RSA Animate - Drive

HI all, I am a high school teacher and would like to use this video with my class but I need the graphic printout of what was said so I can post it in my classroom and refer to it when needed. If you can please help me find this graphic as a pdf or in some other format. I would be happy to share their reactions to the video.

Cheers,
Michael Lewis

All of the companies mentioned in this video are SOFTWARE companies. The nature of work at a software company is much different than at say, a bakery. So I'm a bit skeptical that this kind of thinking translates to other workplaces.

Plus, a lot of software is overrated nonsense anyway.

Oh great, studies from psychologists, sociologists, and economists. Without knowing, in detail, their methodology, I have zero reason to believe what any of them have to say. The track records for these "sciences" is spotty at best. Famous example #1The Stanford Prison Experiment by Zimbardo and some other guy - flawed because the ad to attract subjects read something like "Paricipate in a Psychological Prison Experiment." The key word here is "prison." This is going to attract a certain type of person and not the general public. Famous example #2 The Milgram Experiment on obeying authority. Well, we live in a society that (generally) does not torture people so why would the test subjects believe they were actually causing the person pain? Famous example #3 Fuck it, just look at the state of the world economy right now.

Lots and lots and lots and lots of bad science has been conducted and used as the basis for more experiments and, to me, the conclusions drawn are completely unreliable. I'm sure there are blogs dedicated to this but I'm too lazy to search for any of them.

Another pet peeve. Any study conducted in which the placebo is a sugar pill. Sugar is not a placebo; it is not inert. Sugar has numerous and pronounced effects on the body.

While I appreciate the effort that went into this, without a detailed explanation of how these experiments were conducted, you should take it with a huge grain of salt. Might want to visit the Dead Sea for sufficient supplies.

Who was the artist?

Hi - I have mixed emotions about this video. While, on the one hand I agree that people want to be autonomous and want to be part of something larger having a sense of purpose. Sometimes previous experience holds them back from pursuing larger ideas. It is very hard to break someone out of a conundrum and being in a conundrum holds back more than just a single person. In some cases it holds back an entire team.

I am a software architect and development manager with over 35 years of experience. I thrive on big ideas and doing things that have never been done before and would definitely do it for free. However, conveying ideas and getting people to look up from their current rut, is sometimes a monumental task.

Another thing I take a little bit of an issue with is the fact that, while many people love doing certain things, they hate doing others. The bad thing is that those "other" things are as important to the process as the things folks love to do.

Here is an example, I love to plant perennials in my garden but I hate to weed. I would plant flowers all day long for free but would prefer to receive a million dollars for weeding. Software development is much the same way. A team of individuals, each with a set of skills and experience all of whom are top notch in their particular area but only some will look up from the rut of their past experience to move on to something larger than they themselves can get their arms around. Further, someone has to manage the source code, build tests, follow standards, check things in and out, document what they have done. All of the un-fun things around the development process.

Here is the real coup de gras. Each one has their own idea of what autonomous means and by simply allowing autonomous development to occur you wind up with pieces that are like ships passing in the night. When you ask them to follow standards and talk to their co-workers about that they need it seems to them that they are not longer autonomous.

Thirty-five years of seeing this phenomenon over and over would cause me to be inclined to ultimately disagree with the notion that autonomy will make people more productive.

Here’s what will make a individuals more productive. Grabbing onto an idea that is so much bigger than any individual that everyone involved knows they must depend upon and draw from all of the other team members to accomplish the task!

But realistically, most people simply to the minimum required to get by! Incentive, one way or the other makes little difference.