social engagement – Page 2 – The Consulting Artist

Food – A Great Way to Community Connectedness

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Kate Davies, CEO of Notting Hill Housing Trust. Kate is a very interesting person. On her travels she has observed that in some countries, particularly Japan and China, there seems to be a greater sense of community connectedness than in Western cultures. Very simply the Japanese and Chinese people seem to appreciate that their behaviour has an affect on others. As a result they appear more considerate of others, at a local level and beyond.

The internet has allowed geographically disparate communities to flourish, I enjoy this ability to connect worldwide enormously. However I sense that local community connectedness is withering. Where I live now, it’s a quiet place with little traffic and so conversations with neighbours are pretty easy. They still don’t happen very often. As for action, well that’s rarer still. There is a neighbour close by who runs an afternoon tea once a year as a get together and fund raiser. Sometimes a few of us pass surplus fruit or veg across the fence, maybe even run the odd shopping errand. But that’s about it, and even that is probably more than what goes on amongst neighbours generally.

So I wonder if maybe the reason why we repeat these mistakes is something to do with the fact that we don’t seem to care about each other, as a community. If I don’t care about someone else then I’m probably not concerned about the impact my action has on that other person, or persons.

I’m interested in a project called The Big Lunch. It’s about getting to know the people who live around you, understand each other better, and do stuff for each other. Make connections, nurture relationships, think beyond the next pay packet. This is how a community in South London made it work last year. Encourage people to take a look and maybe use this idea as a way of reconnecting. You never know, if there’s a manager in your neighbourhood, reaching out might help him or her to learn that there are simple and easier ways to learn how to stop doing dumb things to customers?

This year The Big Lunch is on Saturday July 18th, why not put the date in your diary and get involved?

Intrinsic Motivation @ Drive Live!

Dan Pink was in town on Jan 27th at the RSA to talk about Drive, The Surprising Truth of What Motivates Us. I was planning to go on the off chance of getting in however I was offered two tickets on the day. In turn I offered the second ticket to my network and was joined by Sean Trainor. It was a good job we had the tickets as the place was completely sold out.

Dan talks about rewards and punishment as reasons why we do, and don’t do stuff, and encourages us to think about other reasons why we do stuff. Because they are interesting, because we like doing them, because we want to get better, to learn. He argues that rewards almost always don’t work.

He concedes that performing a mechanical task can be enhanced through the offer of a carrot, a financial incentive. Dan then goes on to illustrate, through a number of examples, how financial incentives don’t work when offered to complete tasks which require even rudimentary cognitive skills.

The talk includes examples on why punishment doesn’t work, why feedback is important, why making progress is a good motivator, and other interesting things besides.

The talk was enjoyable and developed the discussion Dan started when he spoke at TED in 2009. Yes he is selling his book, and yet this was a soft sell. Dan’s done some interesting homework and presents his findings in a compelling way.

The talk lasts around 33 minutes and I encourage you to download it from here and have a listen.

Sean and I both asked a question. Sean’s is timed at 59.01 on the download and asks about bankers bonuses. The banks say that if they can’t pay out huge bonuses then staff will leave. Does Dan Pink think they will go and is that a bad thing? Dan’s reply is this is not a fact; it’s a hypothesis, so let’s test the hypothesis (cue big round of applause). He believes some bankers won’t walk because they like what they are doing and others won’t walk because they know what a good deal they are on.

If you’re interested, my question is asked at 59.22 and responded to at 1.00.56.