figured I was in a dance show and I can
dance with never mind I’ve got a
question for you why is it so many
people have a shitty job or maybe I
should ask do you have a shitty job now
I won’t ask for a raise of hands because
I guess you all have find jobs your TEDx
audience I get that but listen carefully
to some friends of yours in a bar when
you’re discussing work are they
typically happy or do they tell stories
like well the energy is really being
sucked out of me at work I hate it
because of my boss my co-workers
whatever why is that why can’t a job
just be like and why do you want to
listen to me that’s also a good question
maybe that let me get me some street
credibility to you guys my name is
Walter Smith and I’m Dutch as you might
hear I’m from Delft I’m a physicist by
study I can program and I started my own
company a software company and I did
pretty well took from 20 years but I
have some 550 employees now in nine
countries so we did something right
and I never imagined that we could get
there but the most amazing story is we
at some point applied for a best
employer kind of survey if it’s cool
like we want to see how you set yourself
apart so people had to fill in
questionnaires and then we were being
called by professor who did this survey
she was a professor in organizational
psychology she wants to visit us not
fine Miami’s doom then it turned out
that we were very high up in at ranking
especially on employee satisfaction it
was so high that she thought that we had
a North Korean style of filling in that
survey basically she just wanted to
check whether or not fraudsters we
weren’t then she invited me to one of
her lectures at university okay it’s
cool and novelty for me I want to do
so she gave a lecture to an audience to
free young students or so and then I had
to come up and she introduced me as
follows dear class I’ve got a confession
to make I fallen in love it’s a bit
weird for a women of my age but I’ve
fallen in love with a company and I
figured are you talking to my company
it’s kind of weird isn’t it not a data
point at one point in time we got an
email from a client of ours fairly large
corporate and basically asked can we
please have a chat with someone in
management or HR or an MD or something
yeah why do you want that
well we noticed that you’re a nice
company how’s that I had a chat with her
and she’s basically said well I’ve
worked in this industry for quite some
years and I’ve worked with a lot of
vendors but every single employee of
yours is so nice and so helpful and they
don’t well vis each other off you know I
don’t know this one oh I thought it was
my colleague every single one how do you
do that
turned out that she was in the midst of
a Kerch cultural reorganization kind of
program and she wanted to get some
inspiration there so apparently what we
have and what we do gets noticed by
people that’s why you might want to
listen to now what is this all about
yeah I wouldn’t for myself as well to be
honest what is it that makes this
company apparently the people like to
work there this professor helped me out
a bit and she hinted at a theory it’s a
novel theory it’s by Douglas McGregor if
you’ve got internet look it up it’s from
the 60s and it’s very simple theory I
like that to be honest it says there’s
two kinds of persons X type Y type and
the X type are the ones that think that
people do not want to work at all
they hate work the only way you can get
them to work is by the stick and carrot
method and the y kind of people think
people want to work because they think
it’s fun it’s it’s a joyful thing to
work as for yourself are your ex
I along trails cancer I guess your TEDx
o @y right and i figured yeah that’s it
that’s it i I fundamentally believe in
in the Y type I fundamentally believe
that people want to work that is fun
that I don’t need to stick in carrots
and by the way I’m very lousy at using
the stick so it doesn’t work for me
anyway so it’s easier right
you just have a company that thinks why
is it and then you’re done
no that’s not how it works that would be
fluffy right that will be the drinking
llama hugging World Peace kind of stuff
and that’s not how it works
but I started to realize that we did
something which promoted that and that
something was very simple employee
selection we just took great effort in
picking employees that fit that @y model
we were looking for why kind of people
and how do we do that now very simple a
you take very big troubles in talking to
people who want to work for you for it
for your new applicants and if I mean a
lot of talking I mean a lot of talking
so like we do two interviews of two
hours each with two of us for every
single applicant and the first interview
is only about soft stuff
about your history about your life and
what I realized what we did in
interviews is talk to people and I
wanted to see a blink in their eye
somewhere in their life I wanted to be
very happy about something they did and
I don’t care what could be organizing a
football tournament a party enjoying a
voluntary or anything but I want to see
