book review of drive by daniel pink

Book review: ‘Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us’ by Daniel Pink

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“If I kick my dog (from the front or the back), he will move. And when I want him to move again what must I do? I must kick him again,” psychologist Frederick Herzberg wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 1968. But that kind of management produces movement, not motivation, he said.

Daniel Pink’s new book “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” published by Riverhead, contains no mention of Herzberg, and that rings an alarm bell.

Not that it has any shortage of references to psychological and other academic research.

The author, a speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore from 1995 to 1997 and rapidly acquiring international guru status, does what the best contemporary gurus do.

He breezily assembles a large selection of experts to support his thesis: that businesses have failed to understand what really motivates people, and are thus stuck, deploying ineffective and sometimes even counterproductive measures in a doomed attempt to raise performance.

The book is short, punchy, energetic and not subtle.

It is a counterblast against the idea that extrinsic motivation — often financial incentives — is more effective than intrinsic motivation, which is the desire that comes from within.

The dominant view, the author says, is that “the way to get us moving in the right direction is by dangling a crunchier carrot or wielding a sharper stick.”

Pink draws attention to the wealth of research that suggests that as far as human motivation is concerned, something far more interesting and potentially more powerful takes place.

Give human beings the possibility to achieve three things — autonomy, mastery and purpose — and you will have little need for crude incentives.

Under the heading of autonomy, for example, Google Inc. employees are free to spend up to 20% of their time pursuing new projects. He quotes one Google engineer who told the New York Times: “If your 20% idea is a new product, it’s usually pretty easy to just find a few like-minded people and start coding away.”

At Google, the power of “a few like-minded people” choosing to collaborate should not be underestimated.

Mastery involves people “forgetting themselves in a function,” as the poet W.H. Auden put it.

It is required to achieve that elusive quality known as “flow,” a term popularized by the Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. But mastery requires hard work. Again, he suggests, the motivation to commit to sustained effort is more likely to come from within than from without.

Lastly, purpose can play a big part in raising performance. “Purpose maximization is taking its place alongside profit maximization as an aspiration and a guiding principle.”

Predictably, Pink points the finger at misguided incentives as having played a big part in the financial crisis. “A bad case of extrinsically motivated myopia,” he writes. “The very premise of extrinsic incentives is that we’ll always respond rationally to them. But even most economists don’t believe that anymore.”

Pink is no economist. But he is an engaging writer who challenges and provokes. Even if he overstates his case, he also succeeds in providing some answers as to why managers’ efforts to motivate staff can often prove so fruitless.

Stern is a columnist for the Financial Times of London, in which this review first appeared.

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Watch CBS News

Review: Drive, by Daniel Pink

By Elizabeth Spiers

Updated on: January 29, 2010 / 10:13 AM EST / MoneyWatch

Imagine three scenarios: In the first, you see a review of Daniel Pink's new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us on MoneyWatch.com and you feel compelled to read it because your boss really loves books by Daniel Pink, the bestselling author of A Whole New Mind . And if you don't really love books by Pink, you're going to be on the receiving end of squinty-eyed glares from said boss that translate to, "you have just moved from my inner circle to the professional Siberia that is (cue ominous bass notes from Jaws ) my outer circle." We'll call this the "stick" scenario.

In the second scenario, I'm paying you 10 bucks to read my review. (Which you're now 120 words into, so you've already earned $1.38, on a pro rata basis.) That'll be the "carrot" scenario. If you've been carrot-and-sticked before — and who hasn't? — this probably feels familiar.

But consider a third scenario: Let's say you read my review simply because you want to learn more about motivation, because you're determined to really understand it, and because you feel that there's some greater value in understanding motivation generally. We'll call that the "this is what Daniel Pink's new book is about" scenario.

And therein lies the beauty. Forget bonuses. (Expensive!) Forget punishments. (Awkward!) Your creative employees will work just fine on their own because they want to. Because they enjoy the work.

According to Pink, the third scenario is optimal because people are best motivated not by the old, supposedly reliable carrot-and-stick incentives but by “intrinsic motivation,” wherein the performance of the task is its own reward — when work doesn’t feel like work.

Motivation 3.0

Pink explains intrinsic motivation as a natural evolution from earlier modes of motivation. The earliest, which Pink calls “motivation: 1.0,” is a biological drive — everything you’d find at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy . Like all other animals, we’re motivated by a need for survival.

But as humans became more social and survival needs changed, “motivation 2.0” emerged and we began to respond to external motivators, or rewards and punishments. Pink maintains that conventional wisdom about what facilitates peak performance and optimal creativity is grounded in assumptions we make about motivation 2.0. We’re all familiar with bonuses and disciplinary action as modern management tools. But they don’t always work.

In fact, they’re far less effective for people who are driven by “motivation 3.0” — an intrinsic motivation characterized by the desire to have autonomy over what one is doing, to master it in some way and to do in the service of some higher purpose.

Less Cash, More Creativity?

Pink argues that intrinsic motivation leads to more creative outcomes over the long term in part because people who are intrinsically motivated are more persistent. As an illustration, Pink describes an experiment conducted by Karl Duncker in the 1930s: Subjects were given a candle, a box of tacks and a book of matches resting on a table flush against a wall and asked to affix the candle to the wall in way that would prevent wax from dripping onto the table. Another psychologist, Sam Glucksberg, repeated the experiment, but told one group of subjects they would receive $5 for completing the task quickly and told another group that they were merely being observed to see how long the task would take. Somewhat counter-intuitively, the group without the cash incentive completed the task faster. The creative solution is to recognize that the box itself is a key tool required to complete the task. Apparently, the monetary reward actually stifles creativity.

While Drive is guilty of some of the more annoying and ubiquitous business book clich s — needless redundant explanations of straightforward concepts and the point-0 taxonomy that will make it seem extremely dated in a decade or two (3.0 anything is a little too 2007), it offers practical advice that is all the more useful because these core psychological principles are rarely translated into management.

One is that rewards in the form of tangibles — bonuses, higher salaries, promotions — can often be de-motivating. They work well for routine assignments based on specific rules or “algorithmic tasks.” (Think: boring, repetitive work.) But for tasks that require creative thinking and present no obvious formula-based solution, or “heuristic tasks,” they narrow focus and often result short-term and short-sighted solutions.

Another valuable insight is that people are the most productive and satisfied when their work puts them in a state that provides them with the most satisfaction, known as “flow”— more commonly recognized as being “in the zone.” In the flow state, the participant experiences a heightened sense of focus and a generally higher sense of satisfaction. What we know about flow is mostly based on the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, whose seminal book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience , described flow as the moment at which “a person’s body or mind is stretched to the limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

Taking a page from Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman, who are best known as the inventors of the Type A/Type B behavioral classifications that have littered career surveys and self-help quizzes since the 1950s, Pink suggests that we begin to experience flow and the resulting peak performance when we move from “Type X” behavior to “Type I” behavior. Type I personalities, as defined by Pink, are motivated by intrinsic rewards, whereas Type X personalities are motivation 2.0 people. Type X is short-term oriented, Type I is long term.

How to Change Your Team

So how to move yourself — and your team — from Type X to Type I? Pink offers three critical conditions for a motivation 3.0 environment in the second part of the book: Give people autonomy over what they’re doing and how they do it, an opportunity to master it and a sense of purpose in doing it in the first place. Pink points to instances of practical implementations of this — most notably, Best Buy’s ROWE (“results oriented work environment”) program, where employees have no schedules and are measured only by what they get done. He also points to Google’s famous 20 percent program, where engineers are allowed to use 20 percent of their time to work on projects that interest them, and a similar implementation of the principle at an Australian tech company called Atlassian where engineers are given a full day each quarter to work on any software problem they wish, a ritual the company calls its “FedEx” days (completed projects are delivered overnight). “Some of the coolest stuff we have in our company today has come from FedEx days,” one of their engineers tells Pink.

The third part of the book is a toolkit which has the dual purpose of providing specific ways to implement the principles in the book in a real life setting — everything from educating your children to managing your exercise schedule — and perhaps saving the reader some redundant explanations in the service of extending book length (a mercy for which this reader is grateful). It also highlights the universality of intrinsic motivation and its application in areas beyond the obvious realms of management and career development. (Need your kid to clean his room? Try the Tom Sawyer method — “painting the fence is fun! Really! If you pay me, I’ll let you do it!”)

Pink’s theories won’t be palatable to everyone. Our notions of what constitutes proper motivation in the office are often too calcified to be flexible, not to mention that it’s hard to imagine a world without incentive compensation. Some of us like the carrots, if not the sticks. But for those who recognize the value of intrinsic motivation and can implement it, we can expect a whole new workplace — and an entirely new definition of work.

More on MoneyWatch:

• Why You Should Join Amway
• 8 Lessons from Real-Life Career Switchers
• Daniel Pink: What Really Motivates Workers
• What Not to Do: 7 Ways to Ruin Your Resume
• Why Bonuses Don't Work

More from CBS News

The Deliberate Owl

Book Review: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

Rewards prompt us to do more of a behavior. Punishments deter us. Without external rewards and punishments, people wouldn't do much.

This is a simple, straightforward model of motivation. It's also wrong.

In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Riverhead Books, 2009), Daniel H. Pink explains when and why external rewards and punishments fail, and how we can harness intrinsic motivators to get the results we desire. While the book is aimed at the business world, it has applications far beyond it, and provides a solid, accessible introduction to the science of motivation.

