Facts and Meaning

Contributing Columnist, Computerworld |

I often hear complaints nigh how unmotivated technical groups can be, but managers sometimes seem to miss some of the most important opportunities to create an surround in which motivation tin can grow.

As best I can tell, this is deeply rooted in our backgrounds as engineers. Most IT managers outset out every bit technicians, and so we are steeped in the world of facts. We search for them. We dearest them. We live and die past them. They are our boulder. Simply we are and so enamored of the facts of our work that we sometimes forget to explicitly speak of its meaning. We assume either that the facts of our work are the pregnant or that the connectedness is then self-evident that we never need talk over it.

Just the pregnant of the work can exist one of the well-nigh important sources of motivation for a group.

For case, a few years ago, I attended a meeting and listened to a presentation from the CIO of UNICEF, the United nations Children'southward Fund. He was talking almost the work his staff was doing, setting up satellite-network nodes in countries effectually the world. His description of the facts of the group's work seemed rather grim. I imagined what it might exist similar to be function of his team.

The piece of work seemed pretty repetitive: setting up the aforementioned network equipment over and over once more. The pay was probably poor, since it was through the U.N. The travel sounded relentless: People were likely on the road for weeks or months at a time, and they weren't traveling to the garden spots of the world. In fact, many of these installations were being washed in state of war zones, so the piece of work might occasionally entail existence shot at.

The facts of this task seemed remarkably unappealing: poor pay, boring work, isolation from family unit, and dangerous weather. Why would anyone want to exercise it? Mayhap for every network node installed, 100,000 children have a chance to consume. If that'south the answer, it's worth it.

In this instance, the facts and the meaning of the work are completely different things. The facts seem similar excellent de-motivators, while the pregnant is extraordinarily compelling.

Of course, not every projection offers such rich opportunity to explore pregnant. If the goal of your project is to reduce inventory costs past one-8th of a pct signal, don't expect people to weep in ecstasy during the rollout. Sometimes y'all have to look for motivation elsewhere.

So, how practise you know if yous're thinking almost the facts or the meaning of your work? Here's one way to look at it:

Facts are simple points. They're cold and lifeless. They just lie on the folio and express some simple truth.

Significant requires a more narrative structure. There are characters — people who inhabit the narrative. In that location's activeness — things that happen to the characters, or could happen. In that location are settings — spaces where the activity happens. And in that location'due south transformation, internal and external. The heroes struggle, and the villains suffer.

In the narrative class, facts come alive and are woven into the story line. They support the larger structure and are thereby imbued with meaning. Hither, a project is no longer just a series of tasks lying expressionless on a Gantt nautical chart. Information technology's a heroic story with a theme and lessons.

And so adjacent fourth dimension y'all wonder why your group seems unmotivated, ask whether people have a sense of more than just the facts of their work. Ask what they think information technology means, and you may find that everyone has a different thought. But just having them think and talk about the meaning tin be a stride toward deeper motivation and appointment.

Paul Glen is the founder of the GeekLeaders.com Spider web community and author of the award-winning book Leading Geeks: How to Manage and Lead People Who Deliver Applied science (Jossey-Bass, 2003). Contact him at info@paulglen.com.

Paul Glen is the CEO of Leading Geeks, an teaching and consulting firm devoted to improving collaboration betwixt technical and nontechnical groups and people.

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