Todays’ acronym for improvement is AMP to help us remember three primary intrinsic motivations.  According to research by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, (pronounced me-HIGH chick-sent-me-HIGH-ee) these motivations are Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. 

President Kennedy knew the country needed a great Purpose when he promised to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of the decade.

We know he believed in our ability to create Mastery because at the time of this proclamation historians tell us we knew 10% of what was needed to fulfill that promise. 

What most impressed me in listening to the stories of his presidency during last month’s 50th anniversary of his assassination was his understanding of Autonomy. 

I am one of those old enough to remember exactly where I was when I heard the news of President Kennedy’s death.  I vividly recall observing my mom, tears streaming down her face as she watched the funeral procession while ironing my dad’s shirts. 

I thought I had heard all the stories, but one of the interesting lessons I learned from the many reviews of President Kennedy’s life and legacy was his response to the Bay of Pigs incident.  The Bay of Pigs plan was well on its way to completion before JFK became president, and despite the long odds for success he felt he could not cancel the operation without looking weak.  The event as we all know was a disaster, but the part that I didn’t know before was Kennedy’s response to his advisers.

Prior to the Bay of Pigs fiasco President Kennedy had 1,600 advisers – some even pressuring him to use a nuclear bomb on Cuba.  What he did to avoid the isolated influence of this narrowly focused group was not to close the doors on alternate opinions, but to expand them tenfold to 16,000 advisers.  President Kennedy achieved more freedom to choose (Autonomy) not by isolating himself but by immersing himself.

Today when I try and convince leaders to seriously open lines of fearless dialogue with all employees, they imagine themselves being so deluged with disagreement that nothing would be accomplished.  They believe that isolation engenders autonomy when the opposite is actually true.  Fewer “advisers” actually gives leaders less autonomy because they are expected to “follow the few” instead of attending to the needs of the many.  Statisticians describe the distortive effect of these exclusive enclaves under the law of small numbers which states that “often small numbers do not well represent the behavior of large numbers”.

Daniel Kahneman used a well known example entitled the “Mozart Effect”.   The article

How Myths Are Formed! The Law Of Small Numbers & Market Research describes a study that suggested “playing classical music to babies and young children might make them smarter”. The findings spawned a whole cottage industry of books, CD and videos.

The study by psychologist Frances Rauscher was based upon observations of just 36 college students. In just one test students who had listened to Mozart “seemed” to show a significant improvement in their performance in an IQ test. This was picked up by the media and various organizations involved in promoting music. However, in 2007 a review of relevant studies by the Ministry of Education and Research in Germany concluded that the phenomenon was “nonexistent”.

What are you doing to open your doors to the influence of alternate opinions?  Are you receiving feedback directly from the “front lines” or is it being filtered through layers of individual agendas.  

As Malcom Gladwell has said upon the release of his latest book, “The more I write these books, the less convinced I am of my own inherent wisdom.  I’ve convinced myself that I’m pretty bad at making sense of the world and need a lot of help.”

I certainly need lots of help and appreciate any feedback you might be willing to share.

Great ideas are often excluded from conversation

simply because they lack the appropriate elevation.