Solving puzzles for fun

In 1950, psychology researchers gave rhesus monkeys mechanical puzzles to solve. The monkeys were not given any biologically-driven reward for solving the puzzles (such as food, water, or sleep). Strangely, the monkeys still tried to solve the puzzles. In fact, they appeared to be solving puzzles for fun .

Next, the researchers gave the monkeys raisins when they solved puzzles. Monkeys like raisins. The researchers expected this to improve the monkeys' performance: a reward gets you more of a behavior. But the opposite happened. The monkeys' performance decreased.

This was one of the first results in psychology to show that the simple motivation model of external rewards and punishments could not account for all the behavior we observe. Other researchers replicated this work later, with humans as well as monkeys. And whether human or monkey, being rewarded with money or raisins decreased both puzzle solving performance and intrinsic motivation to solve puzzles.

Naturally curious and self-directed

People are not only motivated by external rewards and punishments. We are naturally curious and self-directed. We seek novelty and challenge. As Pink says, we have

"[an] innate need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world."

Psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan divide our innate needs, our intrinsic motivations, into three categories: competence ( excellence , mastery), autonomy (doing things by one's own choice), and relatedness (social connection with others). I discussed this in my recent post on self-discipline and in my review of How Children Succeed .

But the evidence Pink presents isn't only from psychology studies—Pink has also been around young children! (He has three of his own.) Young children, to a fault, are curious and self-directed. From the moment they can explore, they do.

Goals and rewards narrow our focus

In the book, Pink explains why external rewards don't always work as expected, using examples from the business world to illustrate his points.

"Like all extrinsic motivators, goals narrow our focus. That's one reason they can be effective; they concentrate the mind. But as we've seen, a narrowed focus exacts a cost. For complex or conceptual tasks, offering a reward can blinker the wide-ranging thinking necessary to come up with an innovative solution. Likewise, when an extrinsic goal is paramount—particularly a short-term, measurable one whose achievement delivers a big payoff—its presence can restrict our view of the broader dimensions of our behavior."

As Pink points out, most companies these days focus on short-term goals, like quarterly earnings, not long-term vision. Honestly, I think Pink could have gone broader with that statement—I'd speculate that most people these days focus on short-term goals, not long-term vision, not only in business, but across most of society. The focus in education on short-term goals: class projects, papers, grades—at the cost of creativity and helping children develop their lifelong individual potential. The focus in the housing market on short-term, fast development cycles, without thought for beautiful architecture , strong towns , or what might last for centuries. The focus on the individual, rather than on family and future generations.

The world has too many extrinsic motivators and it is costing society.

When is extrinsic motivation useful?

Work can be loosely categorized as either algorithmic or heuristic. Algorithmic work is directed and includes routine tasks, following a script, a series of steps, a formula, the same thing over and over, generally something to eventually be outsourced or automated. Heuristic work is nonroutine and often self-directed, involving experimentation, developing novel solutions, creative thought, empathy, and knowledge.

Pink explains that extrinsic rewards can be useful for algorithmic work, quoting Deci, Ryan, and Koestner:

"Rewards do not undermine people's intrinsic motivation for dull tasks because there is little or no intrinsic motivation to be undermined."

I appreciated that he explored when external motivators can be useful, since most of the reading I've done on motivation has only talked about the problems of extrinsic rewards.

Heuristic work requires more intrinsic motivation and is more often hampered by extrinsic rewards. Pink discusses how businesses and managers can carefully use rewards to help their employees be more productive and how they can use positive feedback to greater effect (e.g., by providing useful, specific feedback rather than generic praise about what an awesome job that was).

Type I vs Type X

Pink proposes dividing people into two types, Type I and Type X (with the names, he is paying homage to earlier work on the Type A/Type B distinction and Douglas McGregor's theory that people find work to be as natural a state as play or rest).

Type I: People mostly driven by intrinsic motivation; self-driven; all about autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Type X: People mostly driven by extrinsic motivation and external rewards; passive and inert without prodding.

Type I is the default. Many people learn to be Type X through faulty environments, such as experiences at home, school, and work. Being a business-focused book, Pink blames management practices. Being a mother, homeschooler, and scholar of learning and psychology, I'm more inclined to blame conventional education. Anyway, Pink's point is that you can learn to be Type I again if you try, since Type I is clearly better.

I found the terminology to be silly. It felt like Pink was trying too hard—like he wants to be novel and propose a categorization just like all these psychologists he reads; he wants readers to introspect and figure out if they're Type X and then fix it if so. But because of the instability of being Type I/Type X, it fell flat for me. Most other personality categorizations assume you are relatively fixed (perhaps you change a little as you mature and age).

How to support autonomy, mastery, and purpose

The remainder of the book focused first on how businesses can capitalize on their employees' intrinsic motivation by supporting autonomy, mastery, and purpose; and second, on how individuals can build up their intrinsic motivation through a set of practical exercises and resources.

One practice, for instance, was "results-only work environments," in which employers don't care where, when, or how their employees work so long as the work gets done—supporting employee autonomy. Pink shared an example of how amazingly this went for a company that did software, design, and other high-level creative, heuristic work. It's harder to apply to algorithmic work, though Pink found one example: Zappos, the online shoe company, significantly decreased turnover in their call center by not giving employees a script, time limit, or monitoring; instead, they simply told employees to solve the customer's problem. They're rated as having great customer service.

Regarding competence and mastery, Pink talks about the importance of engagement and flow. He quotes liberally from Csikzentmihalyi and explains that "people are much more likely to reach flow in work than in leisure." Work is as natural to humans as play and rest. Part of the problem is people's mindset about it: that work is not play, even though the boundary between them is entirely artificial and work often actually is play .

I found the section on purpose interesting because of how incredibly important purpose is for workers today—as Pink explains, most people no longer rate monetary compensation as the most important factor in a potential job. People are looking for work that serves the greater good, creates value, is ethical and sustainable, and makes the world a better place. People are looking for purpose. Purpose provides the context for autonomy and mastery; it provides activation energy; people reminded of why they work will work harder.

Why are people looking for purpose now—why the trend? The fact that Pink replaces "relatedness" in self-determination theory's trio of intrinsic motivators (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) with purpose gives us a clue. People lack community and the social ties that give us purpose. People tend toward extrinsic motivators and short-term thinking (as I mentioned above), which takes away long-term, generational focus. Some of the most common environments people are in—schools and workplaces—treat people exactly the wrong way.

I think Pink is wrong to emphasize purpose separately from other aspects of intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is inherently about long-term endeavors: autonomy and control of your life; working toward mastery and excellence ; building relationships and social connection. Purpose is a side effect of all of that.

Our society has some serious issues regarding motivation. This wasn't news, but the book highlighted it in neon yellow. If you're interested in changing that—if you'd like to be Type I instead of Type X—then reading Drive is a good place to start.

How to Build Self-Discipline: Why Awareness and Intrinsic Motivation Are Key

Making Rag Rugs From T-Shirts and Old Sheets (Reuse and Upcycle!)

Sam Thomas Davies

Drive by Daniel H. Pink

Print |  Audiobook  |  Get My Searchable Collection of 100+ Book Notes

The Book in Three Sentences

• Much of what we know about motivation is wrong.
• Tasks are either: (1) Algorithmic—you pretty much do the same thing over and over in a certain way, or (2) Heuristic—you have to come up with something new every time because there are no set instructions to follow.
• The carrot-and-stick approach to motivation is flawed.

Want a Free Copy of My Summary?

The five big ideas.

• Researchers have found that extrinsic rewards can be effective for algorithmic tasks—those that depend on following an existing formula to its logical conclusion. But for more right-brain undertakings—those that demand flexible problem-solving, inventiveness, or conceptual understanding—contingent rewards can be dangerous.
• Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy. But goals imposed by others can sometimes have dangerous side effects.
• We have three innate psychological needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
• Research shows that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive but our third drive—our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, extend and expand our abilities, and live a life of purpose.
• The new approach to motivation has three essential elements: (1) Autonomy—the desire to direct our own lives; (2) Mastery—the urge to get better and better at something that matters; and (3) Purpose—the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

Drive Summary

• “When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity.”—Edward Deci
• “When children didn’t expect a reward, receiving one had little impact on their intrinsic motivation. Only contingent rewards—if you do this, then you’ll get that—had the negative effect. Why? ‘If-then’ rewards require people to forfeit some of their autonomy.”
• “People use rewards expecting to gain the benefit of increasing another person’s motivation and behavior, but in so doing, they often incur the unintentional and hidden cost of undermining that person’s intrinsic motivation toward the activity.” — Jonmarshall Reeve
• “Rewards, by their very nature, narrow our focus. That’s helpful when there’s a clear path to a solution. They help us stare ahead and race faster. But “if-then” motivators are terrible for challenges like the candle problem. As this experiment shows, the rewards narrowed people’s focus and blinkered the wide view that might have allowed them to see new uses for old objects.”
• “[Teresa] Amabile and others have found that extrinsic rewards can be effective for algorithmic tasks—those that depend on following an existing formula to its logical conclusion. But for more right-brain undertakings—those that demand flexible problem-solving, inventiveness, or conceptual understanding—contingent rewards can be dangerous.”
• “Instead of increasing the number of blood donors, offering to pay people decreased the number by nearly half.”
• “Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy. But goals imposed by others—sales targets, quarterly returns, standardized test scores, and so on—can sometimes have dangerous side effects.”
• “Goals may cause systematic problems for organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation. Use care when applying goals in your organization.”
• “Get people fired up with the prospect of rewards, and instead of making better decisions, as Motivation 2.0 hopes, they can actually make worse ones.”

