelig. Hver nat nød han sit arbejde, han arbejdede over, han perfektionerede sin PowerPoint præsentation. Men at vide at ingen nogensinde kom til at se det gjorde ham temmelig deprimeret.
And for me personally, I started thinking about this after a student came to visit me. This was one of my students from a few years earlier, and he came one day back to campus. And he told me the following story: He said that for more than two weeks, he was working on a PowerPoint presentation. He was working in a big bank, and this was in preparation for a merger and acquisition. And he was working very hard on this presentation -- graphs, tables, information. He stayed late at night every day. And the day before it was due, he sent his PowerPoint presentation to his boss, and his boss wrote him back and said, "Nice presentation, but the merger is canceled." And the guy was deeply depressed. Now at the moment when he was working, he was actually quite happy. Every night he was enjoying his work, he was staying late, he was perfecting this PowerPoint presentation. But knowing that nobody would ever watch it made him quite depressed.
Jeg begyndte at tænke på hvordan vi eksperimenterer med denne ide om resultatet på vores lid. Og til at starte med skabte vi et lille eksperiment hvor vi gav mennesker Lego, og vi bad dem om at bygge med Lego. Og for nogle mennesker, gav vi dem Lego og vi sagde, "Hey, vil du bygge denne Bionicle for tre dollars? Vi betaler dig tre dollars for den." Og folk sagde ja, og de byggede med disse Legoer. Og når de blev færdige, tog vi det, vi satte det under bordet, og vi sagde, "Vil du bygge endnu en, denne gang for $2.70?" Hvis de sagde ja gav vi dem endnu en. Og når de var færdige, spurgte vi dem, "Vil du bygge endnu en?" for $2.40, $2.10 og så videre, indtil folk på et tidspunkt sagde, "Ikke mere. Det er det ikke værd for mig." Det var det vi kaldte den meningsfulde betingelse. Folk byggede den ene Bionicle efter den anden. Efter de blev færdige med hver eneste, satte vi dem under bordet. Og vi fortalte dem at vi i slutningen af eksperimentet, ville vi tage alle disse Bionicles, ville vi skille dem ad, putte dem tilbage i æsken, og vi bruger dem til den næste deltager.
So I started thinking about how do we experiment with this idea of the fruits of our labor. And to start with, we created a little experiment in which we gave people Legos, and we asked them to build with Legos. And for some people, we gave them Legos and we said, "Hey, would you like to build this Bionicle for three dollars? We'll pay you three dollars for it." And people said yes, and they built with these Legos. And when they finished, we took it, we put it under the table, and we said, "Would you like to build another one, this time for $2.70?" If they said yes, we gave them another one, and when they finished, we asked them, "Do you want to build another one?" for $2.40, $2.10, and so on, until at some point people said, "No more. It's not worth it for me." This was what we called the meaningful condition. People built one Bionicle after another. After they finished every one of them, we put them under the table. And we told them that at the end of the experiment, we will take all these Bionicles, we will disassemble them, we will put them back in the boxes, and we will use it for the next participant.
Der var en anden betingelse. Den anden betingelse var inspireret af David, min studerende. Og denne anden betingelse kaldte vi Sisyfos betingelsen. Og hvis man husker historien om Sisyfos, Sisyfos blev straffet af guderne til at skubbe den samme sten op af bakken, og når han næsten nåede slutningen, ville stenen rulle tilbage, og han skulle starte forfra. Og man kan se på dette som essensen af at lave forgæves arbejde. Man kan forestille sig at hvis han skubbede stenen op af forskellige bakker, ville han i det mindste have en følelse af fremskridt. Derudover, hvis man ser på film der foregår i fængslet, piner vagterne nogen gange de indsatte ved at få dem til at grave et hul og når den indsatte er færdig, beder de ham om at dække hullet til, og begynde at grave igen. Der er noget ved denne cykliske version af at gøre noget igen og igen og igen der lader til at være særlig demotiverende. Så i den anden betingelse for eksperimentet er det præcis hvad vi gjorde. Vi spurgte folk, "Kunne du tænkte dig at bygge en Bionicle for tre dollars?" Og hvis de sagde ja, byggede de den. Så spurgte vi dem, "Kunne du tænke dig at bygge endnu en for $2.70?" Og hvis de sagde ja, gav vi dem en ny en, og i takt med at de byggede den, skillede vi den ad som de lige havde færdiggjort. Og da de blev færdige med den, sagde vi, "Kunne du tænke dig at bygge endnu en, denne gang for 30 cent mindre?" Og hvis de sagde ja, gav vi dem den de lige havde bygget og som vi skilte ad. Så dette var en endeløs cyklus af at de byggede og vi skilte det ad foran deres øjne.
