Highlights from My Conversation with Paul Herr, Author of Primal Management

Paul Herr, author of Primal Management and the very effective Horsepower Survey joined the show December 4 to talk about the science of engaged employees and specific steps to measure and improve it your organization. Paul offers a remarkably simple solution to engaging employees--align the workplace with human nature and thereby hit the high-productivity sweet-spot inherent within our psychological makeup. We talked about the five biologic appetites for things like food, oxygen and rest, and five social appetites that reward human beings with pleasure when we innovate, master skills, achieve group goals, work as part of a tightly bonded team, and protect ourselves from physical and psychological harm.

You can listen in streaming on-demand at this link.

Paul, thanks for being on our show. Where and what is your focus with your book, your horsepower survey and the field of employee motivation?

I have worked for thirty years coming up with the idea for my book. I have gotten off to a nice start with many accolades from a variety of groups and individuals. Over the summer I worked on the software tool called the Horsepower Survey to take the ideas in my book and make them available as a cool leadership tool to both improve leadership and monitor employee motivation. Now I am moving from research and development to sales and marketing mode.

This tool is immediately useful and very obvious and intuitive in its design and with Paul including tips on how to change the motivational horsepower in your organization, you can make immediate use from it right from the get-go.

In your brochure from the Horsepower Survey, you mention another Gallup poll that says 29% of employees care about the work and the rest are just going through the motion. What is the cost to our economy from a 29% motivation rate?

That figure comes from the Gallup Organization. They did a study of the 17% of employees that are actively disengaged from their companies. If you could change this to engaged employees, you would save the economy $1.3 trillion dollars in lost productivity. We are talking about motivation, productivity and business success. That 29% figure – if that was a college exam, what would that equate to? That is a solid “F.”

Now how did that happen? The world’s richest, most productive economy, at one time, become so inefficient at maximizing the return on our number one asset: each other?

There is no simple answer. We are a tribal species that has propelled ourselves into a modern world that has taken control of us. We just don’t quite fit into this world.

Part of it is just unavoidable that modernity and complexity has put us in a tight bind.

Another problem is that motivation is inherently difficult to think about. Nature didn’t want us to think about it.

Another part is that as corporations become larger they become less tribal and it is more difficult to create a human friendly environment.

Wall Street is another part of the problem. They look at human beings as numbers, not people. Wall Street has no clue and this is mentioned in the last chapter of my book.

You also share that 55% of managers in Fortune 500 Companies rate themselves as even some what in confident in motivating employees. Would you say that their self-assessment is accurate?

Motivation and leadership are tough. The fact that most managers don’t feel confident as leaders or motivators is simply expected. Most male managers would just stick their head in the sand. When you start talking about feelings, needs and emotions, most male managers would just roll their eyes and disconnect.

Maybe the problem is that a high percentage of managers are best described as narcissistic and maybe our country is obsessed with stars and the system of compensation. What do you think?

I think there is something to that. Our culture is competitive based. Win at all costs. We are always taught to compete. Employee engagement is different. It has to be the “WE” mentality.

What are the three most popular ways companies inspire only 29% of their employees to care about their work?

You mean how do companies screw up about motivating their employees? We can’t blame companies for this – it is just the complexities of modern civilization and emotions of motivation.

There are some specific things that companies do that stop or harm the motivational engine.

1. One would be having a hyper-rational stand offish attitude towards employees and looking at them as objects – not having true and authentic relationships with your workforce. That is the key problem.

2. Another one is lack of praise. There is an extreme lack of attaboys out there.

3. This whole hierarchical command structure doesn’t work well with human nature. All the glory goes to the people at the top and everyone else is left out.

16:19

Everybody needs to be involved.

The irony here is that manufacturers would never allow their machinery to operate at 29% efficiency. If I understand your dashboard, it can change all that. Tell us a little about it.

That is a great way to understand what I am up too.

We make sure our machines operate at full optimal capacity, but what do we do with our human capital? Absolutely nothing. We have sensors built into our brain – the output of those sensors are feelings of pleasure and pain.

The survey captures those signals and charts them –this is equivalent to the control charts that manufacturers use to assess the operating performance of the machine.

We can determine if humans are functioning at optimal capacity. This is the single most important parameter any company can measure and no one measures it. If you can get motivational horsepower to go up, then every single operational HR and financial metric will go up with it for the following reason.

Rewarding feelings drives behavior and behavior determines performance. Our employees need to feel rewarded at work. If they don’t, it reduces productivity.

One of the things I like about your Horsepower Survey is that the dashboard reports and tips are the intuitive obvious nature of the design...this is affordable and delivers immediate results. This is so important.

How did you take this knowledge in your book, neuroeconomic principles and social appetite and drill it down into a dashboard that is obvious, even at a glance?

