What makes us feel good about our work? | Dan Ariely

Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Morton Bast

Translator: David J. Kreps Finnemann Reviewer: Andreas Strøjer Tynan Schmidt

I want to talk a little bit today about labor and work.

Jeg vil i dag tale lidt om

slid og arbejde.

When we think about how people work,

Når vi tænker på hvordan mennesker arbejder,

the naive intuition we have

har vi den naive intuition

is that people are like rats in a maze --

at mennesker er ligesom rotter i en labyrint --

at mennesker kun tænker på penge,

that all people care about is money,

and the moment we give them money,

og øjeblikket vi giver mennesker penge,

we can direct them to work one way,

kan vi dirigere dem på arbejde på den ene måde,

we can direct them to work another way.

vi kan dirigere dem på arbejde på en anden måde.

This is why we give bonuses to bankers and pay in all kinds of ways.

Dette er grunden til at vi giver bonuser til bankier og betaler på alle mulige måder.

Og vi har i virkeligheden dette utrolig simple syn

And we really have this incredibly simplistic view

of why people work, and what the labor market looks like.

på hvorfor mennesker arbejder og hvordan arbejdsmarkedet ser ud.

At the same time, if you think about it,

Samtidig, hvis man tænker over det,

there's all kinds of strange behaviors in the world around us.

er der mange mærkelige adfærd i verden omkring os.

Think about something like mountaineering and mountain climbing.

Tænk på noget som bjergbestigning og bjergklatring.

Hvis man læser om mennesker der bestiger bjerge, svære bjerge,

If you read books of people who climb mountains, difficult mountains,

do you think that those books are full of moments of joy and happiness?

tror I så at de bøger er fulde af øjeblikke med lykke og glæde?

No, they are full of misery.

Nej, de er fyldte med elendighed.

Faktisk handler det om forfrysninger og gangbesvær

In fact, it's all about frostbite and having difficulty walking,

and difficulty breathing --

og besvær med at trække vejret --

cold, challenging circumstances.

koldt, udfordrende omstændigheder.

And if people were just trying to be happy,

Og hvis folk bare prøvede at være lykkelige,

the moment they would get to the top,

det øjeblik de nåede toppen,

they would say, "This was a terrible mistake.

ville de sige, "Dette var en forfærdelig fejltagelse.

I'll never do it again."

Det gør jeg aldrig igen."

(Latter)

(Laughter)

"Instead, let me sit on a beach somewhere drinking mojitos."

"Lad mig i stedet sidde på en strand et eller andet sted og drikke mojitos."

But instead, people go down,

Men i stedet går folk ned,

and after they recover, they go up again.

og efter de kommer sig, går de op igen.

And if you think about mountain climbing as an example,

Og hvis man tager bjergbestigning som eksempel,

it suggests all kinds of things.

tyder det på alle mulige ting.

Det tyder på at vi bekymrer os om at nå destinationen, en top.

It suggests that we care about reaching the end, a peak.

Det tyder på at vi bemkymrer os om kampen, om udfordringen.

It suggests that we care about the fight, about the challenge.

It suggests that there's all kinds of other things that motivate us

Det tyder på at der er alle mulige andre ting

der motiverer os til at arbejde eller opføre os på alle mulige måder.

to work or behave in all kinds of ways.

Og for mig personligt, begyndte jeg at tænke på dette

And for me personally, I started thinking about this

after a student came to visit me.

efter en studerende kom for at besøge mig.

Dette var en studerende der havde været en af mine studerende et par år forinden.

This was one of my students from a few years earlier,

Og en dag kom han tilbage på campus.

and he came one day back to campus.

Og han fortalte mig den følgende historie:

And he told me the following story:

He said that for more than two weeks,

Han sagde at han i mere end to uger havde arbejdet på en PowerPoint præsentation.

he was working on a PowerPoint presentation.

He was working in a big bank,

Han arbejdede i en stor bank.

and this was in preparation for a merger and acquisition.

Dette var som forberedelse for en fusionering og en overtagelse.

And he was working very hard on this presentation --

Og han arbejdede meget hårdt på denne præsentation --

graphs, tables, information.

diagrammer, tabeller, information.

He stayed late at night every day.

Han arbejdede over hver aften.

And the day before it was due,

Og dagen inden det skulle være færdigt,

he sent his PowerPoint presentation to his boss,

sendte han sin PowerPoint præsentation til sin chef,

og hans chef skrev tilbage til ham og sagde,

and his boss wrote him back and said,

"Nice presentation, but the merger is canceled."

"Fin præsentation, men fusionen er annuleret."

And the guy was deeply depressed.

Og fyren blev utrolig deprimeret.

