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You Must Pay for Performance, Right?

It is very late when you arrive home. You turn on the answering machine. There's a message from your doctor about a test you had taken. The doctor says: “Be in my office at 8:00 sharp tomorrow morning!”¹

Suddenly you feel very stressed. You are filled with apprehension and fear. You are losing the sense of control you felt you had over your life, and your work.

You are now also in a low performance domain. Just try to read, or think, or do a complex task. In fact you are now about 1/20^th as productive as you are when you are at your best.

It is Monday morning. Your boss stops by your office. He touches your shoulder and says, “Every day I thank God that you are in charge of this department. I don't know how we could have managed without you!”

You feel both humble and grateful. You are filled with a deep sense of joy. Your work now seems meaningful and rewarding. You are in a high performance domain.

In this domain, obstacles don't faze you. You are able to address and remove them. You can now reach goals that you have helped set.

Note that the reality that exists around these two incidents has not changed. It is your perspective on that reality that has changed.

The doctor who left you a message could have expressed himself in a way that would not have induced such fear and apprehension. Your boss could have decided to walk by your office without saying a word.

Isn't it astonishing that we, if we know how, can create high, or low, performance in both ourselves and others at will? Isn't it remarkable that we can do it at any time, in any place? And do you know that we have good data that tell us that attitude explains about half of our performance in any given situation?

But we work for money, don't we?

I think the only way you could get thousands of Minnesotans to drive to Grand Forks, ND, to work around the clock making sand bags to stem surging floodwaters would be by NOT paying them.

We actually don't primarily work for money. In studies, money ranks anywhere from 5^th to 7^th on the list of why we work.

We work for acceptance, intimacy, fellowship, achievements, recognition, personal growth and development, feeling useful and appreciated, and for a noble purpose.

It is certainly good to be paid for work. But, Frederick Herzberg showed that beyond a certain level, income ceased to motivate people. In fact, some chose to work less as their income rose.²

I once needed to raise money for an organization that I had helped found called “Ski for Light” and for a rehabilitation center for handicapped people called the Vinland National Center..Ski for Light is devoted to teaching blind people how to ski. At that time, cross-country skiing was not very common in the U.S., and certainly not among blind people. The idea came from Norway, and a number of bright and dedicated people from the Sons of Norway, organizations for the blind, and civic leaders came together to make it happen.

My task was to go to Oslo, Norway and persuade the Norwegian Ski Association (Skiforeningen) to send qualified ski instructors to the U.S. We would arrange for homes for them to stay in and appearances at schools and public events all over the Midwest and the Western states. The media would cover these events, and money would be raised in many different ways.

The response took our breaths away! 445 skiers arrived in the U.S. at their own expense in two chartered DC-10 airplanes. They were all dressed in the Norwegian Olympic uniform. Many of them were champion skiers. Just to watch them glide in a prepared track in a school yard was an aesthetic experience. They skied down the Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis during a busy lunch hour. They skied with children on several Indian reservations. They skied at schools, on small town Main Streets, and on college campuses. They were on TV, radio, and in newspapers all over the U.S.

At the end of their stay, they all gathered in St. Paul to march in the annual Winter Carnival parade. Those who were there on that magical winter's day saw a sight they would never forget. Marching in rows of 8, the smartly dressed skiers filled the hall in front of the Grandstand from entrance to exit. On a signal from their leader, Reidar Alveberg, they all “presented arms” with their skis to the VIPs in perfect unison.

The applause from the crowd was deafening. The national TV crew did NOT go to a commercial break, but let the moment pass into Winter Carnival history, live and unedited.

We raised enough money to get both Ski for Light off the ground and to support the Vinland National Center.. They are now both thriving organizations.

The sale of cross-country skis skyrocketed in the U.S. We had helped make cross-country skiing common place!

How could all this happen so quickly, and with such incredible results?

We all shared a noble goal. We were all volunteers. We reached across the Atlantic and drew upon the expertise and goodwill of a country that had provided Minnesota with 800,000 people of Norse descent. They willingly transferred their love of skiing, and their love of winter, to us.

Roy Eide was President of the Sons of Norway organization at the time. It was this organization that provided all of the homes for the skiers to stay in and thousands of volunteers. Roy and I had lunch last month and I asked him what was the most memorable reward from serving as President during that year?

“The Ski for Light event,” he said, without hesitation.

We looked at each other. We may have forgotten all of the hard work we did.

But, we had not forgotten how it felt.

Peak performance is emotional. Even the memory of it.

I know.

Because Roy Eide and I both had tears in our eyes.