The Seven Deadly Flaws of Carrots and Sticks

• They can extinguish intrinsic motivation
• They can diminish performance
• They can crush creativity
• They can crowd out good behavior
• They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior.
• They can become addictive
• They can foster short-term thinking
• “The Sawyer Effect: practices that can either turn play into work or turn work into play.”
• “The essential requirement: Any extrinsic reward should be unexpected and offered only after the task is complete.”
• “First, consider nontangible rewards.”
• “Praise and positive feedback are much less corrosive than cash and trophies.”
• “Second, provide useful information.”
• “Give people meaningful information about their work.”
• “In brief, for creative, right-brain, heuristic tasks, you’re on shaky ground offering ‘if-then’ rewards. You’re better off using ‘now that’ rewards. And you’re best off if your ‘now that’ rewards provide praise, feedback, and useful information.”
• “[Self-determination theory] argues that we have three innate psychological needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness.”
• “Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.”
• “In the midst of play, many people enjoyed what Csikszentmihalyi called ‘autotelic experiences’—from the Greek auto (self) and telos (goal or purpose). In an autotelic experience, the goal is self-fulfilling; the activity is its own reward.”
• “The highest, most satisfying experiences in people’s lives were when they were in flow.”
• “In flow, goals are clear. You have to reach the top of the mountain, hit the ball across the net, or mold the clay just right. Feedback is immediate. The mountaintop gets closer or farther, the ball sails in or out of bounds, the pot you’re throwing comes out smooth or uneven.”
• “Most important, in flow, the relationship between what a person had to do and what he could do was perfect. The challenge wasn’t too easy. Nor was it too difficult. It was a notch or two beyond his current abilities, which stretched the body and mind in a way that made the effort itself the most delicious reward. That balance produced a degree of focus and satisfaction that easily surpassed other, more quotidian, experiences.”
• “In flow, people lived so deeply in the moment, and felt so utterly in control, that their sense of time, place, and even self-melted away. They were autonomous, of course. But more than that, they were engaged. They were, as the poet W. H. Auden wrote, ‘forgetting themselves in a function.’”
• “The science shows that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive—our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to live a life of purpose.”
• “At the end of each day, ask yourself whether you were better today than you were yesterday.”
• “One of the best ways to know whether you’ve mastered something is to try to teach it.”

Other Books by Dan Pink

• To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Persuading, Convincing, and Influencing Others

Recommended Reading

If you like Drive , you may also enjoy the following books:

• The Dip: The Extraordinary Benefits of Knowing When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

Buy The Book: Drive

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Related Lists

• Business Book Summaries
• Psychology Book Summaries
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Sergio Caredda

Insights on Work, Organisation Design, Experience, Leadership and Change.

Book Review: Drive by Daniel Pink

Drive, the surprising truth of what motivates us by Daniel Pink , is a book published already 10 years ago, but that still scores high on Amazon’s bestsellers. It was suggested to me by a colleague, and thus my recent reading.

The book key idea focuses on the gap existing between how Motivation is treated in the workplace and the results of social science research that shows that instead, most assumptions are seriously flawed. Much of what we (assume) we know around motivation as managers, is therefore wrong.

Part of this is because we assume all tasks at work are the same. There’s instead a difference, the author states, between the way we approach these. Tasks are either: (1) Algorithmic —you pretty much do the same thing over and over in a certain way, or (2) Heuristic —you have to come up with something new every time because there are no set instructions to follow. Understanding the nature of the task is the first step to understanding what motivates us.

The best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table: Pay people enough so that they’re not thinking about money and they’re thinking about the work. Once you do that, it turns out there are three factors that the science shows lead to better performance, not to mention personal satisfaction: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Daniel Pink, Drive

Researchers have found that extrinsic rewards can be effective for algorithmic tasks—those that depend on following an existing formula to its logical conclusion. But for more right-brain undertakings—those that demand flexible problem-solving, inventiveness, or conceptual understanding—contingent rewards can be dangerous. And in a world where most of the first type tasks get automated, the second area becomes more prominent in most of today’s jobs.

The author illustrates also that research also that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive—our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to live a life of purpose.

This undermines the traditional managerial “carrot and sticks” approach, and Pink identifies 7 deadly flaws in this approach.

• They can extinguish intrinsic motivation
• They can diminish performance
• They can crush creativity
• They can crowd out good behaviour
• They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behaviour.
• They can become addictive
• They can foster short-term thinking

According to the author, if you take the issue of money off of the table, the things that truly motivate people are:

Autonomy, which is the desire to direct our own lives. Best way to achieve this is by giving people autonomy over the four T’s: their task , their time , their technique and their team .

Mastery , the urge to get better and better at something that matters. Yet most modern workplaces seems to be built on the lack of engagement and the disregard for mastery.

Purpose , the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. Luckily some businesses have begun to rethink purpose in how they operate, but way too often the link between the company’s purpose and the individual one is still left to chance.

Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives. Daniel Pink, Drive

Here below also a beautiful animation that summarizes the key ideas of the book.

Drive by Daniel Pink, Conclusion

The topics treated in Drive by Daniel Pink are critical. As we plan our organisations , we need to consider intentional design of motivation. The relevance of Purpose is more and more clear, also after Sinek’s work .

A lot of the ideas put on the table seem almost “natural”, however, we see how difficult it is to move away from the main ways we try to incentivize people at work, practices that are buried ion assumptions that prove constantly wrong. I truly believe that it is HR’s most important task to retain a new understanding of motivators at work. Compensation needs, wherever possible, be taken out of the equation as the sole way to achieve this, and instead focus on the way we redefine jobs, roles, responsibilities, and create environments where people can really thrive.

Drive by Daniel Pink Goodreads Reviews

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[…] concept is very well linked to the recent comment done on the book Drive by Daniel Pink. Traditional “Carrot and Stick” mentality does not work. What caught my attention is […]

[…] we see motivation and purpose under a different eye, we can interpret the need of management in a totally different […]

[…] this, the author creates a strong link with concepts of Motivation that we have already seen for example in Pink’s work, as well as with principled of Curiosity and Learning Agility that I have also already written […]

[…] A great video by RSA that summarizes the concept of the book by Daniel Pink “Drive”. […]

[…] this, the author creates a strong link with concepts of Motivation that we have already seen for example in Pink’s work, as well as with principled of Curiosity and Learning Agility that I have also already written […]

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Book Summary: Drive by Daniel Pink

The Book in a Nutshell

What is the key to motivating ourselves and others in the 21 st century? The answer, Daniel Pink suggests, is a far cry from the traditional view of carrots and sticks. Instead, as economic development and socio-technological change have swept the world, humans are now strongly motivated by our third drive: our need for autonomy, mastery and purpose. The quicker we and businesses recognise it the better.

Book Summary: The Key Ideas

#1: The fall of carrots and sticks. A sole focus on reward and punishment as motivator isn’t fit for the 21 st century. Indeed, when structured in the wrong way, rewards can even undermine motivation, stunt performance and stifle creativity.

#2: Type I and Type X behaviour. Human beings perform and feel better when motivated by intrinsic factors, most importantly, autonomy, mastery and purpose. Type I (intrinsic) behaviour embraces these factors, while Type X behaviour focuses on extrinsic factors.

#3: The four T’s of autonomy. Autonomy in task, time, technique and team drives improved performance, satisfaction and creativity.

#4: The power of mastery. To be truly engaging, work should provide experiences that produce a “flow” state and tasks that are in the “Goldilocks zone”.

#5: A purpose-driven future. A long-run objective that connects us to a greater purpose than oneself can take the autonomous pursuit of mastery to the next level.

Book Notes: The Key Ideas in Detail

Key idea #1: the fall of carrots and sticks.

In our very early days, the underlying assumption was that we were driven by survival. But we also had a second drive: to seek reward and avoid punishment.

Daniel Pink calls this second drive Motivation 2.0, and it’s been key to economic progress over the last two centuries.

In the 1900s, Frederick Taylor took this view of motivation in what he called “scientific management”. Under this perspective, workers were considered parts of a machine. Desired behaviour would be encouraged via rewards and undesired behaviour regulated via punishment.

But the emergence of humanistic psychology in the mid-1900s, led by Abraham Maslow, created new resistance to Motivation 2.0. And as we shift into the 21 st century, Motivation 2.0 is no longer compatible with what we do, how we think about what we do, and how we do what we do.

The reality is that once we get past the role of salary as motivator, carrots and sticks can have the opposite effect. This is known as the Sawyer effect : where extrinsic rewards actually serve to undermine our interest in our work, performance and creativity.

“When people use rewards to motivate, that’s when they’re most demotivating.”

The Sawyer effect can surface in several ways:

• Extinguishing motivation . Contingent rewards, particularly short-term ones, can have a detrimental effect on intrinsic motivation, as demonstrated in numerous studies.
• Diminishing performance. Various studies suggest raising financial incentives doesn’t always improve performance. Indeed, the evidence points to the opposite.
• Stifling creativity. Rewards can narrow our focus and encourage functional fixedness. That’s helpful where the path is clear, but not so helpful when creativity is required to forge the path.
• Encouraging unhelpful behaviour. Rewards can also crowd out good behaviour, encourage cheating and short-termism, and foster addiction. (Look no further than the dopamine hit of the casino for an example of the dangers of short-term rewards.)