There was another condition. This other condition was inspired by David, my student. And this other condition we called the Sisyphic condition. And if you remember the story about Sisyphus, Sisyphus was punished by the gods to push the same rock up a hill, and when he almost got to the end, the rock would roll over, and he would have to start again. And you can think about this as the essence of doing futile work. You can imagine that if he pushed the rock on different hills, at least he would have some sense of progress. Also, if you look at prison movies, sometimes the way that the guards torture the prisoners is to get them to dig a hole, and when the prisoner is finished, they ask him to fill the hole back up and then dig again. There's something about this cyclical version of doing something over and over and over that seems to be particularly demotivating. So in the second condition of this experiment, that's exactly what we did. We asked people, "Would you like to build one Bionicle for three dollars?" And if they said yes, they built it. Then we asked them, "Do you want to build another one for $2.70?" And if they said yes, we gave them a new one, and as they were building it, we took apart the one that they just finished. And when they finished that, we said, "Would you like to build another one, this time for 30 cents less?" And if they said yes, we gave them the one that they built and we broke. So this was an endless cycle of them building, and us destroying in front of their eyes.
Hvad sker der hvis man sammenligner disse to betingelser? Det første der skete var at folk byggede mange flere Bionicles -- de byggede 11 mod 7 -- i den meningsfyldte betingelse imod Sisyfos betingelsen. Og for øvrigt, bør vi nævne at dette ikke var af stor betydning. Folk kurerede ikke kræft eller byggede broer. Folk byggede Bionicles for et par cent. Og ikke nok med det, alle vidste at de Bionicles blev skilt ad temmelig hurtigt derefter. Så der var ikke rigtig en mulighed for stor betydning. Men selv den lille mening gjorde en forskel.
Now what happens when you compare these two conditions? The first thing that happened was that people built many more Bionicles -- eleven in the meaningful condition, versus seven in the Sisyphus condition. And by the way, we should point out that this was not big meaning. People were not curing cancer or building bridges. People were building Bionicles for a few cents. And not only that, everybody knew that the Bionicles would be destroyed quite soon. So there was not a real opportunity for big meaning. But even the small meaning made a difference.
Nu havde vi en anden version af dette eksperiment. I denne anden version af eksperimentet, vi satte ikke folk i denne situation, vi beskrev bare situationen for dem, ligesom jeg beskriver den for jer nu, og vi bad dem om at forudisge hvad resultatet ville være. Hvad skete der? Folk forudså den rigtige retning, men ikke den rigtige størrelsesorden. Folk der kun blev givet beskrivelsen af eksperimentet sagde at folk i den meningsfyldte betingelse sikkert ville bygge en Bionicle mere. Så folk forstår at mening er vigtigt, de forstår bare ikke størrelsesordenen af vigtigheden, i hvor stor grad det er vigtigt.
Now we had another version of this experiment. In this other version of the experiment, we didn't put people in this situation, we just described to them the situation, much as I am describing to you now, and we asked them to predict what the result would be. What happened? People predicted the right direction but not the right magnitude. People who were just given the description of the experiment said that in the meaningful condition, people would probably build one more Bionicle. So people understand that meaning is important, they just don't understand the magnitude of the importance, the extent to which it's important.
