Customer Reviews

Primal Management: Unraveling the Secrets of Human Nature to Drive High Performance

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The essence of "Primal Management" is simply that it makes good business sense for employers to use intrinsic motivation (people's natural motives to work together) as a central principle of organizational effectiveness. People outside of management theory might find this to be common sense, but the merit of this book is that it isn't common sense in management theory at all. Management theory has traditionally focused on rational methods and a behavioristic view of motivation in terms of carrots and sticks. There are well known exceptions, but the exceptions have taken root in only a few companies.

Since the World War II era, management theory has kept coming back to the ideals of rational management, command and control, and carrots and sticks. This is not just a hyper-rationalist and Skinnerian prejudice, there are some good technical reasons for it as well. Organizations of more than a couple of hundred people generally cannot maintain a close cooperative social network naturally without some sort of structure and control, and "soft" motivations are difficult to track. Still, as Primal Management points out at length, a close cooperative social network is how we function at our best collectively. This is the principle of the "tribe" and we have not made very good use of it in most companies. This book offers procedures for making better use of it.

Primal Management takes this idea of maintaining a well functioning social network and applies basic command and control to that, with a new twist. The idea is to frequently and anonymously survey employees to determine how they feel about their work, and to plot the total on a control chart. This keeps the company leadship informed of how well they are motivating employees and the same data can also be used to determine what specific areas they should focus on to better motivate people.

The idea is not entirely new, but it has a good feel to it and there are some unique new twists. The catch is that the science behind this is very speculative. Scientific theories of motivation have been widely varied and as a result lack a detailed yet general enough basis to use this sort of motivational control system. So the author has come up with his own 5 scales of human social needs, based loosely on evolutionary psychology but mostly on the author's own reasoning about what it should take for a tribe to survive.

The overall approach seems like a very good idea, but the proof of the pudding will be empirical. Can companies actually use these scales to measure the meaningful motivation of their employees? Do these particular scales really carve employee motivation at the right places to allow fine tuning of employer incentives? The author suggests that seeing the organization as an extended tribe makes it possible to understand how to motivate them.

I like this approach, with four hesitations:

(1) The neuroscience is weak here, the author makes the seemingly obligatory mention of various brain areas and neurotransmitters in various places and then refers to Antonio Damasios work for more details, an exercise for the reader. So there isn't any real integration of neurology or cognitive neuroscience data into the theory at all. That's perhaps deliberate, since the author seems to be trying to step outside the existing models in order to provide some general guidance for organizations in an area where there is as yet no single consensus scientific theory.

(2) The overall theory appears to borrow freely from concepts used in evolutionary psychology nd anthropology, but it doesn't really cover the concepts themselves or their controversies very well. The "tribe" in this book is used in a way that assumes we all agree that human beings evolved to live in tight social networks. But this idea taken for granted here is really an endpoint of a long line of theorizing and data analysis in anthropology and human evolutionary studies, and there remain important onctroversies regarding the details.

(3) It isn't quite clear from the book how well the author has validated these scales. There are some basic techniques that are needed simply to determine whether the scales are reliably measuring something stable, regardless of what that something might be. These techniques for scale reliability are theory-agnostic, they simply tell you whether you are measuring *something* or just getting artbitrary numbers that vary in some unspecified complex way. As an employer, or a consultant to an employer, my first step would be to make sure I was reliably measuring something and not just mining data out of anonymous employee surveys.

(4) It isn't entirely clear how this theory gets around the natural limitations of human social networks, believed to be rooted in the limits of human working memory, in order to build a motivated cooperative group out of more than a couple hundred people. How exactly does a "tribe" get extended indefinitely to form an equally well functioning corporation of several thousand people? How would you prevent them from forming into multiple warring tribes? That this extension can be done to create a single extended tribe is a central assumption of Primal Management, but the details are very sketchy and mostly based on the existence of a couple of companies that seem to have managed it. It isn't clear to me whether Primal Management has really captured what makes those companies different organizationally, although the book's focus on employee intrinsic social motivations may well be a very good start.