I worked for 30 yrs to make motivation simple. It is bringing simplicity and clarity to a murky situation. I use a car metaphor because I look at motivations and feelings as the forces that move us. An engine analogy is appropriate. Basically there are five cylinders in the motivational engine. They are hot buttons that managers can press for high motivation from their employees. The survey is meant to be used as a stand alone tool without consulting and small businesses can afford it, although it is best to work with a consultant.

You write that the Horsepower survey is the first survey based upon neuroeconomic principle. What is a Neuroeconomic Principle and why should our listeners care?

Neuroeconomics is a burgeoning new field. The director of MIT said within 5 yrs, Neuroeconomic Principles will be what drives economy. It basically says that all forms of reward are based upon rewarding feelings. There is a common feeling based metric in the brain. Money is only motivating because of the feelings it creates in the brain. All reward is basically feeling based.

What are the three most important neuroeconomic principles for increasing an organization’s horsepower?

There are 5 motivational systems built into our brain. If you turn on these systems you get pleasure.

1. Innovation

2. Curiosity

3. Competent

4. Achieve goals

5. Recognition

What are the five social appetites?

Once nature chose to traverse the slippery slope of using feelings of pleasure and pain to regulate biologic needs like reproduction, energy conservation, and nutrition, there was no turning back.

Once one's behavior was rewarded in this way, then, logically, every other survival behavior needed to be similarly rewarded or human beings would have overindulged in the rewarding behaviors at the expense of the ones without rewards.

1. Innovation: enforced with curiosity and the eureka pleasure when we get an idea.

2. Skill mastery or competency: enforced with feelings of high and low self-esteem.

3. Skill deployment and goal attainment: enforced with the euphoria of a win, and the dysphoria (pain) of a loss

4. Cooperation: enforced by the warm feelings we experience when we are with the persons, places, and things that are important to us and painful feelings of alienation when we are excluded from the tribe

5. Self-protection: enforced with pleasant feelings when we achieve security and fearful and anxious feelings when our survival is at risk

35:31

Pleasure is a natural opiate of the brain. We have a system – we have an appetite. These cylinders are all related to our survival.

There are some recent reports out that scientists have found we are born with a DNA propensity to be altruistic. How do companies make use of this tendency?

There is a fun analogy to illustrate the two end points of how you can either work with the system or against it. Imagine a cup full of marbles representing employees. We flip it over quickly and we can trap the marbles against the cup. That is the situation of most companies. They hold people together with an artificial system of rules, regulations, fear of being fired and money. It is an artificial system because the people are not connected.

The second way is to again fill the cup with marbles, flip it over and create authentic relationships with the marbles with effective relationships into one super unit. They are all connected. Basically, I have suggested that companies use the technology that is in our brains...don’t build artificial controls.

Our friend, Erika Andersen, coined the term reasonable aspiration or hoped-for goal, in her book, Being Strategic. What is your reasonable aspiration or hoped for goal in writing the book and the survey?

I have known for a long time that our society is hyper-rational and doesn’t understand motivation at all. The business community disrespects what makes our engines go. I wanted to bring simplicity and clarity to the situation.

You use the term revolution to describe your book. How is the revolution going?

There are certain pockets where these ideas are accepted –consulting groups for one. There are some natural allies out there. Anyone working in employee engagement. The revolution is going quite well.

What are some of the obstacles you encounter with managers who have read your book and aren’t quite ready to embrace these principles in your book?

Oddly enough, I haven’t had any negative reviews. I wrote this book in a very logical way, like a mathematical proof, trying to appeal to logic and truth.

In our last show you shared with us a consulting “win” with your business. Can you share another one?

I had a great guy call me a couple of months ago. His name is Carlos and he runs a manufacturing company that makes packaging material in CA. He wished he had read my book 20 years ago. He had been a pilot and at that time had always thought it was about him. He realized now that this is not the way to go. He is a huge supporter.

In terms of financial success, I have a friend who is a CEO of a hospital. I gave him some suggestions. He is a great people person but wasn’t using his skills. He needed to get the hearts and minds of people working within the company. In 4 years he grew that company 10 fold once he modified his leadership and motivational engine.

Let’s imagine a manager with too many hats to wear and many challenges, but only has the time to focus on one NEP and one social appetite. Which one and why?

It is a simple solution. The cooperation appetite! Most companies are not a true social group – they are a pseudo group. You must create a true social group or you will have a disengaged workforce. You need authentic bonds and the best way to do that is to encourage a mentoring culture where people invest in one another. Managers can merge with their employees, from a psychological standpoint.

51:33

Same manager scenario, but which is the least important of these five?

They are all vital survival needs of our species. I guess there is no answer to that.

What are you plans for 2010?

In January I am giving a talk in Japan. I am basically looking for partners to help get the idea out there to assist every other leader and manager to use this dashboard. I am in expansion mode, sales and marketing and trying to get the word out.

Where can people follow you on the web?

* Primal Management

* Paul Herr Consulting

* Twitter: Paul Herr

Thanks, Paul.