2. THE PROGRESS PRINCIPLE USING SMALL WINS
TO IGNITE JOY ENGAGEMENT AND CREATIVITY
AT WORK
BY: TERESA AMABILE AND STEVEN
KRAMER
3. About Authors
TERESA AMABILE
STEVEN KRAMER
Professor at the Harvard Business School
Kramer is the co-author of The Progress Principle
Received her Doctorate degree from
Stanford University in 1977
Kramer is best known for being an independent
researcher and writer in Wayland
Teresa has countless amounts of her work
published
Similar to Dr. Amabile, Kramer also has several
published works
4. Work Performance
A study of 238 professionals from 26 project
teams in 7 companies and 3 industries.
Over 80% of participants were college
educated
Daily diary entries
Collected 12,000 diary entries
5. Conti….,
Diary forms consisted of quite a few
numerical questions asking participants to
rate their own perceptions of the various
aspects of the work environment
Open-ended question
Brief report of one event
6. Research Discoveries
•The results of the research led to the discovery
of how inner work life is and how it functions as
a complex system.
•Also, this research in turn served as a foundation
for the conclusions about inner work life: what
affects it and how inner work life affects
performance.
7. Inner work life is the confluence of
perceptions, emotions, and motivations that
individuals experience as they react to end
make sense of the events of their workday
9. Inner Work Life System
Perceptions/thoughts
(Sense making about
workday events)
•The organization
•Managers, self, team
•The work
Emotions/feelings
(Reactions to
workday events)
•Positive emotions
•Negative emotions
•Overall mood
Workday
Events
Individual
Performance
Motivation/drive
(Desire to do the work)
•What to do
•How to do it
•When to do it
•Whether to do it
10. Best “inner work life” days at work
Positive
Perception
Strong
Motivation
Elated
Emotions
11. Worst “inner work life” days at work
Negative
Perception
Week
Motivation
Dark
Emotions
13. The worst of Time “karpenter”
Famous 12
years old
Company in
households
“Most
admired”
New
management
****
Inner work
life drops
****
Creativity &
Innovation
Death
Karpenter
acquired &
closed down
14. The Best of time “O’Reilley”
Chemicals
firm
producing
well-known
consumer and
industrial
products
Founded
same era as
karpenter
****
Excellent
Inner work
****
Creativity &
Innovation
Remains
robust
Company
still at the top
15. The Real differentiator
Not ownership form
Not the incentive system
Not personalities
Not skill level
INNER WORK LIFE
16. Diary of a
“Worst Day” at Karpenter
I don’t understand why R&D kills so many of
my projects, yet I am supposedly measured on new
product development! The VP of R&D killed my
new hand-held mixer three times before it was
approved a couple weeks ago, very conflicting
goals, causing us to start, stop, re-start, etc.
[Sophie, product manager, equip team, karpenter corporation]
17. Diary of a
“Best day” at O’ Reilly
presented 1.5 hours worth of technical
data, market information, process
capability and cost information in the
project review, the review was very well
received, much assistance was given, and
we passed (allowed to go to the next
stage)!!
[Dave, leader of vision team, O'Reilley corporation]
18. Creative Thought
work[ing] on the details of how the image will
be produced, I really got into the problem and came
up with an elegant method for dealing with
overloaded tasks.
[Engineer diary, high tech firm]
19. The Inner Work Life Effect
Positive perceptions
Pleasant emotions
Intrinsic motivation
Creativity
Productivity
Commitment to the work
collegiality
23. Comparisons relative to days without progress or setback events
Elements of inner work life
How days with progress
events compare
How days with setback
events compare
Emotions
•More positive overall mood
•More happiness
•Less sadness
•Less fear
•More negative overall mood
•Less happiness
•More frustration
•More fear
Motivations
•More intrinsically motivated(by
the interest, enjoyment, challenge
of, and involvement in the work
itself)
•Less intrinsically motivated
perceptions
•More positive challenge in the
work
•Team more mutually supportive
•More time pressure
•less positive challenge in the work
•Team less mutually supportive
•Insufficient resources available for
the work
26. The “Key Three” Drivers of Inner Work life
The Progress Principle
The Catalyst factor
The Nourishment factor
27. The Progress principle
The progress principle events signifying
progress, including:
small wins
Breakthroughs
Forward movement
Goal completion
28. The Catalyst Factor
(Support the work itself)
Events supporting the work, including:
setting clear goals
Allowing autonomy
Providing resources
Providing sufficient time
Helping with the work
Allowing ideas to flow
Sufficient time
29. The Nourishment Factor
(Support people doing the work)
Events supporting the person, including:
Respect
Encouragement
Emotional support
Affiliation
30. Leaders Awareness
Rank- order these motivational influences
Rank- order these motivational influences
Recognition
Incentives
Clear goals
Progress in the work
Interpersonal support
33. Manage with a Human Touch
• Praise without real progress, give little positive impact on people's inner
work life and may give off a sense of cynicism.
• Good progress without praise or criticism may produce anger or sadness
in employee
• Best booster to inner work life:
• Management recognizing and praising people for the good progress
and efforts to their work
34. Recommendations:
• Systematic awareness
• Stay tuned everyday
• Target support
• Check in – don’t check-up
• Events change the culture
• Tend to your own inner work life
35. References
THE PROGRESS PRINCIPLE – Teresa Amabile and Steven
Kramer.
http://progress principle.com/books/single/the progress
principle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/tersaamabile
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Teresa+Amabile+Progr