Now at the moment when he was working,

På det tidspunkt da han arbejdede,

he was actually quite happy.

var han faktisk temmelig lykkelig.

Every night he was enjoying his work,

Hver nat nød han sit arbejde,

he was staying late, he was perfecting this PowerPoint presentation.

han arbejdede over, han perfektionerede sin PowerPoint præsentation.

But knowing that nobody would ever watch it made him quite depressed.

Men at vide at ingen nogensinde kom til at se det gjorde ham temmelig deprimeret.

So I started thinking about how do we experiment

Jeg begyndte at tænke på hvordan vi eksperimenterer

with this idea of the fruits of our labor.

med denne ide om resultatet på vores lid.

And to start with, we created a little experiment

Og til at starte med skabte vi et lille eksperiment

in which we gave people Legos,

hvor vi gav mennesker Lego, og vi bad dem om at bygge med Lego.

and we asked them to build with Legos.

And for some people, we gave them Legos and we said,

Og for nogle mennesker, gav vi dem Lego og vi sagde,

"Hey, would you like to build this Bionicle for three dollars?

"Hey, vil du bygge denne Bionicle for tre dollars?

We'll pay you three dollars for it."

Vi betaler dig tre dollars for den."

And people said yes, and they built with these Legos.

Og folk sagde ja, og de byggede med disse Legoer.

And when they finished, we took it, we put it under the table,

Og når de blev færdige, tog vi det, vi satte det under bordet,

and we said, "Would you like to build another one,

og vi sagde, "Vil du bygge endnu en, denne gang for $2.70?"

this time for $2.70?"

If they said yes, we gave them another one,

Hvis de sagde ja gav vi dem endnu en.

and when they finished, we asked them,

Og når de var færdige, spurgte vi dem,

"Vil du bygge endnu en?" for $2.40, $2.10 og så videre,

"Do you want to build another one?" for $2.40, $2.10, and so on,

until at some point people said,

indtil folk på et tidspunkt sagde, "Ikke mere. Det er det ikke værd for mig."

"No more. It's not worth it for me."

Det var det vi kaldte den meningsfulde betingelse.

This was what we called the meaningful condition.

People built one Bionicle after another.

Folk byggede den ene Bionicle efter den anden.

After they finished every one of them,

Efter de blev færdige med hver eneste, satte vi dem under bordet.

we put them under the table.

Og vi fortalte dem at vi i slutningen af eksperimentet,

And we told them that at the end of the experiment,

we will take all these Bionicles, we will disassemble them,

ville vi tage alle disse Bionicles, ville vi skille dem ad,

we will put them back in the boxes,

putte dem tilbage i æsken, og vi bruger dem til den næste deltager.

and we will use it for the next participant.

There was another condition.

Der var en anden betingelse.

This other condition was inspired by David, my student.

Den anden betingelse var inspireret af David, min studerende.

And this other condition we called the Sisyphic condition.

Og denne anden betingelse kaldte vi Sisyfos betingelsen.

And if you remember the story about Sisyphus,

Og hvis man husker historien om Sisyfos,

Sisyphus was punished by the gods to push the same rock up a hill,

Sisyfos blev straffet af guderne til at skubbe den samme sten op af bakken,

and when he almost got to the end,

og når han næsten nåede slutningen,

the rock would roll over, and he would have to start again.

ville stenen rulle tilbage, og han skulle starte forfra.

And you can think about this as the essence of doing futile work.

Og man kan se på dette som essensen af at lave forgæves arbejde.

You can imagine that if he pushed the rock on different hills,

Man kan forestille sig at hvis han skubbede stenen op af forskellige bakker,

at least he would have some sense of progress.

ville han i det mindste have en følelse af fremskridt.

Also, if you look at prison movies,

Derudover, hvis man ser på film der foregår i fængslet,

piner vagterne nogen gange de indsatte ved at

sometimes the way that the guards torture the prisoners

is to get them to dig a hole, and when the prisoner is finished,

få dem til at grave et hul

og når den indsatte er færdig, beder de ham om at dække hullet til, og begynde at grave igen.

they ask him to fill the hole back up and then dig again.

There's something about this cyclical version

Der er noget ved denne cykliske version

of doing something over and over and over

af at gøre noget igen og igen og igen

that seems to be particularly demotivating.

der lader til at være særlig demotiverende.

So in the second condition of this experiment,

Så i den anden betingelse for eksperimentet er det præcis hvad vi gjorde.

that's exactly what we did.

Vi spurgte folk, "Kunne du tænkte dig at bygge en Bionicle for tre dollars?"

We asked people,

"Would you like to build one Bionicle for three dollars?"

And if they said yes, they built it.

Og hvis de sagde ja, byggede de den.

