Researchers at Harvard conducted a modest study examining how the treatment of finished work affects persistence. Male participants paid to build Lego Bionicle models constructed significantly more units when their completed creations remained visible on the desk compared to when those same pieces were immediately disassembled and reused.
The experiment, documented in Dan Ariely, Emir Kamenica and Dražen Prelec's 2008 paper Man's Search for Meaning: The Case of Legos, involved forty male undergraduates split into two randomly assigned groups. Both groups received identical compensation: $2 for the first model, declining by 11 cents per subsequent model until reaching a floor of two cents.
A finished object could stay finished for a while
The first group, assigned to the Meaningful condition, saw their assembled models accumulate on the desk throughout the session. The second group, placed in the Sisyphus condition, experienced immediate dismantling of each completed model while they continued building with the recycled pieces. The actual assembly task remained unchanged between conditions.
In a subsequent TED talk about motivation, Ariely stressed the subtlety of this distinction. The participants were assembling toys, and even the preserved models faced eventual disassembly. No permanent monument was being created, nor was there an obvious social purpose. Yet the difference between temporary preservation and instant destruction produced measurably different willingness to continue working.
The permanence of the finished models was never intended to be lasting. This aspect of the design makes the findings particularly useful for analysis. Experiencing completion and witnessing that completion persist can constitute its own meaningful experience, even when the final destination of the object is unremarkable. A finished product provides a task with a recognizable conclusion. Immediately repurposing its components obscures that conclusion.
The result concerns a decision to keep going
An important caveat distinguishes between constructing additional units before stopping versus completing each unit more rapidly. The headline reflects the former. Interpreting this as a general productivity boost would mischaracterize what the comparison actually demonstrates.
Extrapolating from group averages to predict team performance would demand substantially more research. A brief, isolated laboratory task excludes compensation structures, career advancement, team dynamics, competing priorities and the ramifications of declining work. These factors constitute essential elements of actual employment, not peripheral considerations.
Furthermore, differences between group averages do not apply uniformly to individuals. Certain participants in one condition may have worked longer than some in the other. An average summarizes observations; it does not function as a universal principle applicable to every person entering a workplace.
The more precise question is whether the handling of completed work might affect whether undertaking the next task appears worthwhile. This inquiry addresses both the work environment and the individual performing it.
Workplace diaries offer a different perspective
A distinct research initiative provides evidence from functioning organizations. Harvard Business School's account of The Progress Principle features Teresa Amabile's work with Steven Kramer examining approximately 12,000 diary entries from 238 employees across seven companies.
The diary entries connected advancement in significant work to improved emotional states, judgments and drive. Obstacles appeared frequently in accounts of difficult days. Incremental progress proved valuable, not merely the infrequent occasion when a full project reached completion. Amabile also identified structural factors including transparent objectives, adequate tools, decision-making freedom and assistance.
This constitutes supporting evidence rather than a replication of the Bionicle research. Diaries capture experiences within organizational settings; controlled experiments isolate particular task characteristics. These methodologies address distinct questions and carry distinct constraints. Their shared focus is the examination of how effort changes during a person's working hours.
Revision can still be useful work
Taking the findings literally would provide poor guidance for product development. Prototypes undergo deconstruction, software undergoes rewriting and manuscripts undergo rejection—all for sound reasons. Retaining everything would introduce separate complications. The meaningful distinction lies in whether a revision serves a purpose that participants comprehend.
Consider an engineering group instructed to reconstruct a component following a test failure. When the test reveals a defect and the revised design addresses it, the discarded version has furnished understanding. The object vanishes while the initiative advances.
Contrast this with the same group repeatedly rebuilding the component due to an unexplained directive that keeps reversing decisions. The manual labor might appear identical, but the narrative of accomplishment differs fundamentally. These represent illustrative examples, not scenarios examined in the Harvard research.
Repetition by itself does not establish meaninglessness.
A small experiment, a concrete question
The Bionicle findings do not demonstrate that purpose can substitute for fair compensation, or that an encouraging narrative transforms an unmanageable workload into something acceptable. Such assertions would far exceed the scope of a choice about assembling another toy. The experiment proves most instructive when its limited scope remains apparent.
The study directs focus toward an often-overlooked element: what transpires following completion. Does a tangible outcome exist, does learning transfer forward, or does an explanation accompany the next iteration? These considerations grant completion significance within an ongoing endeavor.
A collection of plastic figures represents a minimal achievement. In this experiment, that small distinction was sufficient to transform whether building another model seemed worthwhile.
Source: Silicon Canals