that bling I want to see that you’re
engaged to something because if you can
do that you might be able to do it in my
company as well I make my errors there I
mean it’s not that we could do it in one
go and I had some painful things there
but in the end we started to get there
so what basically happens is if you’ve
got a lot of people and your hand-picked
them that are why type they are going to
be yeah let’s use the word self
propelled you don’t have to do anything
they’re just having fun doing their jobs
oh yeah you gotta have them a bit smart
of course that helps as well and if you
have that you can just let them go you
can give them freedom because they won’t
misuse it because they’re having fun
doing the job so if you come to our
offices yes we have the obligatory what
you have it we station and foosball and
and everything and some people think
when they join for a tour the company I
get it you’re a fun company because
you’ve got those gimmicks no that’s not
it the gimmicks are there because people
said hey Walter can we have a football
table why because it’s fun okay and
they’re playing with it and now we’re
not checking on them because it’s it’s
just awesome if you can just relax at
some point in time if you’re fed up with
what you were doing and then have a chat
with your colleagues and by doing so the
good thing is you get an exchange of
ideas again and you get to know your
co-workers better it’s just more fun so
handpick the people find why kind of
people and create an environment and a
secure environment where people can just
try things out and if you make a mistake
it’s not bad because hey you’re trying
to get somewhere now it’s not a hard and
fast rule right and I ask the question
are you X or Y and you want for yourself
you probably said why I guess but are
you a hundred percent why that’s a great
world out there right so so people will
have a mix of the both some will be more
white some will be more X and this is
where the second secret ingredient comes
in you gotta have people leading the
bunch managers that are aware of this
that are aware some people are more why
and some people are more X and sometimes
people will have X behavior and you got
an X on it if you’re screwing other
people do something about it as a team
lead because you’re screwing up for the
whole of the company for a whole group
that’s bad just
address it or and it’s also very
important and very difficult if people
are in their job as a team neat you have
to watch them and try to figure out are
they enjoying themselves
can I see them laughing now and then are
they energetic or aren’t they and if so
why it’s probably not because they hate
work it’s because the work they’re doing
doesn’t fit what they want to do now
they’ve grown or they’ve they want to go
another direction so what do you do as a
team lead then ask them just in a
personal conversation hey I’ve been
looking at you I think you you’re not
having fun anymore why is it yeah yeah
good you notice no and I’m feeling bad
about this because I like to go that way
fine let’s talk about it and again you
need the secure environment for a person
to be able to say to his teammate no I’m
not having fun here if both parties feel
and accept that we’re both trying to get
someone in a place where they can be
energetic it’s better for everyone and
luckily my company has grown over time
so it’s way easier to try to get a
person to another place in the company
where this person can get more energy
out of the work they’re doing and maybe
we can’t and that’s sad but not a big
problem right you know there’s other
companies in the world that are also
cool and well and you can go there as
well but don’t stay with your company if
you’re not having fun it’s a long life
you have to leave this live basically so
what should you take away with this if
you’re an employer or think about
starting your own organization or maybe
you work in a voluntary organization in
kind of managerial role make a decision
for itself do I want to be an X type of
organization or a wide type do I want to
use the stick in carrots or do I want to
have the self-propelled people if you do
now pick them make an effort in hand
picking the very
people that fit the y model and then
give them freedom and you’ll you’ll see
cool things will happen and good thing
for me as well I can lie in a hammock
right because most people just do work
if you’re not if you’re an employee
that’s also fine now ask yourself am I
an X or Y person so what kind of company
do you want to work for but more
importantly am I having fun in my job
and if not please do something about it
it’s your life you make a better world
for everybody if you just try to find
that job that really suits what you want
to do and here’s the hard part that that
that job that that really the something
that you like might pay you less because
well it’s what you like not what you got
a lot of money from but maybe that’s the
better choice to make
because you don’t want to spend your
life doing a shitty job thank you very
much [Applause]