Freedom, Inc_ - Brian M. Carney [67]
Rising in the famous rotunda in the presence of the current and former U.S. presidents James Madison and James Monroe, and facing the “drunken fourteen,” Jefferson began by declaring that what had happened was one of the most painful events of his life. But then, overcome with emotion and with tears in his eyes, he couldn’t continue and had to sit down. The others took over, the meeting proceeded, and the “rioting fourteen” were expelled, including Jefferson’s relative.
On Jefferson’s recommendation, strict regulations were adopted: Every student must rise at dawn, stay in his room after 9 p.m., wear a uniform, and deposit his funds with the proctor, who would provide small sums. Gambling, smoking, and drinking were prohibited. So much for freedom and self-government.
This is the kind of story that haunts liberating leaders. Here are people finally treated as equals, but instead of assuming the freedom and responsibility that goes with it, they revolt.6 The self-governed freedom the leader envisioned turns into anarchy, and he who wanted to make no more decisions is called back to assume the role of the authoritarian, which he loathes. If even Thomas Jefferson could not succeed in building a freedom-based organization, is it possible that the whole idea is utopian?
Yet Gore, Zobrist, Koski, Teerlink, Westphal, and Davids launched their liberation campaigns without plunging their organizations into anarchy. Their visions were dubbed as utopian by some, too—but they succeeded. All of them did more than simply build an environment that treated people as intrinsically equal. They went further and built an environment in which people became motivated to assume freedom and responsibility; in fact, they became self-motivated. We will return to UVA to find out what went wrong for Jefferson there. But first, let’s look at what exactly our successful liberating leaders did to get people to take part in their liberation campaigns instead of revolting or resisting them.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO MOTIVATE PEOPLE?
Since at least 1943, when Abraham Maslow published a famous article on human needs and motivation, psychologists have been engaged in a passionate debate over this question. But in the business world, most companies have considered it settled for decades. Motivating people, they say, is not hard once a company finds the right mix of tangible rewards to align people’s material interests with the company’s goals. The problem is, the more closely psychologists look at the motivation—or engagement—levels of people in organizations, the less tangible rewards seem to matter. Instead, it’s the things people do themselves that matter most.
Consider the following “natural experiment.” A psychologist found himself disturbed by a group of kids that one day had come to play football under his window, making a lot of noise. So he went out and said, “You guys are really great. I enjoy watching you so much that every time you come to play here I will give you one dollar each.” And he gave a dollar to each kid. The next day, when the kids were again enthusiastically playing football, he came out and said, “I really enjoy watching you but the thing is that I have no bills, just coins today. I can give you two quarters each.” The kids were not delighted with this pay cut, but took the money and continued to play. The story continues until after two days, the psychologist offered them just a penny each, which one of them proudly refused and said, “We are not going to play here for a damn penny.” And the kids never came back, much to the satisfaction of the psychologist.
Many psychologists think that this story is apocryphal, but it continues to circulate because it reflects what they know from hundreds of real experiments: If you take people who are deeply engaged in something because they enjoy it and you offer them tangible rewards for doing it, a shift happens. Mentally, people establish a causal link between these rewards and the activity—something