Page 171 - The Resilient Organization

158 Part Four: Step 3. Rehearsing a Culture of Resilience

WHY INDEPENDENCE MATTERS 1

Most companies don’t encourage their employees to pursue innovation.
Despite the belief that we toil in an age when “knowledge workers” are key
to the success of institutions, few companies grant their workforces the
independence that their capabilities would seem to merit. Would it be so
radical for firms to create a market for innovation and strategy ideas?
Could any employee suggest a promising beginning of an idea that others
could build on? Such markets for ideas are currently being experimented
on; yet they still face hurdles in requiring that employees have the capacity
and permission to volunteer part of their time to work on the ideas they feel
passionate about.
Today’s reward systems pose a further roadblock in corporations to such
new thinking. As Amabile (1993) has found, monetary compensation shifts
the motivational basis of behavior from internal to external rewards. Once
financial rewards become the principal incentive, we shift our behavior—
and sometimes our beliefs—to justify our reward-seeking activities. We per-
form because we get paid, not because the work has its own intrinsic value.
Such extrinsically motivated behavior tempts us to give up some of our
integrity. (Hence the recent financial crisis during which a number of par-
ties can be said to have compromised their independent judgment.) In
accepting the predominance of extrinsic rewards over intrinsic motivation,
we give up some independence of belief and purpose (and potentially also
our integrity). Our work loses its personal relevance, and we significantly
reduce our joy in creativity. We submit to doing what we get paid for.
There is a minor yet highly visible rebellion going on, however. Those
who call themselves “hackers” are experimenting on a lifestyle unencum-
bered by corporate “corruption.” A student in Helsinki wrote Linux, the
open source operating system, with help from 120,000 friends all around
the world, for free (Tuomi, 2003). Some have testified to the morality of the
hacker ethic and to the preeminence of a hacker society. Manifestos have
been written; fierce independence is celebrated, and fun has been elevated
as the über-motivation to rule. But this is too nouveau age: we do not all
wish or need to become hackers to be free. In fact, computer enthusiasts
have simply discovered a very old truth. When you do something for the