Der var et andet stykke data vi kiggede efter. Hvis man tænker over det, er der nogle mennesker der kan elsker Lego, og nogle der ikke gør. Og man kunne spekulere at de mennesker der elsker Lego vil bygge mere Lego, selv for færre penge, fordi de får trods alt mere indvendig glæde af det. Og de mennesker der holder mindre af Lego vil bygge mindre Lego fordi glæden de får af det er lavere. Og det er faktisk det vi fandt ud af i den meningsfyldte betingelse. Der var en meget fin korrelation mellem kærlighed til Lego og den mængde Lego som folk byggede. Hvad skete der under Sisyfos betingelsen? I den betingelse var korrelationen nul. Der var ikke noget forhold mellem kærligheden til Lego og hvor meget folk byggede, hvilket viser mig at man med denne manipulation med at skille ting ad foran folk øjne, dybest set smadrede enhver glæde som de kunne få ud af denne aktivitet. Vi eliminerede det dybest set.
There was one other piece of data we looked at. If you think about it, there are some people who love Legos, and some people who don't. And you would speculate that the people who love Legos would build more Legos, even for less money, because after all, they get more internal joy from it. And the people who love Legos less would build less Legos because the enjoyment that they derive from it is lower. And that's actually what we found in the meaningful condition. There was a very nice correlation between the love of Legos and the amount of Legos people built. What happened in the Sisyphic condition? In that condition, the correlation was zero -- there was no relationship between the love of Legos, and how much people built, which suggests to me that with this manipulation of breaking things in front of people's eyes, we basically crushed any joy that they could get out of this activity. We basically eliminated it.
Kort efter jeg stoppede med at udføre dette eksperiment, tog jeg ud og talte med et stort software selskab i Seattle. Jeg kan ikke fortælle jer hvem det var, men det var et stort firma i Seattle. Og dette var en gruppe indenfor software firmaet der blev placeret i en anden bygning. Og de bad dem om at innovere og skabe det næste store produkt for dette firma. Og ugen inden jeg kom, gik den administrerende direktør for dette store selskab hen til den gruppe, 200 ingeniører, og afblæste projektet. Og jeg stod der foran 200 af de mest deprimerede mennesker jeg nogensinde har talt med. Og jeg beskrev nogle af disse Lego eksperimenter for dem, og de sagde at de alle følte det som om de lige var gået igennem det eksperiment. Og jeg spurgte dem, jeg sagde, "Hvor mange af jer kommer nu senere på arbejde end I plejede?" Og alle rakte hånden op. Jeg sagde, "Hvor mange af jer tager hjem tidligere end I plejede?" Og alle rakte hånden op. Jeg spurgte dem, "Hvor mange af jer tilføjer ikke-helt-i-orden ting til jeres udgifts bilag?" Og de rakte ikke hånden op, men de tog mig med ud og spise, og de viste mig hvad de kunne gøre med udgiftsbilag. Og jeg spurgte dem, jeg sagde, "Hvad kunne den administrerende direktør have gjort, for at gøre jer knap så deprimerede?" Og de kom med alle mulige ideer. De sagde at den administrerende direktør kunne have bedt dem om at fremlægge hele deres rejse i løbet af de sidste to år for firmaet, og hvad de besluttede at gøre. Han kunne have bedt dem om at tænke på hvilket del af deres teknologi kunne passe i andre dele af organisationen. Han kunne have bedt dem om at bygge nogle prototyper, nogle næste generations prototyper, og se hvordan de fungerede. Men det der er ved det er, at enhver af de muligheder kræver nogen indsats og motivation. Og jeg tror den administrerende direktør dybest set ikke forstod betydningen af mening. Hvis den administrerende direktør, ligesom vores deltagere, mente at essensen af mening er ubetydelig, så ville han være ligeglad. Og han sagde til dem, "På det tidspunkt dirigerede jeg jer denne vej, og nu dirigerer jeg jer denne vej, det skal nok gå det hele. Men hvis man forstår hvor vigtigt mening er, så ville man se at det faktisk er vigtigt at bruge noget tid, energi og umage på at få folk til at bekymre sig mere om hvad de laver.