Så spurgte vi dem, "Kunne du tænke dig at bygge endnu en for $2.70?"

Then we asked them, "Do you want to build another one for $2.70?"

And if they said yes, we gave them a new one,

Og hvis de sagde ja, gav vi dem en ny en,

and as they were building it,

og i takt med at de byggede den,

we took apart the one that they just finished.

skillede vi den ad som de lige havde færdiggjort.

Og da de blev færdige med den,

And when they finished that,

we said, "Would you like to build another one,

sagde vi, "Kunne du tænke dig at bygge endnu en, denne gang for 30 cent mindre?"

this time for 30 cents less?"

And if they said yes,

Og hvis de sagde ja, gav vi dem den de lige havde bygget og som vi skilte ad.

we gave them the one that they built and we broke.

Så dette var en endeløs cyklus

So this was an endless cycle of them building,

af at de byggede og vi skilte det ad foran deres øjne.

and us destroying in front of their eyes.

Now what happens when you compare these two conditions?

Hvad sker der hvis man sammenligner disse to betingelser?

The first thing that happened was that people built many more Bionicles --

Det første der skete

var at folk byggede mange flere Bionicles -- de byggede 11 mod 7 --

eleven in the meaningful condition,

i den meningsfyldte betingelse imod Sisyfos betingelsen.

versus seven in the Sisyphus condition.

And by the way, we should point out that this was not big meaning.

Og for øvrigt, bør vi nævne at dette ikke var af stor betydning.

Folk kurerede ikke kræft eller byggede broer.

People were not curing cancer or building bridges.

People were building Bionicles for a few cents.

Folk byggede Bionicles for et par cent.

And not only that, everybody knew

Og ikke nok med det, alle vidste at de Bionicles blev skilt ad temmelig hurtigt derefter.

that the Bionicles would be destroyed quite soon.

So there was not a real opportunity for big meaning.

Så der var ikke rigtig en mulighed for stor betydning.

But even the small meaning made a difference.

Men selv den lille mening gjorde en forskel.

Now we had another version of this experiment.

Nu havde vi en anden version af dette eksperiment.

In this other version of the experiment,

I denne anden version af eksperimentet,

we didn't put people in this situation,

vi satte ikke folk i denne situation,

we just described to them the situation,

vi beskrev bare situationen for dem, ligesom jeg beskriver den for jer nu,

much as I am describing to you now,

and we asked them to predict what the result would be.

og vi bad dem om at forudisge hvad resultatet ville være.

Hvad skete der?

What happened?

People predicted the right direction but not the right magnitude.

Folk forudså den rigtige retning, men ikke den rigtige størrelsesorden.

People who were just given the description of the experiment

Folk der kun blev givet beskrivelsen af eksperimentet

said that in the meaningful condition,

sagde at folk i den meningsfyldte betingelse sikkert ville bygge en Bionicle mere.

people would probably build one more Bionicle.

So people understand that meaning is important,

Så folk forstår at mening er vigtigt,

de forstår bare ikke størrelsesordenen af vigtigheden,

they just don't understand the magnitude of the importance,

the extent to which it's important.

i hvor stor grad det er vigtigt.

Der var et andet stykke data vi kiggede efter.

There was one other piece of data we looked at.

Hvis man tænker over det, er der nogle mennesker der kan elsker Lego, og nogle der ikke gør.

If you think about it, there are some people who love Legos,

and some people who don't.

And you would speculate that the people who love Legos

Og man kunne spekulere at de mennesker der elsker Lego

vil bygge mere Lego, selv for færre penge,

would build more Legos, even for less money,

because after all, they get more internal joy from it.

fordi de får trods alt mere indvendig glæde af det.

And the people who love Legos less would build less Legos

Og de mennesker der holder mindre af Lego vil bygge mindre Lego

because the enjoyment that they derive from it is lower.

fordi glæden de får af det er lavere.

And that's actually what we found in the meaningful condition.

Og det er faktisk det vi fandt ud af i den meningsfyldte betingelse.

There was a very nice correlation between the love of Legos

Der var en meget fin korrelation mellem kærlighed til Lego

and the amount of Legos people built.

og den mængde Lego som folk byggede.

Hvad skete der under Sisyfos betingelsen?

What happened in the Sisyphic condition?

In that condition, the correlation was zero --

I den betingelse var korrelationen nul.

there was no relationship between the love of Legos,

Der var ikke noget forhold mellem kærligheden til Lego og hvor meget folk byggede,

and how much people built,

which suggests to me that with this manipulation

hvilket viser mig at man med denne manipulation

of breaking things in front of people's eyes,

med at skille ting ad foran folk øjne,

dybest set smadrede enhver glæde som de kunne få ud af denne aktivitet.

we basically crushed any joy that they could get out of this activity.

