Feel Good About Work

Management
Keynote
What makes us feel good about our work?,
Dan Ariely
B1–C2
Discussion
1 Work in groups. Discuss the questions.
1 What makes you feel good about your work: your salary, your workmates, the work itself, or
something else?
2 Think of a time when you worked particularly hard at your job. What motivated you?
3 If you manage people at work, where do your employees get their motivation? If you are
managed by someone else, how do they motivate you?
4 Are there any situations at work that make you feel less motivated? What are they?
Key words
2 Read this summary of Dan Ariely’s TED Talk, What makes us feel good about our work? Match
the words and phrases in bold with their definitions (1–14).
Why do people work? Dan Ariely doesn’t think it is as simple as giving people money and bonuses
to motivate them. This ignores the evidence of people’s actual behaviour within the labour
market. Dan Ariely and his team ran several experiments which showed that there is more to the
fruits of our labour than just income. Meaningful work, creation, a sense of progress,
acknowledgment of work done, a sense of ownership and pride are all important. We derive
motivation from these feelings and can be happier and more productive. The lessons are simple:
we care about the challenge of reaching the end and are demotivated by futile work done over
and over where our effort is not even acknowledged. So it’s easy for employers to crush job
satisfaction by ignoring effort or assigning meaningless tasks; but it is equally easy to motivate, by
simply acknowledging effort, and makes good business sense to do so.
1 achieving or doing a lot ____________________

2 destroy ____________________
3 extra money that employers pay in addition to the normal salaries ____________________
4 good results from working hard ____________________
5 important to you for some reason ____________________
6 not having any enthusiasm for what you do ____________________
7 to be seen or noticed ____________________
8 get something from something ____________________
9 accepting that something exists and is important ____________________
10 repeatedly, many times ____________________
11 the feeling that you are going somewhere or improving ____________________
12 the way that somebody does things or acts ____________________
13 the world of work, in which people find jobs, companies find workers and salaries are decided
____________________
14 useless ____________________
Page | 1
Management
What makes us feel good about our work?
Comprehension
3 Watch Dan Ariely’s talk on TED.com from 0.11–9.00. Choose the correct option (a, b or c)
according to the speaker.
1 Humans are compared to rats in a maze because some people think
a they cannot escape their jobs.
b if we give them money, they will do what we want them to.
c they don’t care about anything except themselves.
2 Mountain climbing stories show us that

a we have to work hard to be happy.
b we enjoy doing things more than once.
c we do things for all kinds of reasons.
3 The student became depressed after

a he realized his work was useless.
b his boss told him he didn’t like his PowerPoint presentation.
c he got tired from working extra hours.
4 In Dan Ariely’s Lego experiment, the first condition was meaningful because
a participants thought people would see the Lego Bionicles they made.
b participants could keep their Bionicles if they wanted.
c their Bionicles were not destroyed immediately.
5 In the second condition of this experiment, completed Bionicles

a were destroyed and put back in their boxes.
b were destroyed and given back to the participants.
c were destroyed and thrown away.
6 The results of the Lego experiment showed that

a people prefer building Legos to building bridges.
b people refuse to do work if it is futile, even when they are paid.
c even a small difference in how meaningful a task is affects motivation.
7 In the ‘Sisyphus’ (futile) condition, participants who loved Legos built

a more Bionicles than participants who didn’t like Legos.
b the same number of Bionicles as participants who didn’t like Legos.
c fewer Bionicles than participants who didn’t like Legos.
8 The mistake that the software company in Seattle made with 200 of its engineers was
a they ignored the importance to the engineers of the work they were doing.
b they made them leave their jobs even though they were innovators.
c they wasted their time building Lego models.
4 Work in groups. Dan Ariely asked the engineers at the software company what their CEO could
have done to make them less depressed. Predict what the CEO could have done. Then watch
the talk from 9.00–9.54 and compare your ideas with the engineers’ ideas.
Page | 2
Management
The big idea
5 Work in groups. Discuss the questions.
1 What do Dan Ariely’s experiments tell us about motivation at work?
2 Are there any areas of your work or tasks that you and your colleagues perform that are similar
to a) mountain climbing, and b) Sisyphus’ task of rolling a stone up a hill, as described by Dan
Ariely?
3 How useful are the experiments Dan Ariely describes? Are the conclusions he draws from them
surprising to you? Why? / Why not?
Language focus – motivation at work

6 Reorder the words to make answers to the questions. Then watch the TED Talk from 6.52−9.54
again and check your answers.
1 Why did people who love Lego build more Bionicles for less money?
They got ... from / internal / it / joy / more
______________________________________________________________________________
2 And the people who don’t enjoy Lego so much?
The ... derive / enjoyment / from / is / it / lower / that / they
______________________________________________________________________________
3 What was the effect of breaking their work in front of people’s eyes?
It ... activity / any / could / crushed / get / joy / of / out / that / they / this
______________________________________________________________________________
4 What signs were there that the engineers were demotivated at work?
They ... and / earlier / home / later / showed / to / up / went / work
______________________________________________________________________________
5 Why didn’t the CEO do anything to make the engineers less depressed?
The CEO ... did / importance / meaning / not / of / the / understand
______________________________________________________________________________
6 What could the CEO have done?
He could have ... about / and / care / doing / effort / getting / more / in / people / spent /
they’re / time / to / what
______________________________________________________________________________
7 Complete the sentences so that they are true for you.

1 The enjoyment I derive from work is highest when ____________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________ .
2 I get more joy out of activities that _________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________ .
3 I feel a sense of progress when ____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________ .
4 I would feel demotivated at work if ________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________ .
5 One way I think you can get people to care more about their work is to ___________________
_____________________________________________________________________________ .
Page | 3
Management
Speaking
8 Work in groups. You manage a small team within your industry or field of expertise who have
been working on a project. Decide what the team is working on. It could involve one or more of
the following elements.
 a presentation
 a survey
 a proposal for a new product, marketing campaign, purchase, etc.
 a financial report
9 You have just learnt that the project is to be cancelled (think of a reason) and that the team
needs to start a different project without completing this one. Come up with some ideas about
how to acknowledge the time and effort they have spent on the project in order to avoid the
team feeling demotivated.
10 Compare your ideas with those of other groups. Which ideas best reflect the lessons learnt
from Dan Ariely’s experiments?
Page | 4

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Management

1 achieving or doing a lot ____________________

2 Mountain climbing stories show us that

3 The student became depressed after

5 In the second condition of this experiment, completed Bionicles

6 The results of the Lego experiment showed that

7 In the ‘Sisyphus’ (futile) condition, participants who loved Legos built

Language focus – motivation at work

7 Complete the sentences so that they are true for you.

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