So overall, I recommend this book as a fresh way to look at management that potentially makes much better use of real human motivations than we have traditionally done. Some of the details make need to be reviewed and altered, but it seems like a very good start.

I have read hundreds of books related to management, but this is the best one I've ever read. Rarely do I write reviews, and rarely do I use exclamation points (as I did in the review title!), but after reading "Primal Management", by Paul Herr, I wanted to make sure I got your attention.

For the first time ever, the secrets to what really motivates employees in any company, anywhere in the world, are revealed. What?

Sure, there have been many, many books, chapters of books, articles on the subject of "employee motivation" written; and if you're in business, the subject has undoubtedly come up a few hundred times in various meetings, to the point of "motivating" the meeting participants to doze off, wander off for another cup of coffee, or remain seated with that glazed look on their blank faces, pretending to be listening.

Paul Herr finally gets it right, because he had the audacity to "prove it" after three decades of research. Corporate America should be glad he was so persistent, because his findings will revolutionize the way Corporate America will be managing its employees, which so far, has been lousy. But we already knew that.

The beauty of Herr's findings, is its simplicity (yet why did it take us so long to figure it out?). Just like humans need food, clothing, shelter, and the desire to procreate (you know), they have an equally predictable "social appetite" which makes up the five components of employee motivation, which I'm going to quote, verbatim from a nice chart you'll find on page 27 of his book:

1) Cooperation (warm family feel)
2) Competency (self-esteem)
3) Skill deployment (elation experienced with a win)
4) Innovation (curiosity and the eureka pleasure)
5) Self-Protection (feelings of security)

These days, if you're the CEO of a company which has successfully avoided laying off any of its employees, chances are, you're already using the model, but didn't even know it.

Congratulations for using simple common sense. "Common semse" still lives in certain segements of society, and that's worth an exclamation point!

The fact of the matter (according to the Gallup Organization), only 31% of employees truly care about their work, meaning the other 69% don't care. So they prove it by doing a lousy job in whatever capicity of their organization they're screwing up.

This leads to the obvious conclusion: The reason Corporate America is failing and is begging the government for "bail-out money", is they stink at managing their employees! They thought they had to act like a "corporate hierarchy" in order to rule their empire, but that approach is antiquated and should suffer the same fate as the dinosaur---become extinct.

The new and improved Corporate America, by reading this book, and implementing its simple strategy, will have motivated, happy, and productive employees generating a great deal more profit for Corporate America. The Stimulis Package would never have been an issue, which in turn means that huge budget deficit we're facing wouldn't be such a problem.

Here's what got me so excited about "Primal Management". Herr's fairly conservative estimate of what this increased productivity would do for the economy: Add somewhere between one and two trillion dollars to Corporate America's bottom line! That wasn't a typographical error, and neither was that exclamation point I used in the prior sentence.

But when you're talking about that sort of impact on an economy which is currently on life support, it bears repeating: "Primal Management" has unlocked the secret to generating another one or two trillion dollars of revenue for this country. And I'm sure Wall Street wouldn't mind that at all. Can you say, "Bull Market"?

So yes, I recommend this book. Now go buy it!

Paul Herr delivers a fresh view of an old and overanalyzed subject. Management and the way organizations are run across the world has been subject of study for decades. For the last three decades the study of management has been filled with overworked concepts such as teambuilding, leadership, employee moral, motivation and more, and as managers try to apply this concepts, few really understand where they come from and how to make them transcend in the work place and in the company's long-term results. Paul shades a huge beam of light on the subject making an impressive and surprising move: Putting emotions at the core of people's performance in the workplace. His book is a well-structured and beautiful written masterpiece. Since Paul's approach is so defying to the traditional view of management, I expect few people to fully understand so many concepts in a brand new perspective, but this work will be slowly understood and will contribute to a revolutionary change in the ways corporations work and relate to their employees and even customers.