We basically eliminated it.

Vi eliminerede det dybest set.

Soon after I finished running this experiment,

Kort efter jeg stoppede med at udføre dette eksperiment,

I went to talk to a big software company in Seattle.

tog jeg ud og talte med et stort software selskab i Seattle.

I can't tell you who they were, but they were a big company in Seattle.

Jeg kan ikke fortælle jer hvem det var, men det var et stort firma i Seattle.

Og dette var en gruppe indenfor software firmaet der blev placeret i en anden bygning.

This was a group within the software company

that was put in a different building,

and they asked them to innovate,

Og de bad dem om at innovere og skabe det næste store produkt for dette firma.

and create the next big product for this company.

And the week before I showed up,

Og ugen inden jeg kom,

the CEO of this big software company went to that group, 200 engineers,

gik den administrerende direktør for dette store selskab hen til den gruppe, 200 ingeniører,

and canceled the project.

og afblæste projektet.

And I stood there in front of 200

Og jeg stod der foran 200 af de mest deprimerede mennesker jeg nogensinde har talt med.

of the most depressed people I've ever talked to.

Og jeg beskrev nogle af disse Lego eksperimenter for dem,

And I described to them some of these Lego experiments,

and they said they felt like they had just been through that experiment.

og de sagde at de alle følte det som om de lige var gået igennem det eksperiment.

Og jeg spurgte dem, jeg sagde,

And I asked them, I said,

"How many of you now show up to work later than you used to?"

"Hvor mange af jer kommer nu senere på arbejde end I plejede?"

And everybody raised their hand.

Og alle rakte hånden op.

I said, "How many of you now go home earlier than you used to?"

Jeg sagde, "Hvor mange af jer tager hjem tidligere end I plejede?"

Og alle rakte hånden op.

Everybody raised their hand.

Jeg spurgte dem, "Hvor mange af jer tilføjer ikke-helt-i-orden ting til jeres udgifts bilag?"

I asked them, "How many of you now add

not-so-kosher things to your expense reports?"

And they didn't raise their hands,

Og de rakte ikke hånden op,

but they took me out to dinner

men de tog mig med ud og spise, og de viste mig hvad de kunne gøre med udgiftsbilag.

and showed me what they could do with expense reports.

Og jeg spurgte dem, jeg sagde,

And then I asked them, I said,

"Hvad kunne den administrerende direktør have gjort, for at gøre jer knap så deprimerede?"

"What could the CEO have done to make you not as depressed?"

And they came up with all kinds of ideas.

Og de kom med alle mulige ideer.

They said the CEO could have asked them to present to the whole company

De sagde at den administrerende direktør kunne have bedt dem om at fremlægge hele deres rejse

about their journey over the last two years

i løbet af de sidste to år for firmaet, og hvad de besluttede at gøre.

and what they decided to do.

He could have asked them to think about which aspect of their technology

Han kunne have bedt dem om at tænke på hvilket del af deres teknologi

kunne passe i andre dele af organisationen.

could fit with other parts of the organization.

He could have asked them to build some next-generation prototypes,

Han kunne have bedt dem om at bygge nogle prototyper, nogle næste generations prototyper,

and see how they would work.

og se hvordan de fungerede.

But the thing is that any one of those would require some effort and motivation.

Men det der er ved det er, at enhver af de muligheder

kræver nogen indsats og motivation.

And I think the CEO basically did not understand the importance of meaning.

Og jeg tror den administrerende direktør dybest set ikke forstod betydningen af mening.

Hvis den administrerende direktør, ligesom vores deltagere,

If the CEO, just like our participants,

thought the essence of meaning is unimportant,

mente at essensen af mening er ubetydelig,

then he [wouldn't] care.

så ville han være ligeglad.

And he would say, "At the moment I directed you in this way,

Og han sagde til dem, "På det tidspunkt dirigerede jeg jer denne vej,

and now that I'm directing you in this way,

og nu dirigerer jeg jer denne vej,

everything will be okay."

det skal nok gå det hele.

But if you understood how important meaning is,

Men hvis man forstår hvor vigtigt mening er,

then you would figure out that it's actually important

så ville man se at det faktisk er vigtigt

to spend some time, energy and effort

at bruge noget tid, energi og umage

på at få folk til at bekymre sig mere om hvad de laver.

in getting people to care more about what they're doing.

Den næste eksperiment var lidt anderledes.

The next experiment was slightly different.

We took a sheet of paper with random letters,

Vi tog et ark papir med tilfældige bogstaver,

og vi bad folk om at finde bogstav par der var identiske ved siden af hinanden.

and we asked people to find pairs of letters

that were identical next to each other.