Soon after I finished running this experiment, I went to talk to a big software company in Seattle. I can't tell you who they were, but they were a big company in Seattle. This was a group within the software company that was put in a different building, and they asked them to innovate, and create the next big product for this company. And the week before I showed up, the CEO of this big software company went to that group, 200 engineers, and canceled the project. And I stood there in front of 200 of the most depressed people I've ever talked to. And I described to them some of these Lego experiments, and they said they felt like they had just been through that experiment. And I asked them, I said, "How many of you now show up to work later than you used to?" And everybody raised their hand. I said, "How many of you now go home earlier than you used to?" Everybody raised their hand. I asked them, "How many of you now add not-so-kosher things to your expense reports?" And they didn't raise their hands, but they took me out to dinner and showed me what they could do with expense reports. And then I asked them, I said, "What could the CEO have done to make you not as depressed?" And they came up with all kinds of ideas. They said the CEO could have asked them to present to the whole company about their journey over the last two years and what they decided to do. He could have asked them to think about which aspect of their technology could fit with other parts of the organization. He could have asked them to build some next-generation prototypes, and see how they would work. But the thing is that any one of those would require some effort and motivation. And I think the CEO basically did not understand the importance of meaning. If the CEO, just like our participants, thought the essence of meaning is unimportant, then he [wouldn't] care. And he would say, "At the moment I directed you in this way, and now that I'm directing you in this way, everything will be okay." But if you understood how important meaning is, then you would figure out that it's actually important to spend some time, energy and effort in getting people to care more about what they're doing.
Den næste eksperiment var lidt anderledes. Vi tog et ark papir med tilfældige bogstaver, og vi bad folk om at finde bogstav par der var identiske ved siden af hinanden. Det ar opgaven. Og folk lavede det første ark. Og så spurgte vi dem om de kunne lave det næste ark for lidt færre penge, og den næste for lidt færre penge, og så videre og så videre. Og vi havde tre betingelser. I den første betingelse, skrev folk deres navn på et ark, fandt alle bogstav parrene, gav det til undersøgeren. Undersøgeren kiggede på det, skannede det ovenfra og ned, sagde "uh huh" og lagde det i stakken ved siden af sig. I det andet forhold, skrev folk ikke deres navn på det. Undersøgeren kiggede på det, tog endnu et ark papir, kiggede ikke på det, skannede det ikke, og lagde det bare i stakken af sider. Så man tager et stykke, man lægger det bare til side. Og i det tredje forhold, fik undersøgeren papirarket og puttede det direkte i en makulatur.
The next experiment was slightly different. We took a sheet of paper with random letters, and we asked people to find pairs of letters that were identical next to each other. That was the task. People did the first sheet, then we asked if they wanted to do another for a little less money, the next sheet for a little bit less, and so on and so forth. And we had three conditions. In the first condition, people wrote their name on the sheet, found all the pairs of letters, gave it to the experimenter, the experimenter would look at it, scan it from top to bottom, say "Uh huh," and put it on the pile next to them. In the second condition, people did not write their name on it. The experimenter looked at it, took the sheet of paper, did not look at it, did not scan it, and simply put it on the pile of pages. So you take a piece, you just put it on the side. In the third condition, the experimenter got the sheet of paper, and put it directly into a shredder.
Hvad skete der med de tre forhold?
(Laughter) What happened in those three conditions?