I've read hundreds of authors attempting to explain Human Performance. Paul Herr hit the nail on the head.
Primal Management by Paul Herr, presents secrets of unleashing Human potential and having fun in doing so.

What really motivates people capital, anywhere resides on the natural wiring Nature has programmed in the human brain.

Herr is elocuent and clear for a layperson to understand.

I am engaging my organization in the use of the horsepower metric, excellent tool at a very moderate price.

Readers won't be dissapointed.
Carlos

Since most people don't really like their jobs or their bosses, and their bosses don't really like them, a book like this one is a welcome relief.

Finally, there is a way for businesses to get back on track, and all it involves is using a little common sense. Simply create a work environment that is an enjoyable one for employees. This gets them engaged in the company's process of trying to make a decent profit, and now since they enjoy work, employees are doing their jobs well.

Sometimes, the simplest remedies are the most effective solutions to the problem. This almost sounds too good to be true, but Paul Herr's secret to business success is based on 30 years of research, unveiling five "social appetitites" that every employee has ingrained in their soul.

All that needs to happen now is for every manager in every company in the world read this book and implement its action plan. That's the tricky part, so I suppose we'll have to settle for a handful at a time.

Let's hope the handfuls keep getting bigger as time moves on. The price for noncompliance is very steep, and the world's economic crisis needs immediate attention.

Could more supportive and emotive managers and employees translate to a better bottom line? Or is Paul Herr's Primal Management just another one of the many management books littering the shelves which promises a management panacea? The answer lies somewhere in the unexplored ether which surrounds the often divergent sciences of management and psychology. Primal Management is a groundbreaking piece of literature which employs a multidisciplinary approach to determining key components for using unorthodox management skills to increase productivity, profit, and unprecedented employee satisfaction. This book is refreshingly unique due to Herr's brilliant intermingling of familiar concepts from the fields of biology and management science, along with the less familiar ideas such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data which suggests that emotions elicit biological responses.