That was the task.

Det ar opgaven.

People did the first sheet,

Og folk lavede det første ark.

then we asked if they wanted to do another for a little less money,

Og så spurgte vi dem om de kunne lave det næste ark for lidt færre penge,

og den næste for lidt færre penge, og så videre og så videre.

the next sheet for a little bit less, and so on and so forth.

Og vi havde tre betingelser.

And we had three conditions.

In the first condition, people wrote their name on the sheet,

I den første betingelse, skrev folk deres navn på et ark,

found all the pairs of letters,

fandt alle bogstav parrene, gav det til undersøgeren.

gave it to the experimenter,

the experimenter would look at it,

Undersøgeren kiggede på det, skannede det ovenfra og ned,

scan it from top to bottom,

say "Uh huh," and put it on the pile next to them.

sagde "uh huh" og lagde det i stakken ved siden af sig.

In the second condition, people did not write their name on it.

I det andet forhold, skrev folk ikke deres navn på det.

The experimenter looked at it,

Undersøgeren kiggede på det,

took the sheet of paper, did not look at it, did not scan it,

tog endnu et ark papir, kiggede ikke på det, skannede det ikke,

and simply put it on the pile of pages.

og lagde det bare i stakken af sider.

So you take a piece, you just put it on the side.

Så man tager et stykke, man lægger det bare til side.

In the third condition,

Og i det tredje forhold,

the experimenter got the sheet of paper,

fik undersøgeren papirarket og puttede det direkte i en makulatur.

and put it directly into a shredder.

(Laughter)

Hvad skete der med de tre forhold?

What happened in those three conditions?

In this plot I'm showing you at what pay rate people stopped.

I dette diagram viser jeg jer ved hvilken betaling folk stoppede.

So low numbers mean that people worked harder.

Lave tal betyder at folk arbejdede hårdere. De arbejdede meget længere.

They worked for much longer.

In the acknowledged condition,

I det anerkendende forhold, arbejdede folk helt ned til 15 cent.

people worked all the way down to 15 cents.

At 15 cents per page,

Ved 15 cent per side, stoppede de dybest set med deres anstrengelser.

they basically stopped these efforts.

In the shredder condition, it was twice as much -- 30 cents per sheet.

I makulatur forholdet, var det dobbelt så meget -- 30 cent per side.

And this is basically the result we had before.

Og det er dybest set det resultat vi havde før.

You shred people's efforts, output --

Man makulerer folks anstrengelser, resultater,

you get them not to be as happy with what they're doing.

man får dem til at blive mindre glade med det de laver.

But I should point out, by the way,

Men jeg bør pointere, for øvrigt,

at i makulatur forholdet, kunne folk have snydt.

that in the shredder condition, people could have cheated.

They could have done not so good work,

De kunne have lavet et mindre godt stykke arbejde,

because they realized people were just shredding it.

fordi de blev klar over at folk bare makulerede det.

So maybe the first sheet you'd do good work,

Så måske gør man et godt stykke arbejde med det første ark,

but then you see nobody is really testing it,

men så ser man at der ikke er nogen der retter det,

so you would do more and more and more.

så man kan lave, flere og flere og flere.

So in fact, in the shredder condition,

Faktisk, i makulatur forholdet,

people could have submitted more work and gotten more money,

kunne folk have afleveret mere arbejde og fået flere penge

og gjort sig mindre umagen.

and put less effort into it.

But what about the ignored condition?

Men hvad med det ignorerende forhold?

Would the ignored condition be more like the acknowledged

Ville det ignorerende forhold være mere ligesom det anerkendende eller mere ligesom med makulaturen,

or more like the shredder, or somewhere in the middle?

eller et sted midt i mellem?

It turns out it was almost like the shredder.

Det viser sig, at det var næsten magen til makulaturen.

Now there's good news and bad news here.

Nu er der godt nyt og der er dårligt nyt.

The bad news is that ignoring the performance of people

Den dårlige nyhed er, at ignorere andre folks præstation

er næsten lige så slemt som at makulere deres indsats for deres øjnene.

is almost as bad as shredding their effort in front of their eyes.

Ignoring gets you a whole way out there.

At ignorere får en næsten helt derud.

The good news is that by simply looking at something that somebody has done,

Den gode nyhed er, at ved bare at kigge på noget som nogen har lavet,

scanning it and saying "Uh huh,"

skimme det og sige "uh huh,"

that seems to be quite sufficient

det lader til at være ganske tilstrækkeligt

to dramatically improve people's motivations.

til dramatisk at forbedre folks motivationer.

So the good news is that adding motivation

Så den gode nyhed er at det ser ud til det ikke er svært at give motivation.

doesn't seem to be so difficult.