Key Idea #2: Type I and Type X Behaviour

Instead of focusing on reward and punishment, self-determination theory (SDT) argues that we have three innate psychological needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. The theory posits that when these needs are satisfied, we’re more motivated, satisfied and productive, and vice versa if they are not.

As Pink puts it:

“Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.”

Building on SDT, Pink makes the distinction between what he calls Type X and Type I behaviour:

• Type X (Extrinsic) Behaviour: This is powered by extrinsic desires and is concerned more with the external rewards that an activity’s completion provides. This behaviour is in line with the Motivation 2.0 system that dominates business.
• Type I (Intrinsic) Behaviour: This is concerned more with intrinsic desires and the inherent satisfaction that can be derived from an activity. Type I behaviour can emerge from context and experience, and Type I’s almost always outperform Type X’s in the long run. Type I behaviour also promotes greater mental and physical well-being.

Most importantly, Type I behaviour recognises and embraces the role of autonomy, mastery and purpose as intrinsic motivators.

Key Idea #3: The four T’s of autonomy

Autonomy, Pink argues, is the most important of the three innate psychological needs of SDT. Why? Because it’s how we are made.

“Our basic nature is to be curious and self-directed. […] That’s how we are out of the box. If, at age fourteen or forty-three, we’re passive and inert, that’s not because it’s our nature. It’s because something flipped our default setting.”

Studies have associated autonomous work with greater understanding, better grades, less burnout, greater levels of psychological well-being, improved performance and greater job satisfaction. As a result, Pink believes businesses should be putting less emphasis on management and more emphasis on self-direction.

“Perhaps it’s time to toss the very word “management” onto the linguistic ash heap alongside “icebox” and “horseless carriage.” This era doesn’t call for better management. It calls for a renaissance of self-direction.”

According to Pink, Type I behaviour emerges in work when people have autonomy over the four T’s: their task , their time , their technique , and their team .

• Task: Pink uses the anecdotal examples of the successes of 3M and Google with “20% time” (where 20% of employee time is free for them to work on projects of their choosing for the businesses).
• Time: An excessive focus on input often comes at the expense of real output. “Without sovereignty over our time, it’s nearly impossible to have autonomy over our lives.”
• Technique: Arrangements that give more independence over how to perform jobs generally produce better performance.
• Team: “People working in self-organised teams are more satisfied than those working in inherited teams.”

Instead of assuming people will shirk responsibility, Motivation 3.0 assumes people want to be accountable and will perform better when they have control over task, time, technique, and team.

Key Idea #4: The power of mastery

The pursuit of mastery can be defined as the desire to get better and better at something that matters.

“Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy. But goals imposed by others – sales targets, quarterly returns, standardized test scores, and so on – can sometimes have dangerous side effects.”

Pink recognises that we have a severe lack of engagement in modern workplaces. To be truly engaging, work should provide “autotelic experiences”, or as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it, a state of “flow” .

Work that fosters flow provides clear goals and results, and a transcendent state of absorption in the task at hand. Such activities tend to be “Goldilocks tasks”, neither being too easy so as to diminish interest nor too hard so as to demoralise us.

According to Pink, there are 3 laws of mastery that hold consistent regardless of occupation:

• Mastery is a mindset. Our desire to pursue mastery hinges on whether we have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. The latter holds an openness to failure and learning, embracing continuous improvement.
• Mastery is a pain. Our level of grit and resilience also play a crucial role in our capacity to pursue mastery.
• Mastery is an asymptote. The pursuit of mastery is a process of continuous improvement. You never actually reach “mastery”. The joy is in the pursuit rather than the realisation.

“This is the nature of mastery: Mastery is an asymptote. You can approach it. You can home in on it. You can get really, really close to it. But you can never touch it. Mastery is impossible to realise fully.”

As Pink describes it, “flow is the oxygen of the soul”. Studies show that when we are deprived of it, even over a matter of a few days, we can exhibit signs of anxiety and poor mental health.

Key Idea #5: The future is purpose-driven

Working towards mastery in an autonomous manner can produce a very high level of performance but doing so in service of a greater objective can help us achieve more still.

As economic progress takes holds across the world, people are increasingly pursuing purpose and using profit as a catalyst rather than an objective.

Pink argues that the language we use to frame goals and values can also have a defining impact on this pursuit. That’s why some businesses are actively away from language like “profit” and “power” towards more emotive purpose-based language like “honour”, “truth” and “love”.

Businesses can introduce policies that capitalise on purpose as a motivator. Coupled with autonomy, it can be a particularly effective motivational tool. Pink gives the example of giving workers the autonomy to choose which charities to make corporate donations to.

At the individual level, the role of purpose extends to longer-term aspirations. Studies have found that intrinsic aspirations are associated with higher levels of satisfaction and subjective well-being than extrinsic aspirations which focus more on status and wealth.

You can buy the book here or or you can find more of our book notes  here . For further related reading, try Flow: The Psychology of Happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Happiness by Design by Paul Dolan, and Mindset by Carol Dweck.

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• The Power of Regret
• To Sell Is Human
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A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and Amazon.com Bestseller

The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm—shattering new way to think about motivation.

Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That’s a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of  To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others ). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.

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“ Important reading…an integral addition to a growing body of literature that argues for a radical shift in how businesses operate. ” —Kirkus

“ Persuasive . . .Harnessing the power of intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic remuneration can be thoroughly satisfying and infinitely more rewarding. ” —Miami Herald

“ Pink is rapidly acquiring international guru status . . . He is an engaging writer, who challenges and provokes. ” —Financial Times

“ Drive is the rare book that will get you to think and inspire you to act. Pink makes a strong, science-based case for rethinking motivation–and then provides the tools you need to transform your life. ” —Dr. Mehmet Oz, co-author of YOU: The Owners Manual

“ Pink’s a gifted writer who turns even the heaviest scientific study into something digestible — and often amusing — without losing his intellectual punch. ” —New York Post

“ Enchanting . . . an important book offering a whole new way to think about motivation. ” —Globe and Mail

“ Pink's ideas deserve a wide hearing. Corporate boards, in fact, could do well by kicking out their pay consultants for an hour and reading Pink's conclusions instead. ” —Forbes

“ Fascinating . . . If Pink's proselytizing helps persuade employers to make work more fulfilling, Drive will be a powerhouse. ” —USA Today

“ Pink’s analysis–and new model–of motivation offers tremendous insight into our deepest nature. ” —Publishers Weekly

“ Pink makes a convincing case that organizations ignore intrinsic motivation at their peril. ” —Scientific American

“ These lessons are worth repeating, and if more companies feel emboldened to follow Mr. Pink's advice, then so much the better. ” —Wall Street Journal

“ Like discovering your favorite professor in a box…packed with information, reasons to care about his message, how and why to execute his suggestions, and it's all accentuated with meaningful examples… this book deserves a good, long look. ” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“ Artfully blend(s) anecdotes, insights, and studies from the social sciences into a frothy blend of utility and entertainment. ” —Bloomberg

“ A fresh look at the art and science of sales using a mix of social science, survey research and stories. ” —Forbes.com

“ Pink is one of our smartest thinkers about the interaction of work, psychology and society. ” —Worth

“ A roadmap to help the rest of us guide our own pitches. ” —Chicago Tribune

“ An engaging blend of interviews, research and observations by [this] incisive author. ” —The Globe and Mail

“ Excellent . . . radical, surprising, and undeniably true. ” —Harvard Business Review blog

“ Pink has penned a modern day How to Win Friends and Influence People . . . To Sell is Human is chock full of stories, social science, and surprises . . . All leaders - at least those who want to 'move' people - should own this book. ” —Training and Development magazine

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My online portfolio and blog, a review of daniel pink’s drive.

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Book reviewed

Pink, D. H. (2012).  Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us  [Kindle edition]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates-ebook/dp/B004P1JDJO/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr =

Author’s background

According to Daniel Pink’s website, DanPink.com , he is the author of six books on business and motivation. His TED Talk videos have garnered over 30 million views. From 1995 to 1997 he worked as a chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School (Pink, 2017). Pink wrote Drive to explain the value of intrinsic motivation.

Daniel Pink (2012) explains why intrinsic motivation is usually more effective than extrinsic motivation. He Introduces book with a discussion of experiments by Harry Harlow and Edward Deci.  Harlow observed monkeys solving puzzle boxes without a reward of any kind. Deci found that rewarding people for solving puzzles resulted in less engagement when the subjects thought no one was watching. In Part One Pink describes intrinsic motivation as a new operating system for society. He labels intrinsic motivation as Motivation 3.0. Pink contrasts intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation, which he calls Motivation 2.0. Motivation 1.0 refers to basic biological drives. To build communities, systems of punishments and rewards called laws developed to permit people to live in something better than the state of nature. Pink argues that as we automate routine tasks and work shifts from the algorithmic to the heuristic, it is time to move past the punishments and rewards of Motivation 2.0 and ascend to the intrinsic Motivation 3.0. Pink explores the failures of if-then rewards but does include a brief section on when extrinsic rewards may be effective when algorithmic, routine work must be done. Pink compares Type I and Type X behaviors. Type I behaviors are intrinsically motivated. Type X behaviors are extrinsically motivated. Pink provides evidence that Type I behavior results in higher effectiveness and ethics in the long-term. He makes the case that Type I behavior can be learned. In Part Two Pink presents autonomy, mastery, and purpose as the three elements of intrinsic motivation. Pink argues that students and employees need greater autonomy to reach their potential and highest performance. Pink claims that mastery, developing skill in something that matters, is a better motivator than compliance. Pink discusses the optimal psychological state of flow as requiring a close match of skill to task so that neither boredom with too simple a task or overwhelming frustration with too difficult a task prevents the development of mastery. Mastery comes through diligence, determination, and careful practice that provides actionable feedback to improve specific skills. He notes it is impossible to master any valuable skill fully. Pink claims that Motivation 2.0 organizations see purpose as a nicety but not a necessity. Pink states that purpose is necessary to reach the highest levels of Motivation 3.0 and give supporting examples of companies that make a profit while making a difference.