I dette diagram viser jeg jer ved hvilken betaling folk stoppede. Lave tal betyder at folk arbejdede hårdere. De arbejdede meget længere. I det anerkendende forhold, arbejdede folk helt ned til 15 cent. Ved 15 cent per side, stoppede de dybest set med deres anstrengelser. I makulatur forholdet, var det dobbelt så meget -- 30 cent per side. Og det er dybest set det resultat vi havde før. Man makulerer folks anstrengelser, resultater, man får dem til at blive mindre glade med det de laver. Men jeg bør pointere, for øvrigt, at i makulatur forholdet, kunne folk have snydt. De kunne have lavet et mindre godt stykke arbejde, fordi de blev klar over at folk bare makulerede det. Så måske gør man et godt stykke arbejde med det første ark, men så ser man at der ikke er nogen der retter det, så man kan lave, flere og flere og flere. Faktisk, i makulatur forholdet, kunne folk have afleveret mere arbejde og fået flere penge og gjort sig mindre umagen. Men hvad med det ignorerende forhold? Ville det ignorerende forhold være mere ligesom det anerkendende eller mere ligesom med makulaturen, eller et sted midt i mellem? Det viser sig, at det var næsten magen til makulaturen.
In this plot I'm showing you at what pay rate people stopped. So low numbers mean that people worked harder. They worked for much longer. In the acknowledged condition, people worked all the way down to 15 cents. At 15 cents per page, they basically stopped these efforts. In the shredder condition, it was twice as much -- 30 cents per sheet. And this is basically the result we had before. You shred people's efforts, output -- you get them not to be as happy with what they're doing. But I should point out, by the way, that in the shredder condition, people could have cheated. They could have done not so good work, because they realized people were just shredding it. So maybe the first sheet you'd do good work, but then you see nobody is really testing it, so you would do more and more and more. So in fact, in the shredder condition, people could have submitted more work and gotten more money, and put less effort into it. But what about the ignored condition? Would the ignored condition be more like the acknowledged or more like the shredder, or somewhere in the middle? It turns out it was almost like the shredder.
Nu er der godt nyt og der er dårligt nyt. Den dårlige nyhed er, at ignorere andre folks præstation er næsten lige så slemt som at makulere deres indsats for deres øjnene. At ignorere får en næsten helt derud. Den gode nyhed er, at ved bare at kigge på noget som nogen har lavet, skimme det og sige "uh huh," det lader til at være ganske tilstrækkeligt til dramatisk at forbedre folks motivationer. Så den gode nyhed er at det ser ud til det ikke er svært at give motivation. Den dårlige nyhed er, at eliminere motivationer ser ud til at være utrolig nemt, og hvis vi ikke tænker forsigtigt over det, overdriver vi det måske. Dette er alt sammen med hensyn til de negative motivationer eller at eliminere de negative motivationer.
Now there's good news and bad news here. The bad news is that ignoring the performance of people is almost as bad as shredding their effort in front of their eyes. Ignoring gets you a whole way out there. The good news is that by simply looking at something that somebody has done, scanning it and saying "Uh huh," that seems to be quite sufficient to dramatically improve people's motivations. So the good news is that adding motivation doesn't seem to be so difficult. The bad news is that eliminating motivations seems to be incredibly easy, and if we don't think about it carefully, we might overdo it. So this is all in terms of negative motivation, or eliminating negative motivation.
Den næste del jeg vil vise jer er noget om de positive motivationer. Her er der en forretning i USA der hedder IKEA. Og IKEA er en forretning med møbler der er okay, som er svære at samle. (Latter) Og jeg ved ikke med jer, men hver gang jeg samler en af dem, tager det meget længere tid, det kræver langt flere anstrengelser, det er meget mere forvirrende. Jeg samler det på den forkerte måde. Jeg kan ikke sige at jeg nyder delene. Jeg kan ikke sige at jeg nyder processen. Men når jeg færdiggør det, er det som om jeg bedre kan lide de IKEA møbler end nogen af de andre.
The next part I want to show you is something about positive motivation. So there is a store in the U.S. called IKEA. And IKEA is a store with kind of okay furniture that takes a long time to assemble. (Laughter) I don't know about you, but every time I assemble one of those, it takes me much longer, it's much more effortful, it's much more confusing, I put things in the wrong way -- I can't say I enjoy those pieces. I can't say I enjoy the process. But when I finish it, I seem to like those IKEA pieces of furniture more than I like other ones.