The bad news is that eliminating motivations

Den dårlige nyhed er, at eliminere motivationer

seems to be incredibly easy,

ser ud til at være utrolig nemt,

and if we don't think about it carefully, we might overdo it.

og hvis vi ikke tænker forsigtigt over det, overdriver vi det måske.

So this is all in terms of negative motivation,

Dette er alt sammen med hensyn til de negative motivationer

or eliminating negative motivation.

eller at eliminere de negative motivationer.

Den næste del jeg vil vise jer er noget om de positive motivationer.

The next part I want to show you is something about positive motivation.

So there is a store in the U.S. called IKEA.

Her er der en forretning i USA der hedder IKEA.

And IKEA is a store with kind of okay furniture

Og IKEA er en forretning med møbler der er okay, som er svære at samle.

that takes a long time to assemble.

(Laughter)

(Latter)

I don't know about you,

Og jeg ved ikke med jer, men hver gang jeg samler en af dem,

but every time I assemble one of those,

it takes me much longer, it's much more effortful,

tager det meget længere tid, det kræver langt flere anstrengelser, det er meget mere forvirrende.

it's much more confusing, I put things in the wrong way --

Jeg samler det på den forkerte måde.

I can't say I enjoy those pieces.

Jeg kan ikke sige at jeg nyder delene.

Jeg kan ikke sige at jeg nyder processen.

I can't say I enjoy the process.

But when I finish it,

Men når jeg færdiggør det, er det som om jeg bedre kan lide de IKEA møbler

I seem to like those IKEA pieces of furniture

more than I like other ones.

end nogen af de andre.

(Laughter)

And there's an old story about cake mixes.

Og der er en gammel historie om miksere.

So when they started cake mixes in the '40s,

Da de begyndte at lave bland-selv kagemix tilbage i 40'erne,

tog de dette pulver og de puttede det i en æske,

they would take this powder and they would put it in a box,

and they would ask housewives to basically pour it in,

og de bad husfruer dybest set om at hælde det i, tilsætte noget vand,

stir some water in it,

blande det, sætte det i ovnen, og -- viola! -- man havde kage.

mix it, put it in the oven, and -- voila -- you had cake.

But it turns out they were very unpopular.

Men det viser sig at de var meget upopulære.

People did not want them,

Folk ville ikke have det.

and they thought about all kinds of reasons for that.

Og de tænkte på alle mulige årsager til det.

Måske var smagen ikke god.

Maybe the taste was not good?

No, the taste was great.

Nej, smagen var fantastisk.

What they figured out was that there was not enough effort involved.

Det de fandt frem til var, at der ikke krævede en stor nok indsats.

It was so easy that nobody could serve cake to their guests

Det var så nemt at inden kunne servere kagen for deres gæster

and say, "Here is my cake."

og sige, "Her er min kage."

No, it was somebody else's cake, as if you bought it in the store.

Nej, nej, nej, det var en andens kage.

Det var som om man havde købt den i supermarkedet.

It didn't really feel like your own.

Det føltes ikke som ens egen.

So what did they do?

Hvad gjorde de så?

They took the eggs and the milk out of the powder.

De tog æg og mælk ud af pulveret.

(Laughter)

(Latter)

Now you had to break the eggs and add them,

Nu skulle man slå æggene ud og tilføje dem.

you had to measure the milk and add it, mixing it.

Man skulle afmåle mælk og tilføje det og blande det.

Nu var det ens egen kage. Nu var det hele fint.

Now it was your cake. Now everything was fine.

(Laughter)

(Bifald)

(Applause)

Now, I think a little bit like the IKEA effect,

Nu tror jeg det er lidt ligesom IKEA effekten,

by getting people to work harder,

ved at få folk til at arbejde hårdere,

they actually got them to love what they're doing

fik de dem faktisk til at elske det de lavede i højere grad.

to a higher degree.

Så hvordan ser vi på dette spørgsmål eksperimentelt?

So how do we look at this question experimentally?

Vi bad folk om at bygge noget origami.

We asked people to build some origami.

We gave them instructions on how to create origami,

Vi gav dem instruktioner på hvordan de skulle skabe origami,

and we gave them a sheet of paper.

og vi gav dem et ark papir.

And these were all novices,

Og dette var alle nybegyndere, og de byggede noget der faktisk var temmelig grimt --

and they built something that was really quite ugly --

nothing like a frog or a crane.

ikke noget som en frø eller en trane.

Men så fortalte vi dem, vi sagde, "Se, denne origami er faktisk vores.

But then we told them, "Look, this origami really belongs to us.

You worked for us, but I'll tell you what, we'll sell it to you.

Du arbejdede for os, men hør engang, vi vil sælge den til dig.