Within the genre of pop psychology, Drive is one of the better works that I’ve read. Pink is a popularizer, not a scientist, and claims nothing more for himself.  He presents real research from well-regarded scholars in a breezy, easy-to-read format accessible to the general public.

Overall Pink makes a good case for intrinsic motivation. Critics could challenge some examples by questioning the amount of reward offered, but Pink anticipates this challenge and presents other examples where much higher rewards resulted in far worse performance. Pink’s view of motivation is not overly simplistic. He realistically examines the exceptions to this rule and even provides steps to implement more successful extrinsic motivation programs where such are warranted. He presents a flowchart to determine whether intrinsic or extrinsic rewards are appropriate to a situation. The labels Pink devises, such as Motivation 3.0 and Type I behavior are memorable shorthand for the ideas he describes. In his TED Talk, Pink acknowledges that is law school experience informs Drive since he makes a case. In my judgment, he wins.

Rating with rationale

When I finished reading the Kindle edition, the app prompted me to rate and review the book. I gave Drive 4 out of 5 stars, which is an endorsement. I would strongly encourage educators, both in the classroom and in administrative offices, to read the book. Pink is an excellent popularizer of other people’s research. I considered giving him all five stars, but I usually reserve that for those who conducted the research rather than the popularizers, even when they are as good as Daniel Pink. Without the constraints of the app, I give it 4 ½ stars. His recommendation to fire the bad teachers without defining what makes them bad did not provide actionable information. His proposal to pay educators a living wage, while indeed welcome, did not specify a way to calculate that salary or pay for it. The first 60% or so of the book was well written and made a thoughtful argument. The last 40% of the book seemed like a compilation of blog posts included to pad the page count.  There was useful information in the final section; it just seemed a little disjointed.  I would recommend that readers thumb through the third part of the book and skim for details of interest rather than read straight through.

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Daniel Pink’s Drive

• Andrew O’Connell

Managers’ received wisdom about what gets people to excel — money, stock options, more money, then some more money — doesn’t work well for a lot of today’s independent-minded, plugged-in cubicle dwellers, Daniel Pink says in this lively tour of recent scholarship on motivation. Citing work by Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School, consultant Tammy […]

Managers’ received wisdom about what gets people to excel — money, stock options, more money, then some more money — doesn’t work well for a lot of today’s independent-minded, plugged-in cubicle dwellers, Daniel Pink says in this lively tour of recent scholarship on motivation.

• AO Andrew O’Connell , an editor with the Harvard Business Review Group, is the author of Stats and Curiosities from Harvard Business Review .

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Book Report - Drive by Daniel Pink

I recently finished reading Drive by Daniel Pink. This has been on my list of books to read for a long time. Drive has come up a couple of times over the last few years of my career in conversations with coworkers. After having a hallway conversation recently at work about the book, I decided to pick it up and give it a read.

The book is split into two different parts. The first part of the book is called "A New Operating System." Pink writes about three different types of motivation in part one. He calles them Motivation 1.0, Motiviation 2.0, and Motiviation 3.0. Motiviation 1.0 is about our human biological needs for survival. Motiviation 2.0 is how we can be motivated by external rewards and punishments. Motiviation 3.0 is a recently discovered style of motivation, called intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motiviation is where we can be motivated by the work we are doing and the enjoyment of it.

Part two of the book is called "The Three Elements." In this part of the book, Pink describes three elements that are needed in order to be intrinsticly motivated by the work that we do. Those elements are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. As he introduces the reader to these three elements, he explains why they are needed in order to enable a Motivation 3.0 mindset. As I was reading, I felt that the first part of the book felt like Pink was describing the theory behind intrinsic motivation, and the second part felt like he was describing the application of it.

I feel that there was a lot of very relevant topics in this book, and that many professionals could benefit from reading it. Many professionals find ourselves working in environments that have a "carrot and stick" reward scheme. Finish the task before the deadline, receive a pat on the back. Finish it late, and be told you need to be faster. While that kind of motiviational scheme can work for some routine work, the work of many professionals is increasingly more dynamic and requires different, self driven motiviational approaches. Pink is advocating for more adoption of those approaches in Drive.

Drive makes a great psychological pair to the concept of owning your career that is often found in the Software Craftsmanship space. I think it is a great read for someone in a technical profession that is looking to better understand what makes them want to get to work in the morning. I recommend reading this book.

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Drive Summary, Review and Quotes | Book by Daniel Pink

posted on April 7, 2021

Book Summary of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Book by Daniel H. Pink

Life gets busy. Has Drive been on your reading list? Learn the key insights now.

We’re scratching the surface here. If you don’t already have Daniel H. Pink’s popular book on leadership and psychology, order it here or get the audiobook for free on Amazon to learn the juicy details.

Introduction 

Drive is the fourth nonfiction book by Daniel Pink. It argues that human motivation is mostly intrinsic. The aspects of this motivation can be divided into autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

In this book, Daniel Pink argues against traditional motivation models driven by rewards and fear of punishment, dominated by extrinsic factors like money.

Drive explains that rewards and punishments – Motivation 2.0 – are part of an old paradigm that doesn’t work well in today’s work environments.

About Daniel Pink

Daniel Pink was the host and co-executive producer of “Crowd Control,” a television series about human behavior on National Geographic. He has appeared frequently on NPR, PBS, ABC, CNN, and other TV and radio networks in the US and abroad.

Daniel has been a contributing editor at Fast Company and Wired and a business columnist for The Sunday Telegraph. His articles and essays have also appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The New Republic, Slate, and other publications. He was also a Japan Society Media Fellow in Tokyo, where he studied the country’s massive comic industry.

In 2019, London-based Thinkers 50 named Daniel Pink the 6th most influential management thinker in the world.

StoryShot #1: The Rise and Fall of Motivation 2.0

Motivation needs an upgrade. Societies have operating systems, just like computers. Many organizations, cultures, and even families operate on an old, out-of-date motivation operating system built around external rewards and punishments.

Motivation 1.0: Survival

Motivation 1.0 worked well until it didn’t. As humans formed more complex societies, they started bumping up against strangers and cooperating to get things done. This was an operating system based purely on a biological drive, which was fundamentally inadequate motivation. Sometimes we needed ways to restrain this drive to avoid breaking the law. Hence, we slowly moved towards Motivation 2.0.

Motivation 2.0: Rewards and Punishments

At its core, Motivation 2.0 argues humans are more than the sum of our biological urges. However, it also suggests we aren’t much different from horses. The way to get us moving in the correct direction is by dangling a crunchier carrot or wielding a sharper stick. However, what this operating system lacked in enlightenment, it made up for in effectiveness. It worked extremely well until it didn’t.

Research shows that Motivation 2.0 is incompatible with how we organize and how we do what we do. Daniel Pink outlines several reasons for why the carrot and stick approach of motivation 2.0 no longer works.

A Reduction in Algorithmic Work

In the 1900s, Frederick Taylor argued workers were regarded as part of a complicated machine. This one feature of his essentials of scientific management. Hence, desired behaviors could be controlled through effective rewards and punishments. This mindset still dominates the way that many companies manage their employees. However, workers are generally less likely to engage with mechanical and repetitive behaviors. Dan Pink describes these types of jobs as algorithmic work. Essentially, external motivators are still effective for the dwindling number of jobs classified as algorithmic work. 

Increase in Complexity

Work has become increasingly complex since Taylor created his theory of scientific management. Plus, work will continue to evolve and become more complicated with the advancement of technology. Today, we are less directed by others in our work. Subsequently, management and motivation techniques also have to evolve. 

The Reality of What Drives Behavior

Dan Pink explains our behavior is not generally driven by external motivators. People make decisions more on internal factors than external factors. For example, we are often most motivated by activities that offer no financial gain. We put hours of work into mastering an instrument. Additionally, many people choose low-paid jobs that make a genuine difference, such as nursing or teaching. 

Motivation 3.0

Motivation 2.0 presumed humans also responded to rewards and punishments. That worked fine for routine tasks but is incompatible with how we organize what we do. We needed an upgrade. Motivation 3.0 presumes humans also have a drive to learn, create, and better the world.

StoryShot #2: The Seven Deadly Flaws of Extrinsic Motivators

External motivators can extinguish intrinsic motivation.

Daniel Pink outlines that external motivators can provide base-level benefits. However, when you look deeper, they can also achieve the opposite of your intended aims. Specifically, external rewards can become the primary reason for engaging with a task. In doing so, the intrinsic enjoyment of a task is lost. Research suggests that groups offered an external reward are more prone to mistakes. 

External Motivators Can Diminish Long-Term Performance

External motivators can increase the likelihood of mistakes. However, they can also cap long-term growth. For example, the London School of Economics analyzed 51 studies of corporate pay-for-performance plans. They found these studies suggested financial incentives resulted in a negative impact on performance. The primary reason for this reduction in long-term performance is that performance is tied to an external reward. If this incentive can no longer be offered, then a reduction in commitment is observed. 

