Secrets of the Seeking System: My Review of Alive At Work
This week I reviewed the book Alive At Work by Daniel M. Cable. The book is a deep dive into the concept of the "seeking system" and how it applies to the modern workplace. In a nutshell, the seeking system is a name for the biological system that encourages us to seek out new experiences. From the book: “The seeking system is the part of the brain that encouraged our ancestors to explore beyond Africa. And that pushes us to pursue hobbies until the crack of dawn and seek out new skills and ideas just because they interest us.” The way work is conducted at most organizations today is inadvertently designed to suppress our seeking system instead of taking advantage of it.
I’ve always been the kind of person to rail against pointless reports and other rote processes that don’t provide much value (I'm sure I'm not alone in that regard). This book helped me understand that attitude in the context of our brain’s systems. Our ‘seeking system’ is activated when we are allowed to be creative and experiment. By contrast, our ‘fear system’ is activated when we do things in order to avoid punishment. If you’ve ever followed a process just to avoid being written up (and not because the process itself made sense) you’ve experienced the fear system in action.
Most of the book is spent going over three triggers of the seeking system: Self-expression, experimentation, and purpose. Self-expression involves people feeling like they can be authentic to themselves at work. Experimentation involves letting people feel curious and try new things at work. Purpose involves helping people see the impact of their work and figure out why they do what they do. All of these triggers engage the seeking system and let employees feel more enthusiastic at work.
The book covers many practical ways to engage with the seeking system. For example, some companies (including the Make-a-Wish Foundation and Novant Health) allow their employees to choose their own titles. By thinking about what their title should be, employees activated the self-expression trigger for the seeking system and felt more enthusiastic about their roles. At Novant this created an 11 percent decrease in burnout across time!
I liked reading this book and recommend it for those looking for a deeper understanding of the science behind enjoying work. In particular, I think the concepts of the seeking system and the fear system are useful tools for evaluating new processes. If you're going to implement a new process, think about whether it engages with the seeking system (through one of the triggers) or with the fear system. Your process will be more successful if it uses the seeking system.