How much do you want to pay for it?"

Hvor meget vil du betale for den?"

And we measured how much they were willing to pay for it.

Og vi målte hvor meget de var villige til at betale for det.

And we had two types of people:

Og vi havde to typer mennesker.

We had the people who built it,

Vi havde menneskene der byggede den,

and the people who did not build it,

og vi havde de mennesker der ikke byggede den og bare kiggede på det udefra som observatører.

and just looked at it as external observers.

And what we found was that the builders thought

Og det vi fandt ud af var at dem der byggede det mente

that these were beautiful pieces of origami --

at dette var smukke origami stykker,

(Laughter)

og de var villige til at betale fem gange mere for dem

and they were willing to pay five times more for them

than the people who just evaluated them externally.

end de mennesker der bare bedømte dem udefra.

Now you could say -- if you were a builder,

Man kunne sige, at hvis man var bygger,

do you think [you'd say], "Oh, I love this origami,

tænker man at, "Åh, jeg elsker dette origami, men jeg ved at ingen andre ville holde af det?"

but I know that nobody else would love it?"

Or "I love this origami, and everybody else will love it as well?"

Eller tænker man, "Jeg elsker dette origami, og alle andre vil også elske det?"

Which one of those two is correct?

Hvilken af de to er korrekte?

Turns out the builders not only loved the origami more,

Det viser sig at byggerne ikke kun elskede origamien mere,

they thought that everybody would see the world in their view.

de mente også at alle ville se verden ud fra deres synspunkt.

De mente at alle andre også ville holde mere af det.

They thought everybody else would love it more as well.

I den næste version prøvede vi at skabe IKEA effekten.

In the next version, we tried to do the IKEA effect.

We tried to make it more difficult.

Vi prøvede at gøre det sværere.

For nogle mennesker gav vi dem den samme opgave.

So for some people, we gave the same task.

For some people, we made it harder by hiding the instructions.

For nogle mennesker gjorde vi det sværere ved at gemme instruktionerne.

I toppen af arket, havde vi et lille diagram over hvordan man folder origamien.

At the top of the sheet, we had little diagrams

of how you fold origami.

Hos nogle mennesker fjernede vi det bare.

For some people, we just eliminated that.

Så nu blev det sværere. Hvad skete der?

So now this was tougher.

What happened?

Jamen objektivt set, blev origamien nu grimmere, det var sværere.

Well in an objective way,

the origami now was uglier, it was more difficult.

Da vi nu kiggede på den nemme origami,

Now when we looked at the easy origami, we saw the same thing --

så vi den samme ting: Byggere der elskede det mere, evaulatorer der elskede det mindre.

builders loved it more, evaluators loved it less.

When you looked at the hard instructions,

Når man så på de svære instruktioner,

the effect was larger.

var effekten større.

Why?

Hvorfor? Fordi nu elskede byggerne det endnu mere.

Because now the builders loved it even more.

(Laughter)

They put all this extra effort into it.

De gjorde sig ekstra umage med det.

Og dem der evaluerede? De elskede det endnu mindre.

And evaluators?

They loved it even less.

Because in reality, it was even uglier than the first version.

Fordi det i virkeligheden var endnu grimmere end den første version.

(Laughter)

Selvfølgelig fortæller dette en noget om hvordan vi evaluerer ting.

Of course, this tells you something about how we evaluate things.

Now think about kids.

Tænk på børn.

Forestil at jeg spurgte jer, "Hvor meget vil du sælge dine børn for?"

Imagine I asked you, "How much would you sell your kids for?"

Your memories and associations and so on.

Ens minder og ens associationer og så videre.

Most people would say for a lot, a lot of money.

De fleste mennesker ville sige for mange, mange penge --

(Laughter)

On good days.

på gode dage.

(Laughter)

(Latter)

But imagine this was slightly different.

Men forestil jer at dette var lidt anderledes.

Imagine if you did not have your kids.

Forestil jer at I ikke havde jeres børn,

og en dag gik man ned i parken og man mødte nogle børn,

And one day you went to the park and you met some kids.

They were just like your kids,

og de var ligesom ens egne børn.

and you played with them for a few hours,

Og man legede med dem i et par timer.

Og da man skulle til at gå, sagde forældrene,

and when you were about to leave, the parents said, "Hey, by the way,

"Hey, forresten, lige inden du går, hvis du er interesseret, så er de til salg."

just before you leave, if you're interested, they're for sale."

(Laughter)

(Latter)

How much would you pay for them now?

Hvor meget ville man betale for dem nu?

Most people say not that much.

De fleste mennesker ville nok sige ikke så meget.