Og der er en gammel historie om miksere.
(Laughter)
Da de begyndte at lave bland-selv kagemix tilbage i 40'erne, tog de dette pulver og de puttede det i en æske, og de bad husfruer dybest set om at hælde det i, tilsætte noget vand, blande det, sætte det i ovnen, og -- viola! -- man havde kage. Men det viser sig at de var meget upopulære. Folk ville ikke have det. Og de tænkte på alle mulige årsager til det. Måske var smagen ikke god. Nej, smagen var fantastisk. Det de fandt frem til var, at der ikke krævede en stor nok indsats. Det var så nemt at inden kunne servere kagen for deres gæster og sige, "Her er min kage." Nej, nej, nej, det var en andens kage. Det var som om man havde købt den i supermarkedet. Det føltes ikke som ens egen. Hvad gjorde de så? De tog æg og mælk ud af pulveret. (Latter) Nu skulle man slå æggene ud og tilføje dem. Man skulle afmåle mælk og tilføje det og blande det. Nu var det ens egen kage. Nu var det hele fint.
And there's an old story about cake mixes. So when they started cake mixes in the '40s, they would take this powder and they would put it in a box, and they would ask housewives to basically pour it in, stir some water in it, mix it, put it in the oven, and -- voila -- you had cake. But it turns out they were very unpopular. People did not want them, and they thought about all kinds of reasons for that. Maybe the taste was not good? No, the taste was great. What they figured out was that there was not enough effort involved. It was so easy that nobody could serve cake to their guests and say, "Here is my cake." No, it was somebody else's cake, as if you bought it in the store. It didn't really feel like your own. So what did they do? They took the eggs and the milk out of the powder. (Laughter) Now you had to break the eggs and add them, you had to measure the milk and add it, mixing it. Now it was your cake. Now everything was fine.
(Bifald)
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Nu tror jeg det er lidt ligesom IKEA effekten, ved at få folk til at arbejde hårdere, fik de dem faktisk til at elske det de lavede i højere grad.
Now, I think a little bit like the IKEA effect, by getting people to work harder, they actually got them to love what they're doing
Så hvordan ser vi på dette spørgsmål eksperimentelt?
to a higher degree.
Vi bad folk om at bygge noget origami. Vi gav dem instruktioner på hvordan de skulle skabe origami, og vi gav dem et ark papir. Og dette var alle nybegyndere, og de byggede noget der faktisk var temmelig grimt -- ikke noget som en frø eller en trane. Men så fortalte vi dem, vi sagde, "Se, denne origami er faktisk vores. Du arbejdede for os, men hør engang, vi vil sælge den til dig. Hvor meget vil du betale for den?" Og vi målte hvor meget de var villige til at betale for det. Og vi havde to typer mennesker. Vi havde menneskene der byggede den, og vi havde de mennesker der ikke byggede den og bare kiggede på det udefra som observatører. Og det vi fandt ud af var at dem der byggede det mente at dette var smukke origami stykker, og de var villige til at betale fem gange mere for dem end de mennesker der bare bedømte dem udefra. Man kunne sige, at hvis man var bygger, tænker man at, "Åh, jeg elsker dette origami, men jeg ved at ingen andre ville holde af det?" Eller tænker man, "Jeg elsker dette origami, og alle andre vil også elske det?" Hvilken af de to er korrekte? Det viser sig at byggerne ikke kun elskede origamien mere, de mente også at alle ville se verden ud fra deres synspunkt. De mente at alle andre også ville holde mere af det.