The human being is a highly social creature capable of complex interaction with peers. Recent research suggests, though, that humans perform best in smaller groups. Robin Dunbar suggests that 150 people are the maximum amount of people with which one person can effectively maintain a genuinely bonded relationship. These assertions by Herr and Dunbar underscore the ethological/evolutionary psychological foundations of their research which suggests that, although we are far removed from our ancestral relationships, we continue to exhibit tendencies to operate most effectively within these groups of less than 200 and that this phenomenon is linked to our tribal roots.
In Primal Management, Herr proposes that because human beings are essentially placed in an artificial environment in today's workplace, they are no longer operating effectively. He blames the current model of management taught in business schools which advocates focus on profit first and personnel second for this crisis. He cites examples of three mavericks in the business world that have abandoned traditional management principles and realized dramatic increase in profits as well as a devoted workforce. Herr outlines how these innovative managers have created a super organism of employees who are held together not by extrinsic rewards, but through an invisible glue which binds them into a tight-knit group committed to working together. This type of approach has overtones of a collectivistic society referenced by Hofestede or Guanxi, advocated by the Chinese. These mavericks are unusual because they have broken away from the traditional and time-honored methods of management and gotten back to a more pre-industrialized approach. Prior to industrialization, tight-knit circles of skilled laborers were common, but this demographic shifted with the advent of mass production.
The basic underpinnings of management science tended to accentuate the need for profit and output, the proverbial bottom line, while effectively dismissing more humanistic elements such as emotions and social interaction. During America's industrial revolution human beings were essentially viewed much as the machinery which they operated: interchangeable pieces of a large machine which could be discarded if they became broken or lacked productivity. The very nature of industrialism emphasized quantity, often at the expense of quality. Mass production transformed the blacksmith, the tailor, and the farmer into a nameless, faceless employee among many. As the workplace transitioned into neo-classical management style and then into modern management principles, more attention was focused on the physical and emotional needs of the employees. Studies began to indicate that soft-skills and humanistic emphasis improved morale and motivation. While this was certainly a move in the right direction, it did not get at the heart of the issue. Terms such as "soft-skills" tended to relegate these properties to second place in favor of harder, more tangible skills such as logic and profit statements. This attitude was due in part to the intangible nature of human emotion. With the advent of MRI technology, scientists were finally able to document quantifiable biological changes in the human brain which corresponded with emotion.
Herr spent thirty years researching and gaining experience in the field in order to develop his theory for his readers. Herr combines concrete biological evidence in the form of MRI data with psychology and business concepts in order to paint a complete picture of good management techniques. These MRI studies suggest that the human brain responds to the chemical changes that occur when positive social encounters are experienced. "Feel-good" chemicals, such as oxytocin and vasopressin, are released and encourage the individual to repeat the desired behavior.
A commonly held belief in management circles is that most employees are motivated primarily by tangible rewards such as pay, while intangible rewards such as "atta-boys" take a backseat role. This idea is further supported by Abraham Maslow in his famous hierarchy of needs. Both psychology and business students alike are introduced at an early stage to the iconic triangle which purports that basic needs such as food and shelter must be met before moving on the next stages. Needs for acceptance and self-esteem are not commonly regarded as basic but are placed in a higher category only to be fulfilled in the proper order. In an apparent nod to Maslow, Herr updates the famous triangle recognized by psychologists and business scholars alike and transforms it to include corresponding emotional and biological appetites, which, in essence, gives equal billing to both biology and psychology. Furthermore, Herr suggests that emotion creates a biological reaction which is basically a pleasure/pain response. In a Maslovian fashion, Herr asserts that there are five social appetites which drive human beings: Self-protection, Innovation, Skill Deployment, Competency, and Cooperation. These social appetites have equally weighted biological appetites which drive humans as well. These appetites are, respectively, as follows: Nutrition, Energy Conservation, Protection of Body Proper, Breathing, and Reproduction. Traditionally trained managers might initially dismiss the idea that emotions belong in the workplace. However, Herr is urging his readers, particularly mangers, to adopt a syncretic approach when structuring their businesses.
It is sometimes easily forgotten that many of the concepts put forth in management science are derived from psychology and sociology. Management science is a relatively new science which is generally credited to Fredrick Taylor's attempt to figure out how to quantifiably manage the large amounts of workers coming into the factories during the industrial revolution. Herr urges his readers to bridge the chasm between psychology and management science by drawing lines which inextricably connect them together.
Herr's groundbreaking theory which seeks to codify two distinctly different approaches to management into one highly efficient and functional model expertly explained and supported by hard science which effectively dismisses the idea that emotion can be relegated to a substandard level of importance. While the average business student or professor may not be an expert on neuroscience, Herr is able to distill the essence of the emotional response into an understandable, yet undiluted format appealing to those with either business or psychology backgrounds and training.
Students are often taught that Fredrick Taylor is considered the father of scientific management, Lillian Gilbreth the mother of scientific management, and Wilhelm Wundt the father of psychology. As management science and psychology became more entwined, Industrial Organizational psychology was born. Herr's research is a crucial piece of literature in this field which hopefully will pave the way for further transdisciplinary collaborations among scholars who seek to use their expertise to inform other disciplines, while more thoroughly examining their own. Herr's bold approach to bridging the these sciences shouls arguably earn him the distinction of father of industrial organizational psychology.

What motivates employee's to do their best work? If we could answer this key question, then we can redesign organizations on a much stronger foundation which incorporates human motivation as a key component.

While researching culture, leadership and motivation, I stumbled across Paul Herr's book "Primal Management." Here was a book that finally brought clarity and logic to the complex people-side of the equation. It's not often that I find a book/concept/model that so clearly ties together so many different ideas, thoughts, theories and questions that I have wrestled with over several years into one coherent, usable model.

