Reading time ( words)
Make it Matter: How Managers Can Motivate by Creating Meaning
By Scott Mautz
Copyright 2015 Amacom
Price $24.95
Pages: 250 with Index
Look, it’s pretty straightforward isn’t it? People work harder and are much more passionate when they know that what they are doing has a purpose and a meaning. They have to know that what they are doing is important.
Author Scott Mautz has written a book that is a must-read for anyone in management. He works off of the principle that everyone in your organization has to know what they are working for. He tells the story of the great physicist Richard Feynman finding himself in charge of a group of physicists and mathematicians who were lackadaisically working on some long mathematical problems. They were completely demotivated and making a lot of mistakes as a result of it.
Finally, Feynman had had enough. He went to his boss and urged to be allowed to tell his people what they were working on. His boss, Robert Oppenheimer, agreed. Everything changed when these scientists learned that they were working on a device that would ultimately end the WWII. Now they had a purpose, their work had meaning, and now they finally were passionate about what they were doing.
I don’t think Mautz could have used a better example of what his book is all about and how it works. We’ve got the idea; now, how do we implement a program that makes it matter? No problem, this book is chock-full of plans, tools and strategies on how to effectively get that done.
There's a chapter on motivating people to fail…you read that right. People who are not afraid to fail will succeed in the end because they won't be to afraid try, as opposed to who are paralyzed with fear about failing and thus do nothing.
He poses a series of questions that get to the heart of the matter:
- If I knew that I wouldn’t fail, would I try?
- What would take the business to another level?
- What missing accomplishment would cause me to label my life’s work incomplete?
- What can only I lead?
- What would I be proud to tell others I lead?
- What would competitors be afraid I was doing?
- What could I put in place that would outlast me?
- Who do I admire for the difference they’ve made and what about them could I emulate?
Besides all of these tactics and strategies, the last chapter is an actual implementation plan for making things matter in your company or organization.
This book packs quite a wallop. If you’re serious about taking your company to the next level and beyond, order this book now.