So how do we look at this question experimentally? We asked people to build some origami. We gave them instructions on how to create origami, and we gave them a sheet of paper. And these were all novices, and they built something that was really quite ugly -- nothing like a frog or a crane. But then we told them, "Look, this origami really belongs to us. You worked for us, but I'll tell you what, we'll sell it to you. How much do you want to pay for it?" And we measured how much they were willing to pay for it. And we had two types of people: We had the people who built it, and the people who did not build it, and just looked at it as external observers. And what we found was that the builders thought that these were beautiful pieces of origami -- (Laughter) and they were willing to pay five times more for them than the people who just evaluated them externally. Now you could say -- if you were a builder, do you think [you'd say], "Oh, I love this origami, but I know that nobody else would love it?" Or "I love this origami, and everybody else will love it as well?" Which one of those two is correct? Turns out the builders not only loved the origami more, they thought that everybody would see the world in their view. They thought everybody else would love it more as well.
I den næste version prøvede vi at skabe IKEA effekten. Vi prøvede at gøre det sværere. For nogle mennesker gav vi dem den samme opgave. For nogle mennesker gjorde vi det sværere ved at gemme instruktionerne. I toppen af arket, havde vi et lille diagram over hvordan man folder origamien. Hos nogle mennesker fjernede vi det bare. Så nu blev det sværere. Hvad skete der? Jamen objektivt set, blev origamien nu grimmere, det var sværere. Da vi nu kiggede på den nemme origami, så vi den samme ting: Byggere der elskede det mere, evaulatorer der elskede det mindre. Når man så på de svære instruktioner, var effekten større. Hvorfor? Fordi nu elskede byggerne det endnu mere. De gjorde sig ekstra umage med det.
In the next version, we tried to do the IKEA effect. We tried to make it more difficult. So for some people, we gave the same task. For some people, we made it harder by hiding the instructions. At the top of the sheet, we had little diagrams of how you fold origami. For some people, we just eliminated that. So now this was tougher. What happened? Well in an objective way, the origami now was uglier, it was more difficult. Now when we looked at the easy origami, we saw the same thing -- builders loved it more, evaluators loved it less. When you looked at the hard instructions, the effect was larger. Why? Because now the builders loved it even more. (Laughter)
Og dem der evaluerede? De elskede det endnu mindre. Fordi det i virkeligheden var endnu grimmere end den første version. Selvfølgelig fortæller dette en noget om hvordan vi evaluerer ting.
They put all this extra effort into it. And evaluators? They loved it even less. Because in reality, it was even uglier than the first version. (Laughter)
Of course, this tells you something about how we evaluate things.
Tænk på børn. Forestil at jeg spurgte jer, "Hvor meget vil du sælge dine børn for?" Ens minder og ens associationer og så videre. De fleste mennesker ville sige for mange, mange penge -- på gode dage.
Now think about kids. Imagine I asked you, "How much would you sell your kids for?" Your memories and associations and so on. Most people would say for a lot, a lot of money. (Laughter)
(Latter) Men forestil jer at dette var lidt anderledes. Forestil jer at I ikke havde jeres børn, og en dag gik man ned i parken og man mødte nogle børn, og de var ligesom ens egne børn. Og man legede med dem i et par timer. Og da man skulle til at gå, sagde forældrene, "Hey, forresten, lige inden du går, hvis du er interesseret, så er de til salg." (Latter) Hvor meget ville man betale for dem nu? De fleste mennesker ville nok sige ikke så meget. Og dette er fordi vores børn er så værdifulde, ikke kun på grund af dem de er, men på grund af os, fordi de er så forbundet med os og på grund af tiden og forbindelsen. Og for resten, hvis man mener at IKEA brugsvejledningen ikke er god, så tænk på brugsvejledningen der følger med børn. Den er virkelig svær. (Latter) For øvrigt, så er dette mine børn, som, selvfølgelig, er vidunderlige og så videre. Hvilket fortæller en endnu en ting, som er, ligesom byggerne, når de ser på deres egen skabelse, ser vi ikke at andre mennesker ikke ser det på vores måde.
