RSA Animate: Smile or Die

Interesting, provocative, and slightly contratrian talk by Barbara Ehrenreich

What Really Motivates Us

Dan Pink argues that money does NOT make people perform better. When people are financially driven, bad things happen -- people perform worse, they end up with inferior products and services, and they behave unethically.

Pink argues that people are truly motivated to perform by a sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Innovative ideas aren't generated by financial incentives; they are created when people are given the autonomy to work on their own ideas.

Ask vs. Guess Culture

In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it's OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.

In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you're pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won't even have to make the request directly; you'll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.

All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you're a Guess Culture person then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you're likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated.

If you're an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression.

I'm a Guess. Let me tell you, it's great for, say, reading nuanced and subtle novels; not so great for, say, dating and getting raises.

Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people -- ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you'll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you'll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at the Cluelessness of Everyone.

by Andrea Donderi from Ask Metafilter via The Guardian.