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talked to software company

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200 engineers in room

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had worked on project which was supposedly the next visionary project for the company

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worked on it for two years

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a week before the CEO cancelled the project

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it was a demotivated group

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they reported that they began to come to work later, and go home earlier

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the CEO was seeing the workers as rats in a maze

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made them run in this direction for two years

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it wasn't a good direction anymore

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simply changed the direction

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many of these workers left the company after this experience

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asked them another question

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in what way could the CEO have cancelled this project in a way that would not be so demotivating

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ideas

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if he had allowed them to present the project in front of the whole company

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if he had allowed them to think about what aspects of this technology could be useful for other projects

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these ideas would take time and money

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but they would salvage meaning that is alive in the employees and which motivates them

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Google allows employees to work 20% of their time on their own projects

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one purpose of this is to develop useful projects

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another purpose is to help make people feel valuable and help maintain and nurture the meaning that they feel in the jobs