External Motivators Can Crush Creativity

Financial incentives are generally associated with fixed and specific goals. Hence, employees are being rewarded for sticking to specific actions rather than thinking outside the box. Subsequently, broader perspectives are avoided as they are not associated with rewards. The consequence of this is a reduction in creativity within teams. 

External Motivators Can Crowd-Out Good Behavior

Several psychologists and sociologists have found that paying somebody to do a good deed reduces these good acts’ frequency. For example, fewer people donate blood when money is offered.

External Motivators Can Encourage Cheating and Unethical Behavior

Offering external rewards can encourage individuals to cut corners to obtain the required outcome. This can have extreme impacts, such as ENRON’s fraud scandal. Financial incentives can turn any company from socially responsible to one that is willing to do anything to earn money.

External Motivators Can Become Addictive

Research suggests that external motivators, like financial incentives, are addictive. They act in the same way as other addictions, like drugs. The more frequently you are given external rewards, the more you expect and crave them. Subsequently, as with drug addicts, the same external rewards lose their motivational impact. You start to expect larger external rewards to remain motivated. Similarly, like withdrawal symptoms, removing external rewards can lead to a slump in motivation. 

External Motivators Can Encourage Short-Term Thinking

Researchers have found that companies that spend the most time guiding quarterly earnings deliver significantly lower long-term growth rates. The external outcomes are encouraging a short-term focus at the detriment of long-term success.

StoryShot #3: Type I and Type X

Type i: intrinsically motivated.

Intrinsic behavior, or Type I, is less concerned with external rewards and is more satisfied with the activity itself. Type Is are made rather than naturally occurring. Hence, you still have hope, even if you have been extrinsically motivated your whole life. For personal and professional success, it’s crucial to move towards intrinsic motivations.

Type X: Extrinsically Motivated

Extrinsic behaviors (Type X) leave you at high-risk of becoming unfulfilled. Type Xs are reaching for the external, such as material validation and satisfaction. Subsequently, they have a high chance of being left disappointed.

• Type I behavior is made, not born.
• Type Is almost always outperform Type Xs in the long run.
• Type I behavior does not disdain money or recognition. 
• Type I behavior is a renewable resource.
• Type I behavior promotes greater physical and mental well-being.

By default, we all want to be free. We want to be the architects of our own lives and self-direct our destinies. Unfortunately, in many organizations, they have outdated notions of management that lead people from Type I to Type X.

We rate this book 4/5.

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Select Quotes of Drive

“Motivation 1.0 presumed that humans were biological creatures, struggling to obtain our basic needs for food, security and sex. Dan Pink

Motivation 2.0 presumed that humans also responded to rewards and punishments. That worked fine for routine tasks but incompatible with how we organize what we do, how we think about what we do, and how. we do what we do. We need an upgrade.  Motivation 3.0, the upgrade we now need, presumes that humans also have a drive to learn, to create, and to better the world.”  Dan Pink

“Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.” – Daniel Pink  – Daniel Pink

“One source of frustration in the workplace is the frequent mismatch between what people must do and what people can do. When what they must do exceeds their capabilities, the result is anxiety. When what they must do falls short of their capabilities, the result is boredom. But when the match is just right, the results can be glorious.” – Daniel Pink

“You have to repeat your mission and your purpose…over and over and over. And sometimes you’re like, doesn’t everyone already know this? It doesn’t matter. Starting out the meetings with This is Facebook’s mission, This is Instagram’s mission, and This is why Whatsapp exists (is critical).” – Sheryl Sandberg 

“Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.” – Daniel Pink 

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“Drive” by Daniel Pink — Grades Can De-Motivate Us to Learn Spanish

Surprisingly, grades and other external motivators can de-motivate us, says Daniel Pink.

You might guess that getting a reward like money or a good grade would really motivate us to do something good like learn Spanish or any other language.

But according to Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us , that’s not how motivation works.

“Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money. [Or maybe grades—Ed.] That’s a mistake. . . . The secret to performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.”

Learn How to Motivate Yourself and Others

If you have ever found yourself less motivated to learn Spanish, French, or your favorite language than you wish you were, then you should read Drive . According to Daniel Pink, and a lot of careful scientific research that he cites, adding expected external motivators like money or grades often has the unexpected effect of reducing motivation.

For example, small children who like to draw will spend less time drawing if you start giving them certificates for drawing.

If you are a teacher who needs to motivate your students, or you just want to learn how to motivate yourself, you will probably enjoy Drive by Daniel Pink.

I read this book and it changed my perception of motivation and where it comes from. Motivating myself and helping others get motivated is a difficult task but this book identifies critical components to making those two things possible.

Thanks for your comment. “Drive” is an important book and I highly recommended it for anyone who needs to motivate someone. Whether that someone is the “someone” you see in the mirror or someone else doesn’t really matter.

Hi Brent, just stumbled across your site. Really surprised to see Drive included, but it’s a good book and it does a decent job of summarizing contemporary research. I’m surprised also that you haven’t reviewed the Michel Thomas method.

Brad –

Thanks for letting us know you want a review of the Michel Thomas method. It’s a very similar program to Pimsleur except it offers some of the rules of language that thinking adults enjoy for more abstract language usage.

I can’t offer direct links to other reviews though I can offer this Google search that will help you learn more about Michel Thomas opposed to the Pimsleur method that we usually refer to when people inquire about languages we have not yet developed:

http://goo.gl/vhpQb5

Hope you have a wonderful day!

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Drive: Book Summary & Review

Drive (2009) explains, in simple terms and with plenty of examples, that rewards and punishments -motivation 2.0- is an old paradigm that doesn’t work nearly as well in today’s work environments. Much better instead is to appeal to intrinsic motivation and “higher ideals” -motivation 3.0-.

Bullet Summary

How you can apply it.

• Extrinsic motivation (rewards & punishment) works on mechanical, repetitive tasks (Tylor assembly chain)
• Extrinsic motivation is actually counterproductive in complex tasks
• Intrinsic motivation (already present within us) is far superior for complex tasks and creative work

Drive Summary

About the author : Daniel Pink is a journalist and a best-selling author. He is not a psychologist himself, but he does good research and I can say I really liked all his books, which include “ When ” and “ To Sell Is Human “.

Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of Motivation 2.0

Daniel Pink first piques our curiosity by detailing a few well-known stories that shouldn’t, theoretically, make sense if we looked at them through the lenses of the typical old economic theories.

Encarta for example, drafted by a team of well-paid writers, lost out to Wikipedia that didn’t pay a cent to the curators.

He then sets out to explain why. In the early days of human history, we were driven by our survival needs: eating and, well… Surviving. For all the survival drives we had, Pink refers to them as “Motivation 1.0”.

With the industrial revolution motivation 2.0 emerged, which leverages extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is still widely used today but, Pink argues, it’s outdated for our modern world and i t’s time we move to a Motivation 3.0 , actually based on Intrinsic Motivation.

Let’s see the differences between Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation:

• Extrinsic Motivation 

Extrinsic Motivators are sticks and carrots such as “if you do this, you get that consequence”. The consequence can either be a positive reward or a punishment. A reward could be a raise, a promotion, a bonus, etc. A punishment could be a reprimand, public shaming, firing, etc.

• Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is motivation coming from within.

It’s the joy we get from producing something useful (Linux VS Windows), from spreading knowledge (Wikipedia VS Encarta), and from producing art (poetry for a loved one).

Once our basic financial needs are met, intrinsic motivation is far superior in motivating people.

Chapter 2: 7 Reasons Why Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work

Albeit most people still stick to carrots and sticks, psychology makes it abundantly clear that they don’t work really well. Here is why:

1. Crowds-out intrinsic motivation

Daniel Pink affirms that extrinsic rewards tend to become the key reason for doing the task and thus they “crowd out” intrinsic motivation and any possible pleasure connected to the task itself.

Example: Giving preschool children a reward for drawing meant they drew less  than the groups without any reward 2 weeks after the task ended. The group without a reward had kept their intrinsic motivation intact and thus kept drawing with gusto.

2. Diminishes performance (esp. long-term)

Studies show that paying people to achieve certain skills leads to lower results compared to not paying them. And the  “boost” to performance tends to completely dissipate over time. 

3. Can crush creativity

Bonuses can focus action and attention towards a specific result, distracting us from the bigger picture, and thus reducing potential creativity.

For example, a panel judged artists who produced art for art’s sake as more creative compared to when working on commission.

4. Can crowd out good behavior Daniel Pink quotes the famous Richard Titmuss experiment concluding that paying citizens to donate blood led to a reduction in donations.

That’s because monetary rewards made a socially responsible act of altruism a financially motivated one.

5. Can encourage cheating

By focusing on the end result, extrinsic motivators can encourage cheating. The examples in Drive are of ENRON and NASA Apollo, but if you’ve lived through the 2008 financial meltdown, you are well aware of the flak of critics around outsized bonuses.

6. Can become addictive

Study shows that a reward, while it can increase motivation in the short term, can lead to negative effects once it’s stopped. That’s because the reward becomes normal, and once it’s taken away, it feels like a punishment. Here’s a link to the study.

7. Can foster short-term thinking

Drive presents studies showing how the companies most hell-bent on guiding quarterly earnings deliver significantly lower long-term growth compared to their peers.