On good days. (Laughter) But imagine this was slightly different. Imagine if you did not have your kids. And one day you went to the park and you met some kids. They were just like your kids, and you played with them for a few hours, and when you were about to leave, the parents said, "Hey, by the way, just before you leave, if you're interested, they're for sale." (Laughter) How much would you pay for them now? Most people say not that much. And this is because our kids are so valuable, not just because of who they are, but because of us, because they are so connected to us, and because of the time and connection. By the way, if you think IKEA instructions are not good, what about the instructions that come with kids, those are really tough. (Laughter) By the way, these are my kids, which, of course, are wonderful and so on. Which comes to tell you one more thing, which is, much like our builders, when they look at the creature of their creation, we don't see that other people don't see things our way.
Lad mig give en sidste kommentar. Hvis man tænker på Adam Smith versus Karl Marx, havde Adam Smith en meget vigtig ide om effektivitet. Han gav et eksempel på en nåle fabrik. Han sagde at nåle har 12 forskellige trin, og hvis en person laver alle 12 trin, er produktionen meget lav. Men hvis man får en person til at lave trin et og en person til at lave trin to og trin tre og så videre, kan produktionen stige enormt. Og bestemt, dette er et fantastisk eksempel og grunden til den industrielle revolution og effektivitet. Karl Marx, på den anden side, sagde at fremmedgørelsen af arbejde er utrolig vigtig i hvordan mennesker tænker på deres forbindelse med det de gør. Og hvis man laver alle 12 trin, bekymrer man sig om nålen. Men hvis man laver et skridt hver gang, bekymrer man sig måske ikke lige så meget.
Let me say one last comment. If you think about Adam Smith versus Karl Marx, Adam Smith had a very important notion of efficiency. He gave an example of a pin factory. He said pins have 12 different steps, and if one person does all 12 steps, production is very low. But if you get one person to do step one, and one person to do step two and step three and so on, production can increase tremendously. And indeed, this is a great example, and the reason for the Industrial Revolution and efficiency. Karl Marx, on the other hand, said that the alienation of labor is incredibly important in how people think about the connection to what they are doing. And if you do all 12 steps, you care about the pin. But if you do one step every time, maybe you don't care as much.
Og jeg mener at i den industrielle revolution, havde Adam Smith mere ret end Karl Marx, men virkeligheden er at vi er skiftet og nu lever vi i en videns økonomi. Og man kan spørge sig selv, hvad sker der i en videns økonomi? Er effektivitet stadig mere vigtig end mening? Jeg mener svaret er nej. Jeg mener, at i takt med at vi flytter til situationer hvor mennesker selv skal beslutte om hvor meget umage, opmærksomhed, omsorg, hvor forbundet de føler sig med det, tænker de på arbejdet på vej på arbejde og i brusebadet og så videre, og pludselig har Marx flere ting at fortælle os. Når vi tænker på arbejde, tænker vi typisk på motivation og betaling som den samme ting, men virkeligheden er at vi nok burde tilføje alle mulige ting til det -- mening, skabelse, udfordringer, ejeskab, identitet, stolthed, osv. Og den gode nyhed er at hvis vi tilføjede alle de komponenter og tænkte over dem, hvordan vi skaber vores egen mening, stolthed, motivation, og hvordan vi gør det på arbejdspladsen og for de ansatte, mener jeg vi kunne få folk til at være både mere produktive og mere glade.
I think that in the Industrial Revolution, Adam Smith was more correct than Karl Marx. But the reality is that we've switched, and now we're in the knowledge economy. You can ask yourself, what happens in a knowledge economy? Is efficiency still more important than meaning? I think the answer is no. I think that as we move to situations in which people have to decide on their own about how much effort, attention, caring, how connected they feel to it, are they thinking about labor on the way to work, and in the shower and so on, all of a sudden Marx has more things to say to us. So when we think about labor, we usually think about motivation and payment as the same thing, but the reality is that we should probably add all kinds of things to it -- meaning, creation, challenges, ownership, identity, pride, etc. The good news is that if we added all of those components and thought about them -- how do we create our own meaning, pride, motivation, and how do we do it in our workplace, and for the employees --
Mange tak.
I think we could get people to be both more productive and happier.
Thank you very much.
(Bifald)
(Applause)