Og dette er fordi vores børn er så værdifulde,

And this is because our kids are so valuable,

not just because of who they are,

ikke kun på grund af dem de er,

but because of us,

men på grund af os, fordi de er så forbundet med os

because they are so connected to us,

and because of the time and connection.

og på grund af tiden og forbindelsen.

Og for resten, hvis man mener at IKEA brugsvejledningen ikke er god,

By the way, if you think IKEA instructions are not good,

what about the instructions that come with kids, those are really tough.

så tænk på brugsvejledningen der følger med børn.

Den er virkelig svær.

(Laughter)

(Latter)

By the way, these are my kids, which, of course, are wonderful and so on.

For øvrigt, så er dette mine børn, som, selvfølgelig, er vidunderlige og så videre.

Which comes to tell you one more thing,

Hvilket fortæller en endnu en ting,

which is, much like our builders,

som er, ligesom byggerne,

when they look at the creature of their creation,

når de ser på deres egen skabelse,

ser vi ikke at andre mennesker ikke ser det på vores måde.

we don't see that other people don't see things our way.

Lad mig give en sidste kommentar.

Let me say one last comment.

Hvis man tænker på Adam Smith versus Karl Marx,

If you think about Adam Smith versus Karl Marx,

Adam Smith had a very important notion of efficiency.

havde Adam Smith en meget vigtig ide om effektivitet.

He gave an example of a pin factory.

Han gav et eksempel på en nåle fabrik.

He said pins have 12 different steps,

Han sagde at nåle har 12 forskellige trin,

and if one person does all 12 steps, production is very low.

og hvis en person laver alle 12 trin, er produktionen meget lav.

But if you get one person to do step one,

Men hvis man får en person til at lave trin et

and one person to do step two and step three and so on,

og en person til at lave trin to og trin tre og så videre,

production can increase tremendously.

kan produktionen stige enormt.

And indeed, this is a great example,

Og bestemt, dette er et fantastisk eksempel og grunden til den industrielle revolution og effektivitet.

and the reason for the Industrial Revolution and efficiency.

Karl Marx, på den anden side,

Karl Marx, on the other hand,

said that the alienation of labor is incredibly important

sagde at fremmedgørelsen af arbejde er utrolig vigtig

in how people think about the connection to what they are doing.

i hvordan mennesker tænker på deres forbindelse med det de gør.

And if you do all 12 steps, you care about the pin.

Og hvis man laver alle 12 trin, bekymrer man sig om nålen.

But if you do one step every time, maybe you don't care as much.

Men hvis man laver et skridt hver gang, bekymrer man sig måske ikke lige så meget.

Og jeg mener at i den industrielle revolution,

I think that in the Industrial Revolution,

havde Adam Smith mere ret end Karl Marx,

Adam Smith was more correct than Karl Marx.

But the reality is that we've switched,

men virkeligheden er at vi er skiftet

og nu lever vi i en videns økonomi.

and now we're in the knowledge economy.

You can ask yourself, what happens in a knowledge economy?

Og man kan spørge sig selv, hvad sker der i en videns økonomi?

Is efficiency still more important than meaning?

Er effektivitet stadig mere vigtig end mening?

I think the answer is no.

Jeg mener svaret er nej.

I think that as we move to situations

Jeg mener, at i takt med at vi flytter til situationer

in which people have to decide on their own

hvor mennesker selv skal beslutte

about how much effort, attention, caring, how connected they feel to it,

om hvor meget umage, opmærksomhed, omsorg, hvor forbundet de føler sig med det,

tænker de på arbejdet på vej på arbejde og i brusebadet og så videre,

are they thinking about labor on the way to work,

and in the shower and so on,

all of a sudden Marx has more things to say to us.

og pludselig har Marx flere ting at fortælle os.

So when we think about labor,

Når vi tænker på arbejde, tænker vi typisk på motivation og betaling som den samme ting,

we usually think about motivation and payment as the same thing,

but the reality is that we should probably add all kinds of things to it --

men virkeligheden er at vi nok burde tilføje alle mulige ting til det --

meaning, creation, challenges, ownership, identity, pride, etc.

mening, skabelse, udfordringer, ejeskab, identitet, stolthed, osv.

The good news is that if we added all of those components

Og den gode nyhed er at hvis vi tilføjede alle de komponenter og tænkte over dem,

and thought about them --

hvordan vi skaber vores egen mening, stolthed, motivation,

how do we create our own meaning, pride, motivation,

and how do we do it in our workplace,

og hvordan vi gør det på arbejdspladsen og for de ansatte,

and for the employees --

I think we could get people to be both more productive and happier.

mener jeg vi kunne få folk til at være både mere produktive og mere glade.

Thank you very much.

Mange tak.

(Applause)

(Bifald)