Chapter 3: Type I and Type X

Daniel Pink defines two types of people:

• Type X (Extrinsic)

Type X personalities are driven by external factors such as fame, status, money, etc. They can often be highly successful but also troubled by an insatiable appetite for more “things”. And we are all aware the joy of monetary success never fully satisfy us.

• Type I’s (Intrinsic)

For Type I personalities motivation comes from within – to accomplish something meaningful-. Success is measured by the task itself and not by a reward. Type Is have higher self-esteem, better relationships, and are in overall better physical and mental shape (as outlined in Social Intelligence ). 

Type I’s will usually outperform a Type X in the long run.

  Intrinsic motivation pillars

Daniel Pink delves deep into the pillars that light the intrinsic motivation fire:

• Autonomy – the desire to direct our own lives;
• Mastery – the urge to get better and better at something that matters;
• Purpose – the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

Chapter 4: Autonomy

Here’s a way to establish autonomy in the workforce: ask for the results and leave the how-to  them (in direct opposition to  what Michael Gerber advises )

Chapter 5: Mastery

The premise of Mastery is that people yearn to get better at what they do (as long as they care about it).

Flow is key to reaching mastery, and you reach flow when the tasks are neither too easy nor too difficult (also check flow in “ Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Performance “, Emotional Intelligence and Bold ).

That sweet spot of not too easy and neither too difficult is also the point at which we will learn the most and the quickest (for more on peak performance also check The Talent Code and Peak ).

• Mastery is a mindset. You see your abilities as infinitely improvable (check how to develop a growth mindset )
• Mastery is a pain. It demands effort, grit, and deliberate practice.
• Mastery is an asymptote. In a mountain without a peak, there is always room for improvement.

Chapter 6: Purpose

Purpose leverages the human desire of being part of something bigger (and it’s similar to the WHY in Sinek’s great book ) Daniel Pink also cites Viktor Frankl in suggesting that the will for meaning is the basic motivation of human life.  

We reach purpose while:

• Doing something that matters;
• Doing it well;
• Doing it in the service of a cause larger than ourselves.

Most companies focus on profit maximization rather than purpose maximization. 

Apple is an exception: creating great products is Apple’s way of maximizing profits by making great products.

To motivate people from now on:

• Try to do without money or de-link money from results ( check Cialdini too )
• Compliment, show appreciation for the behavior you wanna encourage
• Make them feel like they’re contributing to something great
• Give a goal, let them find the way

Drive : The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” makes no mention of any research that doesn’t fully back its central thesis (a nd yes, there are: here is one showing how men are not swayed by financial reward in donating blood). While I’m a big supporter of Daniel Pink’s conclusions I would have preferred a more balanced view presenting both pros and cons.

• Shallow representation of Type X

Type X, the people motivated by extrinsic rewards, sound a bit like a straw man  argument for the “greedy, bad guy”. I find it a bit simplistic. We can wish it weren’t so, but most human beings do share a drive to hoard and get as much as they can. And it’s not necessarily a terrible thing.

• Shortcut to intrinsic

Daniel Pink suggests intrinsic motivation is the only way to go “as soon as people are paid enough to take the money question off the table”. Well, talking about a big IF :).

And what’s “enough”? Is it the same for everyone? And who is really able to do that?

Drive summarizes a ton of research to make a good case for moving past material rewards.

If you’re interested in influencing and psychology, or even if you’re a parent or a manager -or planning to be one- you will get a ton of value from Drive.

Get your copy here .

About The Author

Lucio Buffalmano

The author holds a master's degree from La Sapienza, department of communication and sociological research, and is a member of the American Psychology Association (APA).

He studies psychology, persuasion, strategies, and anything related to people and power dynamics .

He believes that you can only teach effectively when the three go together .

You can leverage his condensed life's work to gain status, confidence, and mates by joining Power University .

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Drive by Daniel Pink [Book Summary – Review]

Around 50,000 years back, a man was engrossed exclusively with his endurance – he was driven by motivation 1.0: the quest for food and drink, a protected spot to rest around evening time, and the craving to duplicate and pass on his qualities. 

Up until a couple of hundreds of years back, these essential needs were the fundamental main impetus of humankind. By no later than the time of industrialization, be that as it may, this had started to change. 

Creation cycles turned out to be progressively perplexing, and the man began to depend progressively on another driving force for creation: extraneous motivation 2.0, which depends on the two motivators of remuneration and discipline by an outsider – otherwise called the stick and the carrot. 

The system behind this is rewards fortify alluring conduct. Given the possibility of higher wages, workers pull more coal, and current representatives are snappier to react to messages. 

Discipline, on the other hand, is proposed to forestall bothersome conduct. Somebody censured before the entire group will be late less frequently, and an individual compromised with excusal for taking materials isn’t probably going to purloin anything from the working environment. 

Businesses who depend on extraneous motivation chip away at the reason that their laborers, if not driven by the outcomes of the stick and the carrot, on a very basic level have no eagerness for their work and will attempt to avoid any obligation; along these lines, those in an administration position should perpetually immediate and direct them. 

Even though it may be that some cutting edge organizations have loosened up the clothing regulation or working hours for keeping their laborers glad, Motivation 2.0 keeps on overwhelming the working scene. 

The overseeing gatherings of most of the firms are persuaded that with regards to propelling their representatives, the main significant factor other than fundamental human needs is the utilization of remunerations and authorizations – and they deal with their laborers appropriately. 

Chapter 1 – There is another way: Motivation 3.0 – Intrinsic motivation instead of outside impetuses.

Until 1949, it was expected that human and creature conduct was constrained by inward drives and outside motivations. At that point Professor of brain research Harry Harlowe made a disclosure that negated this hypothesis: 

He gave eight Rhesus monkeys a mechanical riddle. Since the primates would get neither food nor acclaim on the off chance that they tackled the riddle, he was persuaded they would not fret about it. 

In any case, the monkeys gave it a go, perceived how it worked, and, with no outside motivating forces, explained it with incredible delight. Such conduct is additionally regular for us people. 

The improvement of the online reference book Wikipedia, for instance, is similarly as charming. Countless individuals compose and alter articles for Wikipedia willfully, out of unadulterated pleasure. They put the important working time in this undertaking and get not even the most minimal material compensation consequently. 

Even though the development of Wikipedia was reliant on intentional scholars, the task turned into a gigantic achievement. Conversely, its adversary item, Microsoft Encarta, whose improvement was in the hands of generously compensated proficient creators and editors, was shut during some time back. 

In both the Rhesus monkeys and the Wikipedia model, motivation isn’t driven by fundamental needs, rewards, or endorses. How, at that point, would it be able to be clarified? 

There is another internal power that drives us: Intrinsic Motivation 3.0. At the point when an individual gets a new line of work satisfying, no further prize is vital. Just the delight of having the option to program an application, for example, Firefox or to distribute plans on the web for others to profit by is, much of the time, motivation enough. 

Naturally persuaded individuals need to have the option to direct when they work, what they take a shot at, and what they are liable for. They shouldn’t be coordinated or remunerated, because they appreciate working and do so deliberately, without requesting anything consequently. 

Chapter 2 – Missing the objective: the stick and the carrot can have destructive results.

In many carports, mechanics are guaranteed a reward on the off chance that they do a specific number of fixes inside a specific period. One would anticipate that this outer impetus should propel them to give results that fulfill their clients. 

Rather, the entire technique frequently reverse discharges: the mechanics’ primary objective is to accomplish an objective number of fixes and secure their prize, thus they are slanted to do pointless fixes, something which disturbs their clients and harms the organization subsequently. 

The objective planned to advance effective work, rather than brings about clients losing confidence in the carport, despite the way that the laborers are conveying on track. 

The proposal of the carrot can likewise be adverse, as uncovered by a deftness test in India. Members in an examination were guaranteed different wholes of cash for hitting focuses with tennis balls. The individuals who were guaranteed the most cash performed, as opposed to the general desire, the most exceedingly awful. 

The money related motivators put a higher focus on the members, which neglected to improve their presentation as well as restrained it. 

In another investigation, members were approached to figure out how to affix a light to a divider, a riddle whose arrangement required imaginative reasoning. Here, as well, a few members were guaranteed cash for taking care of the issue rapidly. 

Rather than moving these members to think innovatively, the possibility of this prize blurred their reasoning and blunted their cleverness. The motivation appeared to signal them, obstructing the more extensive vision important to comprehend the errand, and bringing about eminently longer fulfillment times when contrasted with members who were not guaranteed a prize. 

Even though the stick and the carrot can be successful as motivators on account of routine assignments, for example, gathering sacks in a grocery store (where prizes drive representatives to work all the more proficiently), if the work is all the more requesting or requires a more noteworthy level of imagination, stick-and-carrot motivation can prompt unethical conduct and a decrease in execution. 

Chapter 3 – Outward vows to annihilate inherent motivation.

Youngsters regularly exhibit incredible devotion in endeavoring towards little objectives: they cavort about with extraordinary interest and test everything conceivable trying to comprehend the world. It is with incredible joy that they utilize their hands, mouth, eyes, and ears to find out about anything, in the case of watching butterflies or figuring out how to stack jars. They are naturally propelled to a high degree. 

Throughout the years, nonetheless, they change: their desire to look for difficulties and curiosities diminishes. Gradually, they stop to advance their aptitudes themselves. So what befalls their motivation? 

Inherent motivation is step by step lost as an individual is gone up against with a world wherein everything depends on extraneous motivation– as represented in a nursery analysis in which youngsters were approached to deliver a drawing. 

