Dan Pink explains what bosses get wrong: they micromanage instead of setting big goals and stepping back, they think employees listen when employees are actually watching what they do, and they skip explaining why work matters. Purpose beats perks.
Dan, as someone who's written several blockbuster books about business, what are a few things that bosses still don't understand?
Well, number one, they don't understand that people despise micromanagement and you despise micromanagement. So don't be a micromanager, be a macromanager. Set big goals and give people autonomy. Number 2, bosses out there, your employees listen to you a lot less than you think and watch you a lot more than you think. So model the behavior that you want. Number 3, the single most important thing most cost-effective performance enhancer you have is explaining to people and showing people why they're doing what they're doing, why what they're doing matters to what the company is doing and what its mission is.