I always prefer ideas that are based on scientific research and I like to design changes based on the root causes of problems. Primal Management was exactly what I was looking for because it started with an analysis of our biological, hard-wired needs and then proceeded to create a practical frame-work/model that anyone could understand and use. I really appreciated the tie-in to the brain sciences; Herr's engineering approach, and the simplicity of the model. This is something I can use to build a motivational foundation beneath rational organizational processes and systems and thereby create a high-performance workplace where people can truly excel and grow.

This is a practical and logical approch and cimple way to gauge large scale change management activity. The argument for emotional reaction to an organization's culture and connecting to performance is very solid.

There's no doubt that Paul Herr's "Primal Management" seems like the logical way for businesses to motivate their employees. The only problem is, reality is getting in the way.

First of all, no matter how well the screening process for new employees performs, the simple fact of the matter is there's absolutely nothing in the world that will make some of these people really want to work for a living. They've come in with the notion that they need a paycheck, and no matter how you try to activate those five social appetitites in those people, some of them just aren't hungry for the whole five course meal.

There's no doubt most businesses don't do a very good job of getting their employees "engaged" in their work, but it's not necessarily management's fault. Unfortunately, we iive in a culture filled with people who don't give a damn about much of anything, so they meander through life, not really interested in doing anything productive. I wish I could explain it, but I see it every day.

Fortunately, most employees do want to be a valued member of their tribe, and will do everything in their power to fit in, and gain greater skills and greater rewards.

The next problem I see is the mindset of major corporations, and their reluctance to change anything significant in their "hierarchial" management structure. I'm sure they would envision utter chaos, although the way things are going, that seems to be what's happening right now.

There's no doubt changes have to be made in the way big business is mishandling their business. Herr's "Primal Management" concepts are a good place to start. If even one third of the CEOs adopted even bits and pieces of his great advice, that would be a major step in the right directon.

As far as this solving the massive problems of big business in particular, there are too many roadblocks to make that a smooth journey to success.

However, the theory is so beautifully simple, and makes so much sense, it still makes for a very fascinating and relevent guide to follow; if only people would listen.

Herr starts with a statement "Business..has pretended that emotions and feelings are irrational and unimportant. This is simply wrong". The rest of the book goes on to successfully prove this point.

He uses the scary statistic that only 31% of the employees truly care about thier company. If that true, there is great upside opportunity in our businesses.

He talks about 5 "appetites" or needs that all people have.

1) Cooperation - People want to work together in groups. Groups are more powerful. Successful leaders can grow teams that work harmoniously towards a common goal. People want to belong to a group.

2) Competency - People want to be competent. They also want recognition for this. There is a self esteem loop that occurs. Be competent, get recognition, be more competent etc. Successful companies and leaders can enhance this loop.

3) Skill deployment - people want to be allowed to use their skills. One of the challenges of the leader is to help people use and strengthen their unique abilities. Because everyone is unique, people are not just replaceable cogs. If anyone leaves, the company loses that persons' uniqueness.

4) Innovation - People are naturally curious and will come up with good ideas. Good leaders help nurture and encourage these.

5) Self-Protection - People are motivated to feel secure. One huge downside of the current turbulent times is this security is being threatened. Good leaders seek to create stability.

Herr makes the point that all decisions are first made with the emotions. We then go on to rationally justify our actions.

Herr sets a high bar for leaders. Walk the walk. Truly care for the people who work with you. Exceptional caring leads to loyalty and dedication.

Herr emphasizes the we based leadership style as opposed to the me based one. Good leaders trust their people, respect them, are polite to them and recognize that the only way to thrive in business is through their people. I am of the belief that the larger the company, the more the leader simply sets the tone or culture but in order to succeed, the people need to make the decisions. So decision making is not necessarily the job of a good leader.

This is a great book for any leader to read. Should be required reading for all CEOs.