A few kids were guaranteed an authentication for finishing their drawings, and the others were most certainly not. At the point when the two gatherings were set to drawing once more (this time with neither one of the groups being guaranteed a prize), the youngsters who had recently gotten an authentication not, at this point needed to draw, while the individuals who hadn’t got any exceptional acknowledgment did. 

The guaranteed acknowledgment had decimated their natural motivation: they had figured out how to draw just for a prize. Following this example, suppose if rewards steadily kill inborn motivation for some exercises. 

As youngsters, we are driven by our internal wants to learn, to find, and to help other people. Yet, as we develop, we are customized by our general public to require extraneous motivations: if we take out the garbage, concentrate hard and work eagerly, we will be remunerated with well-disposed recognition, high evaluations, and great checks. 

Gradually, we lose increasingly more of our inherent motivation. On the way towards adulthood, our regular commitment diminishes with age. 

Chapter 4 – Get into the stream: the internal drive for flawlessness prompts energy and devotion.

Basketball players need to shoot an ever-increasing number of circles, PC researchers need to make progressively savvy projects and picture takers need to take better and better pictures. They all have a significant part of Motivation 3.0 in like manner: the inward inclination to accomplish flawlessness. This permits them to improve in the region which is critical to them and to carry enthusiasm and responsibility to the quest for their objective. 

In any case, 50 percent of workers in the USA report feeling uncertain about their activity. They satisfy their obligations yet need energy. This is because many are under-extended in their work and have scarcely any open doors for self-awareness. This chokes out their drive for flawlessness, which is significant on the off chance that one is to give 100 percent duty. 

Innovative individuals with a drive for flawlessness regularly work in a stream state, which implies they seek after an assignment with the most elevated level of fixation and energy, overlook their general surroundings and lose themselves altogether in their work. Consider painters who joyfully work at their photos for quite a long time. 

The stream state can’t keep going for extremely expanded periods, yet it occurs ramblingly. It goes connected at the hip with the drive for flawlessness, which ceaselessly creates and consistently prompts new conditions of ‘stream.’ Even tastes of accomplishment in an on-going bit of work, and the confidence in nonstop improvement, are sufficient to rouse us in every unique everyday issue. 

A few people feel that our aptitudes are written in stone during childbirth and that no measure of effort will permit them to some time or another be better at running or drawing. These individuals are hard to rouse. Be that as it may, the individual who accepts they can grow further will strive to run quicker or paint prettier pictures. 

This additionally applies to representatives, as long as they are endowed with suitable requests. On the off chance that a prevalent gives her representatives an errand that urges them to continually improve, this can create the stream involvement with the worker, and they will come to work each day with a great deal of commitment and energy. 

While flawlessness is something we can never accomplish, it is by and by something we ought to take a stab at we should be yearning to come as near flawlessness as could reasonably be expected. 

Chapter 5 – The quest for significance: a crucial characteristic driving force.

In mature age, individuals start to consider what was significant in their lives and ask whether they accomplished something. Be that as it may, what moves individuals throughout their lives, and for what reason do they go about as they do? 

To respond to this inquiry, therapists explored the mission for importance in the lives of youngsters. They solicited moves on from the University of Rochester about their primary point throughout everyday life. 

While some named extraneous benefit targets and needed to get rich and celebrated, others determined increasingly significant characteristic objectives: to grow by and by and to help other people, for instance by working for worldwide guide associations. 

A few years after the fact, the analysts met similar members to discover how things had shown up for them. The understudies with benefit objectives were not any more placated, in any event, having effectively accomplished situations as supervisors in enormous firms. 

Despite what might be expected, they experienced sadness and tension more now and again than the understudies who had expressed significant objectives. The last answered to have accomplished more noteworthy satisfaction in existence with their objectives, and just once in a while experienced mental afflictions. 

Endeavoring to change something in oneself and the public eye is a lot more beneficial and fulfilling driving force. For an ever-increasing number of individuals, such significant objectives have become their primary main impetus. We are progressively subscribing to intentional and unpaid exercises. 

To have a bigger objective as the main priority is more propelling and actuating than cash would ever be. Rather than making progress toward the most elevated conceivable benefit, individuals who seek after significance in their lives need to give something back to society – which, thus, likewise invigorates them, individual. 

The consequences of further investigations bolster this: the government assistance of laborers improves in organizations where the extent of the spending plan can be given to worthy missions. Furthermore, specialists are recognizably less depleted on the off chance that they can utilize one day of the week to converse with their patients and do outreach administration. 

Chapter 6 – My undertaking, my time, my group! Self-assurance advances natural motivation.

For certain years, there have been organizations whose initiative lays on the self-assurance of the laborers: rather than observing their representatives and keeping them on a firm grip, they have either loosened up control or let go of the reins. 

Google, for instance, depends on singular self-association of working time, and their representatives can invest 20 percent of their energy in building up their inventive thoughts. The achievement of this motivation procedure justifies itself with real evidence: in these stages, the laborers of Google have created hits, for example, Google News and Google Mail. 

The organization Medius additionally utilizes self-assurance as a wellspring of motivation for its laborers: everybody’s objective is just to finish their undertakings inside a specific period – the administration has discarded set available time. The laborers are presently considerably more inspired since in the evenings they can at present make it to their youngsters’ football match-ups. 

Another model is Zappos. An average call-focus has a yearly staff turnover of 35 percent, since making calls for a considerable length of time isn’t simply exhausting yet additionally upsetting – it offers no place for self-assurance and henceforth gives no characteristic motivation. 

Zappos, be that as it may, do things any other way: the representatives are permitted to telecommute with no administrative weight and can lead discussions in their style. They are profoundly energetic, accordingly staying with the organization longer, and their client support is additionally quite superior to average. 

The group you work with additionally significantly affects your motivation: at Whole Foods, the laborers, just as the staff chiefs, settle on new representatives; and at W.L Gore and Partner, the individuals who need to lead a group need to discover individuals ready to work under them themselves. 

Whether or not we are researchers, clerks, or mechanics, we are undeniably progressively devoted to our work when permitted self-assurance. A few people wish to have all the more a state in their working hours, others in the manner by which the group is made. 

On the off chance that a worker is permitted these opportunities, they build up a more noteworthy potential for accomplishment, are increasingly mollified in their activity, and are less disposed to wear out. To put it plainly, self-assurance contributes emphatically to motivation. 

Chapter 7 – The viable organization: moving up to 3.0. 

Intrinsic motivation 3.0 is no mystery, but then numerous organizations don’t make the most of the open doors it offers. 

The motivation of laborers in many organizations keeps on being founded on outward factors: to propel them, prizes and rewards are dangled before their noses like carrots before jackasses. The traditionalist administration, through an on the off chance that arrangement of remuneration, produces a lack of involvement and laziness. 

It has been demonstrated that imaginative specialists are at their most profitable when characteristically propelled, and high profitability benefits the entire organization. 

Such a change can be accomplished through little measures, for example, unforeseen consideration: more than all else, unconstrained commendation and valuable criticism channels the focal point of the laborers on the delight of their work, thus their characteristic inherent motivation increments. 

Laborers who are given a voice in the dynamic of their organization become all the more characteristically roused. All the more significantly, on the off chance that it is clarified how significant every individual’s commitment is for the exhibition of the entire organization, every individual feels their activities to be important, and thus they become increasingly dedicated. 

The drive for flawlessness is fulfilled through the fair distribution of undertakings: every worker is given an assignment at a degree of trouble that challenges their capacities and invigorates them without being excessively convoluted and, consequently, demotivating. 

To give representatives the feeling that they are moving in the direction of something publicly helpful, their work can be connected to gifts and social inclusion. So representatives work with the nice sentiment that they are positively affecting others and that they are battling for a higher reason. 

An administration that is cutting-edge on the types of motivation will alter its prizes and advance self-assurance, flawlessness, and important objectives. Therefore, the representatives will show a higher duty and more commitment, rather than essentially serving their time in work without the desire to accomplish.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink Book Review

Rewards and authorizes are successful on a momentary premise as execution impetuses. Over the long haul, be that as it may, they lead to destructive conduct and wreck the internal force. Energy and commitment concerning laborers are better accomplished through self-assurance, opportunities for flawlessness, and important objectives. 

What kinds of motivation are there, and how accomplish they work? 

• Motivation 1.0 and Motivation 2.0: essential needs and the stick and the carrot. 
• There is another way: Motivation 3.0 – inborn inspiration instead of outside impetuses. 
• Missing the objective: the stick and the carrot can have hurtful outcomes. 

How accomplishes inborn motivation work, and what impacts it? 

• Extraneous vows to demolish natural motivation. 
• Get into the stream: the inward drive for flawlessness prompts enthusiasm and devotion. 
• The quest for importance: a principal internal force. 

By what means can inborn motivation be expanded in ordinary work? 

• My undertaking, my time, my group! Self-assurance advances inborn motivation. 
• The powerful organization: moving up to 3.0.

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Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

A book that will change how you think and transform how you live.

Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people – at work, at school, at home. It is wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his paradigm-shattering book Drive, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today’s world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and the world. Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation, and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

• Listening Length 5 hours and 53 minutes
• Author Daniel H Pink
• Narrator Daniel H Pink
• Audible release date February 10, 2011
• Language English
• Publisher Canongate Books Ltd
• ASIN B004N70DTE
• Version Unabridged
• Program Type Audiobook
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