Daniel Pink

And would it have any effect on the world?

And if the answer is no, then my hunch is that

you're not going to be around that much longer, and what you're doing isn't all that satisfying.

And if you move into something as difficult as it is that is a little bit more satisfying and actually answers the question that people would care if you went away, then I think you're going to have greater satisfaction and greater job security.

No, but I actually think they do.

I think the call center thing we talked about is a way to... I think that any kind of job has room for autonomy, and we see this over and over again.

You saw it with the Zappos call center example.

You see it with an interesting...

A study that I write about of hospital janitors, okay, not a job that most of us would covet.

There were some hospital janitors who saw the job essentially in that one way where they said, okay, my job is to come in at a certain time, sweep the floors, and get out.

In other environments where managers, people leading these hospitals, maybe encouraged janitors to think of their jobs a little bit differently.

Say, you know, if you're going in a cleaning room, feel free to talk to the patient, see how they're doing.

talk to the nurses and say, hey, these janitors are pretty clued in about what's going on.

If you have a question or need something done, don't hesitate to ask them.

Well, suddenly these janitors who were able to sculpt their jobs a little bit, lo and behold, they report higher job satisfaction.

There's less turnover.

They're more likely to move up the ranks.

So even in a job that most of us wouldn't covet, cleaning floors in a hospital, there's room for tapping people's

intrinsic motivation.

And again, it's not this kind of nicey-nice thing.